Slider by Stacy Borel

I’ll be in touch. I need to think about where I want to take you next.”
    Her eyes got big. “No more dare devil stuff.” She laughed. “Not sure my poor heart can take it.”
    “Did you get hurt today?”
    She was confused. “Well . . . no, but . . .”
    I cut her off. “Did you have fun?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, I’ll let you know when I’ve got the next date set up. And Annabelle . . . it will be fun.”
    She sighed, knowing she wasn’t going to win. “I’ll wait for the call then.”
    Leaning forward, I tenderly kissed her cheek. The scent of cotton candy was lingering on her skin. I heard her small gasp and I wanted to kiss her on the mouth, but some things were better waited on. Next date, I was going to take what I wanted.
    “Goodnight, Annabelle. Thank you for a good evening.”
    “Goodnight, Turner.” She twisted in her cute little tennis shoes and went into the house.
    She’s different. I’ll give her that much. I was very intrigued by her. I was going to need to think of something that I could do with her, something that we could actually sit and have conversation. Unfortunately, the race car was too loud for either of us to hear the other person. This was going to take some thought on my part. I wanted to break her out of her shell and see what she was made of, but I could tell it was going to be a process. Annabelle was my new project, and I was looking forward to seeing who she really was.
     
     

I WAS STANDING OUT IN FRONT of the PAWS animal shelter waiting for Camden and Keegan to show up. They were thinking about adopting a dog. Keegan had called and asked if I wanted to join them and maybe get lunch afterwards. I reluctantly agreed. My date with Turner was almost two weeks ago and I had kind of kept to myself since. I had a feeling she wanted to pry and find out what happened. Why couldn’t she just ask Turner? I’m sure he’d tell Camden if he asked. Keegan had called the day after, but I was still processing the fact that I had actually enjoyed myself.
    Speaking of, they pulled up a couple minutes after I’d parked. Getting out of their car, Keegan looked like she was still glowing from her wedding day.
    “Morning,” she said.
    “Morning back.” I smiled at her.
    Camden stepped beside me and nodded. Such a conversationalist.
    “Alright, let’s do this.” She rubbed her hands together. “And, for the love of God, I am going into the cat room whether you like it or not.” She fixed him with a pointed stare.
    He flung his hands in the air. “Fine, we’ll go into the cat room. But don’t get pissy with me when I walk out sneezing or my eyes are itchy.”
    She leaned in and kissed him sweetly. “You’ll be fine. But thank you.”
    “Welcome,” he grumbled.
    As we walked in she whispered to me, “He says he’s super allergic to cats, but I have yet to see a reaction from him when we’ve been somewhere with a cat.”
    “Sneaky. Clearly not a cat lover.” I giggled.
    As we walked in, we were greeted by the workers who asked us to fill out some information forms. Apparently they don’t let just anyone in here. And who knows, maybe I’ll come back for a friend for Chaz. When we were done with that, we were led into a side room where barking dogs galore were behind closed doors and waiting anxiously for any human to stop and say hi. The first couple of dogs were older, and lazily sat in their rooms with disinterest. Another room held a beagle mix whose tail was nonstop wagging. She was very cute. Camden and Keegan put her down as a maybe. Little dogs and large ones were scattered throughout and still, they hadn’t come across one that seemed like “the one.” As they approached the final room and feeling discouraged, they came across a black lab with a white patch on his chest. He was a six month old baby, who had been born at the shelter. Letting the volunteers know, they pulled the pup from the room and let Camden and Keegan go into a separate room to get to know