Page 99 of The Leaving Kind
Honey bounded back over, her one leg flying out sideways as she ran, and skidded to a halt in front of Jorge’s boots. The large man scooped her up and hugged her to his chest, kissing her between the ears. She licked his face.
Jorge handed her over, and Cam got his cuddle in, holding the wiggling body of the excited dog with an ease unconsciously mastered. She got a kiss from him too. He got a thorough licking in reply.
Grinning, he put her back on the ground. “I have a feeling she’ll be coming to work with us every day.”
“She already does.”
Smiling, Cam turned another slow circle, but he didn’t need to. He could see it all as he and Jorge had described. Their business—or the center of the operation. The heart. There’d be a point where his fear became true excitement, wouldn’t there? He lifted his chin in Jorge’s direction. “We should change the name. Zimmermann-Castellano. Do up a ZC symbol for the trucks and stuff.”
“You sure?” Jorge’s eyebrows crunched together. “You know Luisa never wanted her name on the business because—”
“Fuck that shit. We’re partners. Both names. We can put yours first if you want.” Cam suspected Jorge would decline the offer.
Sure enough, he shook his head.
“Just your name?”
Another shake.
“ZC it is.” Cam extended a hand and they shook on it. Cam was about to express the wish that he’d known Jorge over there, that they’d been able to serve together. He thought he saw a similar idea flicker through Jorge’s eyes. But then the handshake was done and the moment passed.
Just as well. Because when he thought about it again, Cam was glad they hadn’t met until afterward.
“You want to call the guy? I’ll drive, drop you and Honey home, then I’m off to see Nick.”
Jorge bent and tapped a broad hand against his shin. Honey put her paws up on his legs, and he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the truck. By the time Cam dropped them back at the house, Jorge had finished talking to the owner of the land and they had a deal.
Cam parked behind his brother’s shop and sat there with his fingers folded over the steering wheel of his brother’s truck and wondered how he was going to ask his brother for money.
He sat there for thirty minutes, undisturbed, with his thoughts tumbling between whether the sickness in his gut was hunger or nerves before finally settling on nerves. The only other conclusion he’d come to was that Victor’s texts over the past couple of days had definitely been too short. He needed to make time to stop by and see what was up.
All of that decided and with no idea how he was going to accomplish his current mission (impossible), Cam climbed out of the truck.
Seven o’clock had come and gone, and the early-September sun wouldn’t be up much longer. Deep shadows had already swallowed most of the lane behind the shop, and the last of the day’s light glinted only from the highest windows.
He knocked on the double doors and waited.
Oliver pulled open the left, dressed in one of his aprons (he seemed to own many, each of them a different color and design) and raised a floury fist for a bump.
Cam knocked their knuckles together. “What’s cooking?” He sniffed, brow wrinkling. “Is that bacon?”
“Does it smell like bacon?” Oliver leaned forward, his expression all gleeful anticipation.
“It does.”
“Want to try it?”
“Depends on what it’s made of.”
“Fungus.”
A man should not be so proud of a word like fungus, or the fact he was trying to pass it off as bacon. But that was Oliver for you.
“Yeah, I’ll pass. Nick around?”
“Upstairs. I’ll pack up a few of these quiches for you to take home. I’m sure Jorge will enjoy them.”
“Yeah, you do that.”