IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (25 page)

E
verything stopped when you saw
him
across the four-way intersection.

And by
him
, you of course mean the Yorkie that ended up following you home that night.

See, it all started when you were checking your pulse at a crosswalk after a successful night run. The little rat was sitting under a streetlight, on the opposite side of the intersection, all alone, head lowered miserably, shivering from the frigid air. He had dark patches of fur on his back and tan legs. Adorable.

Suddenly, as if sensing your stare, he turned his head toward you and inclined it to the side, as if to ask, “Play?” He then stood up on all four little paws and moved toward you.

Your breathing hitched. Was this dog seriously about to cross the intersection to you?

Yes. Yes, he was!

And was a taxi approaching the intersection? Of
course
!

In about ten seconds you’d witness the creation of a Yorkie patty . . . unless, of course, you did something about it. Your instincts kicked in and you sprinted forward. You were an athlete, and all the training at the center kept you in the best shape of your life. Still, you barely dodged the taxi as you snatched the tiny dog up and held him football-style under your arm, leaping onto the curb in one piece.

The adrenaline now running through your body reminded you of a fight. The moment you got into the ring, your heart pumped in your ears, and all your senses heightened like they were now. You craved that feeling and couldn’t help but smile at the rat dog tucked under your arm.

“Hey, buddy . . .” You shifted the fur around his neck, seeking a name tag. He didn’t have a collar. “What are you doing out here all alone, huh?”

The dog’s pink tongue darted out and licked your sweatshirt. He was actually kind of cute, for a rat. . . .

And then he began to pee.

“Oh . . .
hell
—fuck! Are you kidding me?” You held the dog out as if it were diseased and put it down on the curb. Yep. This was exactly why you hated small dogs. You put your hands on your hips and stared down at the ball of fluff. He stared back, his little butt shaking with every wag of his tail.

You drowned in his puppy eyes.

Then you became aware of the warm urine on your right sneaker and snapped your head up.
Nope!
This dog was
not
coming to your apartment! You could barely manage your pile of laundry in your hamper, let alone a temporary dog—or whatever the
thing
was! Plus, your landlord was allergic to everything with fur. He’d figure out you had a pet. If he ever left his apartment, that is . . .

“Anyone lose a dog?” The few surrounding pedestrians ignored you, and you expected as such. Again, just your luck. A homeless man decided to reply, shouting drunkenly that you had a nice rack and some other explicit things.

You flipped him off.

The dog was well groomed. Friendly. Calm. So calm, in fact, that he didn’t seem to bark at all. He was not a stray. He
was
obsessed with you, since he’d loyally followed you down the curb as you made your way back to your apartment. Finally, you gave
in, picked up the Yorkie, and stuffed him into your sweatshirt to keep him warm. He stopped shivering within seconds.

For once, you didn’t feel the echoing shout of loneliness in your mind as you walked home.

YOUR APARTMENT
was, in three simple words, a total shithole.

Paint peeling off the walls. That odd odor from no particular source, which led you to buying thirty dollars’ worth of air freshener last month. The questionable and fading red stain in the carpet that you covered with a cheap love seat. All that, mixed with the couple next door who fucked as if there were a baby shortage, didn’t exactly leave you with the best living situation. In fact, if you hadn’t made an effort to add some life to the apartment here and there, it would have looked like something straight out of a horror film.

Your two jobs as a cashier and an instructor at a fitness center—three jobs, if you counted your . . . extracurricular activity—kept you busy. Your father had left behind some money in his will, but you were smart and stored it all in your savings. College had been out of the question. It was too expensive, and you had an appetite for something that couldn’t be found in overpriced textbooks and late-night cramming for finals.

“Night, Rat,” you told your new friend—-er, acquaintance. His little belly was filled with a fourth of that white omelet you’d had earlier, and he was curled up under a fluffy blanket on your bed, fast asleep.

YOU WOKE UP
to two tiny paws dancing on your forehead.

“Please, no,” you croaked out. “Three more hours.”

A small, wet nose was pressed against yours, demanding
attention. You blindly cradled the ball of fluff in your arms and sat up, wedging an eye open to check the clock on your dresser. Three in the morning.

You scowled at the dog. “Seriously, dude? You couldn’t hold it?”

You’d fallen asleep in sweatpants and a sweatshirt. You slipped on slippers and grabbed a paper bag before exiting the apartment. Only a little patch of grass was in front of your building, but Rat Dog certainly made use of it.

Fuck. You didn’t know a Yorkie could shit
that
much.

The rest of the morning was restless because you had to plan what you were going to do with the dog. You’d heard terrible things about animal shelters, and despite it all, Rat Dog was actually growing on you. You couldn’t just hand him off to some stranger. In your “copious” free time, you’d find another way to get him back to his owner.

Two hours later, you arrived at work and were unlocking the back door of a large fitness center. At the back of the center was a boxing ring with punching bags scattered around it, and at the front of the center were mats and sparring equipment for karate.

Boxing was your forte, or so many had told you. However, you’d learned martial arts first and had a knack with a bo staff.

You weren’t cocky about your boxing or your bo staff skills, but you were confident, and it showed. As you walked past the square boxing ring, you ran your callused fingers against the black rope, yanked on it, and let go. Then you sauntered past the ring and began to push through a set of doors to the locker room. A familiar voice stopped you.

“Sluuuuuuggerrrrrrr! Let’s get reaaaddyyyy to rummbbbleee!”

You
thought
you’d arrived early enough to be alone. Startled, you whipped your head in the direction of the voice and pulled your black duffel bag closer to your side. Then you smiled. An
older, athletic man with salt-and-pepper hair and a warm smile approached you. However, you knew Max well enough to tell that even though he was acting cheerful, something was wrong.

“What are you doing here this early, kid?” he asked. “You sleep less than a crack addict studying to be a lawyer.”

“True. I was just hoping to—” You stopped when you heard a low, pathetic excuse for a growl from within your duffel bag. You subtly shifted the bag and it stopped.

You didn’t have it in you to leave Rat Dog alone at your apartment. Puppy eyes were officially your weakness. You planned on putting the dog in one of the back rooms in the center with some food and water.

Max frowned. “What was that noise?”

“What noise?”

“From your bag?”

“What bag?” Discreetly, you poked a tiny piece of beef jerky through a small tear in the side of the bag and felt little teeth snatch it away. “Oh . . . this bag. My duffel bag.”
Keep that poker face up or it’s over, moron.
“That was just my stomach.” You forced out a laugh. That was easily the worst lie you’d ever told, and that was saying a lot. “Forgot to eat before I left this morning,” you added quickly.

Abort. Abort.

“Never skip breakfast, kid. Have you learned anything from me?” Max usually saw right through your lies, especially a lie as transparent as that one, but he was visibly distracted today. “Listen . . . uh, I’m actually . . . glad you’re here early. I gotta talk to you. . . .”

Your first thought was:
He’s dying
. Max had replaced your father in your life and was the one person you truly cared about. He’d stuck with you through some tough times and taught you everything you knew. He wasn’t just your best friend or a father
figure. He was your coach. And the thought of losing him meant you couldn’t reply, only stare at him with a quizzical look.

Max ran a hand over his scruff. “You know things haven’t been easy here financially. I haven’t told you just how bad it’s been.” He crossed his arms over his chest, transforming into the bearer of bad news. “And Maggie thinks I’m not home enough. . . .”

“Max . . . just spit it out.”

“The center has a new owner, kid. I—I sold it.”

Your face fell. You were speechless. Then your fingers curled into tight fists. “You
sold
it?”

He took a deep breath. “I’m old, and I don’t have the kind of money to save it by myself. And I can’t bear the thought of this place becoming some abandoned shithole for crackheads to break into. The good news is that the new owner is set on saving this place. He really seems to know what he’s doing.”

Rage boiled beneath your skin. “He
who
?” You felt defensive over the center. It was your second home, your solace. And now some stranger had bought it, and your fear was that the center would now drastically change. You liked things a particular way. That was how you felt safe and at a balance.
Now some moron is going to ruin my Zen!

“Who’d you sell it to, Max?” you demanded.

“To me,” a voice said from behind you. The voice was deep and slightly raspy. It was a voice unquestionably linked to an attractive man.

You whirled around and put a face to the voice. Yep. Instantaneously your tough-girl act slightly wavered and your heart plunged into your stomach. Turned out, you actually knew a lot
more
about this man than you initially thought.

Because you were a fucking
fan
of his.

The man’s almond-shaped, mischievous eyes narrowed even
tighter as he grinned. A smile with that much wattage could be mistaken for head beams. “Nick Bateman,” he said, and stuck out his large hand.

You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t speak. You couldn’t shake his hand.
Fuck
, even his
hand
was attractive. You weren’t trying to be rude—although it was in your nature to be aggressive. For a brief moment,
you
, an independent, man-eating, ass-kicking badass, were actually starstruck by this guy. And all you could do was just . . .
stare
.

He was the cat and he had your tongue. Oh, did he have your tongue, and he possibly had another place on you too. . . .

Height: well over six feet tall. Hair: the color of a tasty, rich coffee roast. Jawbone:
oh, sweet baby Jesus
—screw those commercials for kitchen knives at three in the morning. That jaw could cut through diamonds. Physique: something straight out of a Calvin Klein catalog. You knew this because (A) he really
had
been in a Calvin Klein catalog, and (B) that long-sleeved black thermal and the black joggers he wore didn’t leave much to the imagination. Thick biceps, strong shoulders, flat stomach with rippling abs. Long legs and certainly a long—
fuck!
Now you couldn’t look away from his bulge!

After Satan heard the thoughts currently brewing in your cranium, he would yank you into the earth and take you into his open arms.

“Kid, you good?” Max asked, snapping you out of it. How could you have wasted a single moment eyeing up the man who’d basically purchased Max’s
life
?
Your
life. This fitness center was one of the most important things in your life.
Gah!

“I’m not feeling too well,” you said tightly to Max, carefully avoiding
his
gaze. Your face was getting hotter by the second, and you sure as hell wouldn’t look at that
incubus
again. “I have to use the bathroom. . . . Bye.”

Then you walked away from them quicker than a soccer mom with weights in her hands, late to her son’s big game.

Bye? BYE?
Not only had you been mortified by your reaction to meeting freaking
Nick Bateman
, but also, the moment you’d looked him in the eyes, two things had happened.

One, you recalled
that dream
you once had about Nick, which involved his face between your legs and ended with muffled cries of pleasure into your pillow.

And two, you realized that you totally had his fucking dog in your duffel bag.

ONCE YOU GOT
to a small storage room at the back of the center, you let the Rat Dog in question out of the duffel bag. You set down small plastic containers, one with water from your water bottle and another with broken-up pieces of boiled chicken. As the little guy gobbled up his meal, you began to wrap your hands for boxing and paced the floor.

You were disappointed that Max had sold the gym for cash, but you also understood that he simply didn’t have the resources to continue. What if it was already too late to save it? It was probably stupid to value an old building as much as you did. Half of the time, it reeked of sweat and used fighting equipment. Any other girl would have steered away from such a place, but you didn’t, because it was your home. Now some hotshot
model
owned your home, and God only knew what he would alter to make it “better.”

You finished wrapping your wrists, thumbs, the backs of your hands, and between your knuckles, and tightened your fingers into fists. Your thoughts raced and so did your heart from the lingering effects of
him
. You’d acted like a horny teenage girl out there. It couldn’t happen again. You were stronger than
that, weren’t you? You’d taken on men twice Nick Bateman’s size, limped six blocks home with fractured ribs, and stitched up wounds on your own body that would give
Grey’s Anatomy
a run for its money.