Rewind (A Perfect Forever Novella) (3 page)

I stare at his hand, so close to mine, on the table. Whoever thought it would be so uncomfortable
not
to touch a guy? It doesn’t feel natural this space we hold between us, spiced with the kind of talk people have who have known each other intimately. What would he do if I touched him…?

His fingers cover mine and he gives me a friendly squeeze. The feel of him runs through my body with remember sweetness.

Suddenly, nothing in my life is as important as spending the afternoon with Bobby and for the first time, in a very long time, I don’t feel like a disjointed collection of uncomfortably fitting parts. I feel at ease inside me being with Bobby.

I stop trying to access my mental calendar. I smile up at Bobby. “I’ve got as much time as you need.”

Bobby chuckles and his hand slips back from me. He rises and tosses some bills on the table. “Just a few hours, Kaley. I’ll have you back before the end of the day.”

I rise from my chair and think
not if I figure out fast how not to blow this.

THREE

Even sitting with an unwanted distance between us on the front bench-seat of Bobby’s old truck, every part of me is connected and reacting to him. I want nothing more than to slide closer, to feel him, to taste him, but instead I sit silently smiling, drinking in the sight of him and fighting the wind from the open windows as it turns my tamed curls into—what will surely be before this drive is over—a Chia Pet.

“I can’t believe you still have Bertha,” I say, studying the aged ’60’s Ford dashboard and shaking my head.

Bobby laughs. “She’s a classic, Kaley. I’m never getting rid of this truck.”

“She’s an old, gas guzzling heap without air conditioning.”

Bobby grins in a boyishly charming way. “You’ve forgotten. We added air conditioning.”

He turns on the small orange windup fan mounted on the dash. I start to laugh and then the laughter leaves me because I remember the day we put the fan there and I am painfully aware of how much I’ve missed him.

I stare out the window. Our journey has taken us an hour out of the downtown and we’re now heading north on the 101.

“Where are you taking me?” I ask.

“Simi Valley. We’re almost there.”

“I’ve never been to Simi Valley. What’s in Simi?”

His eyes lock on me and I start to tingle. “Me. That’s what’s in Simi. It’s where I live now. Where my business is.”

For a second I’m hurt. I didn’t know he’d moved from Pacific Palisades. There was a time I knew every piece, every secret of him. I never thought he’d leave the coast and now he’s living inland. Why the change?

“How long ago did you move?”

Bobby’s eyes shift from me. He hits the turn signal to exit the freeway. “Almost two years, Kaley.”

Why, that was right after we broke up and he moved out of the beach house. And I never knew he moved away. I study the streets, fighting back unexpected tears.

“So why Simi?”

“I wanted some land. Some space.”

The farther east we drive the less suburban everything starts to look. There are now small ranches, horses, and other livestock mixed with the planned housing tracks.

“Land? For what?” I ask.

“I’m running a small not-for-profit foundation. Still in the fledgling stage.”

His answer takes me by surprise. “You are? What kind of foundation?”

His smile is very satisfied and a touch excited. “We’re almost there. This is something you’ll understand better if I show you rather than tell you.”

I take a small measure of hope from Bobby wanting me to understand this new, unknown element of his life. More than that, it sounds important to him to share this with me. I was right to take off with him today on his adventure. It’s right that I’m here. And if I’m lucky very soon it will be right between us.

Again, I am tempted, so very tempted, to take away the space between us and kiss him.

He hits the turn signal and turns down a narrow gravel road. There’s a small sign at a locked gate:
Tiki’s House
. What the heck is that? Bobby said he was running a foundation.

I bite my lower lip, refraining from grilling him, and watch as he stops the truck. If the guy prefers to show me, I’ll let him show me. Memories of us come tumbling back. I should have let him lead more often. I should have been willing to follow at times.

Bobby opens his door, hops from the trunk and unlocks the chain across the road. He climbs back into the truck. We start to bounce down the gravel road.

I laugh. “What kind of place are you living in, Bobby?”

“It’s private. No one to disturb here. It suits my needs.”

“What needs? And why do you want privacy? Are you growing medical marijuana? Is that your new business?” I tease.

Bobby laughs and I’m relieved that he takes my comment as humor and remembers that I’m a tad sarcastic at times. I smile.

“Nothing so glamorous. I already told you that.”

“Well, you’ll certainly have privacy here. Who’d want to brave the driveway.”

He pretends to give it serious thought. “The driveway is pretty bad. Do you think that’s why I can never convince a date to come home with me?”

A date? I definitely didn’t like hearing that one. I have to force myself to maintain the teasing banter.

I playfully scrunch up my nose. “Maybe it’s your technique?”

He shakes his head. “No, can’t be that. My technique got me the hottest girl in Pacific Palisades.”

The way he’s looking at me makes me nearly cry from the joy of hearing him saying that. “And it got a busy independent filmmaker here today.”

His eyes fix on me intensely. “Maybe my technique only works with you.”

I sure hope so
, my heart whispers, and I can’t wait another second to touch him.  I unbuckle my seatbelt. Every inch of my flesh comes awake with anticipation. I start to ease into him.

He opens his door and pulls back. “Come on, I want to show you everything.”

I watch him disappear into the sunlight and a heavy sigh of disappointment pushes through me. Then I notice my surroundings: a charming blue-paint-white-trim farm house, velvet lawns, old oak trees, long rows of tiny structures and….
barking?

I climb from the truck and closed the door. “What is this place?”

Bobby smiles. “Tiki’s House. My foundation.”

My eyes widen as I try to absorb my surroundings. “But why is there so much barking? What kind of foundation is this?”

“I rescue dogs. Most of them come to me by way of illegal dog fighting.”

He gestures to the sign.
Dog Rescue, Rehabilitation and Sanctuary.

“Dogs?” I don’t know what to make of this. This is not on the list of what I expected Bobby to show me. “You run a dog rescue and rehabilitation foundation?”

Amusement dances in Bobby’s gorgeous green eyes. “You’re the one who told me to be less complacent. To do something meaningful with my life. To find something I wanted to do. To live my own life instead of yours. Well this is it, Kaley. I’m living my own life instead of yours now. Doing what I love. I’m happy.”

Crap! Was I such a bitch when we were together that I actually said that? And what is he trying to tell me with that speech?

“I’m glad. I never wanted anything but you to be happy, Bobby. It looks like we’ve both found something worthwhile to do with our lives. It’s amazing what you’ve done here.”

He lowers his frame to give a gentle scratch to the fierce looking Pit Bull inside a cage. “Maybe if I’d been more interesting none of the other stuff would have happened,” he says so softly I almost can’t hear him.

Other stuff? The lump swells in my throat. How like Bobby to take responsibility for my stupid mistake.

I stare at the long row of kennels. “How many dogs do you have here?”

“Fifty. I’m at capacity. The city won’t let me have anymore. Every day new dogs are rescued and there is no place for them to go.”

I shake my head. “And all these dogs were used for illegal dog fighting?”

“Except the Chihuahuas. They don’t fight. They’re used in fight training.”

“I don’t understand. How are they used?”

Bobby straightens up.  His eyes are heavy with that sensitive kindness that drew me to him from the start. “They’re bait dogs. Without getting too graphic, they are used to see which Pits will fight. If the Pit doesn’t kill the bait dog he’s destroyed and the bait dog is either destroyed or used again.”

I feel sick, like I’m going to vomit. “That’s awful!”

“It’s an important story, Kaley. Maybe you’d like to go on a rescue sometime and film.”

Is that why I’m here? He wants me to make a documentary about the plight of these poor animals?

“Just tell me when and where and I’ll be there, camera in hand.”

Bobby’s lips curl in a slight smile. “Thanks, Kaley. I couldn’t think of anyone I’d rather have tell their story. Maybe with you onboard we can make some meaningful change to the law that will prevent this.”

The law? Did I hear him right?  Is Bobby not only a dog rescuer but a full-fledged activist against animal cruelty? Bobby?

It feels like my head is spinning trying to catch up to all the changes in Bobby and all the old familiar sensations cursing through my veins. Everything is new in Bobby’s world. Everything is the same inside of me.

“I didn’t even know you liked dogs. I would have never imagined that this would become a cause for you. That this is what you’d pick for your profession.”

“I didn’t pick it, Kaley. It picked me.”

My eyes round. “Picked you, huh? You’re going to have to explain that one to me.”

Bobby shrugs and he looks a little uncomfortable now. He shoves his hands deep into his pockets and starts to guide me down the aisle between the kennels.

 “After we broke up and I moved out, I just wanted to lay low for a while, think things through. We both made so many mistakes and you were right about a lot of the things that you said to me. I couldn’t just live off my folks and do nothing. Or worse, cruise through life as a passenger in your life. Without you, I realized you were right.  I didn’t have any idea which direction I wanted to go. What I wanted to do. And then one morning I was up surfing at Rincon and someone tossed something onto the side of the road. When I went to check it out, I found a dog, Kaley. It was Tiki. Bloody. Half dead.”

“Oh my god. What kind of person would do that?”

There is fury in his eyes of an intensity I’ve never seen before. “A jerk who makes money training dogs to fight. Illegal dog fighting is big business in California.”

I stare in wonder and fascination at the neatly tended ranch, with the blue painted house, and white railed front porch, the lawns, the dog runs, and the long bank of indoor-outdoor kennels.

“So you rescued Tiki and it turned into all this?”

Bobby shrugs. “I didn’t plan any of this. I was just taking a poor half dead dog to the vet. The vet didn’t expect her to survive and recommended euthanizing her. That even if she recovered she would probably always be vicious because of the kind of life she lived. It took months for her to recover. Months for her to be unafraid. And months to learn to trust me.” There is pride on his face now. “She’s up at the house. I’ll introduce you before you go.”

I drink it all in before I shift my gaze back to him. “It’s amazing, Bobby.”

He smiles. “It’s getting there. Everyone says I have knack, that I’m a natural at rehabilitating dogs.”

“Everyone? Who’s everyone?”

“The dog rescue community is large and we network to make sure that as few dogs as possible are left with only the option of euthanasia. I specialize in Pit Bulls since most people won’t take them and too many people just want to exterminate the breed. But others specialize in other breeds. We share resources. Knowledge. Work together to raise public awareness.”

It is hard to comprehend that this is Bobby talking so passionately about his work. When we were together his life pretty much consisted of surfing and me. This is a new side of him: this confident, take-charge, passionate man. It’s totally unfamiliar….but totally a turn on.

We’ve walked  almost to the truck and I didn’t even notice where Bobby was taking me.

“Do you have time for a glass of wine before I take you back to the city?” he asks.

I’m not going back to the city
, my body screams.

I smile and nod. “I might even be convinced to stay for dinner. It’s getting late. I’m hungry.”

Bobby laughs. “There’s not much here to make for you. I still can’t cook.”

I smile up at him hopefully. “We could order in.”

The smile tugs at the corners of his lips and I want desperately to kiss him. “If you want.”

I stop, tired of the careful talk and holding my heart at bay. “I want, Bobby. I want very much to stay. To get to know each other again. To reconnect with my best friend.”

I brace myself to look into his eyes to see how that one hit him and the expression on his face takes my breath away.

“Did we ever disconnect, Kaley?” Bobby asks. This time he steps into me and takes my hand. “Stay, Kaley. Stay the night with me.”

FOUR

His mouth is lowering to me. I’m easing up on my tiptoes to him. His fingers spread wide to hold my cheeks and then Bobby is kissing me with starving purpose and remembered sweetness.

More emotion than I ever thought possible pulses through my veins and the weight of two years without him shrinks to nothingness.

Even though this is far from our first kiss—heck I gave myself first to Bobby when we were both eighteen—there is a luscious freshness, a newness to it all, thrilling because it is also blending with all that I remember and have always felt for him.

Our tongues swirl in a knowing dance, and a groan of pleasure vibrates from his lips into mine as I mold my body into him, letting him lead us in this mating ritual, this gentle prelude to love-making, so much richer because there is no need for words. We know each other intimately and our bodies know the dance.