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He looked down at Mojo, who had curled up in his arms and was resting his head on Keaton’s forearm. “What do we do, man? Do we take the risk?”
Mojo sighed with total and complete disinterest.
“You’re right. No carriage house.” If it was just Keaton that would get in trouble, it would be a no-brainer. He’d risk anything just to get the chance to speak to Avery. But he wasn’t going to do something to put Iris in the line of fire. She’d gone out on a limb by sneaking his little guy in to see him and that would be a shitty way to repay her.
Keaton easily found the bush that the path was hidden behind and within a few minutes, he’d made it to the clearing that opened up to the lake. He set Mojo down so he could run around and was hooking the walkie talkie Iris gave him on the waistline of his shorts when he heard a kid scream, “Look Mama, a dog!”
No.It couldn’t be. Keaton walked out of the trees and saw Jacob on his knees with Mojo in his lap. Avery was looking down at the dog like she was seeing things.
“Muffin?” he heard her ask as he walked toward her.
“Actually, It’s Mojo now,” he said.
“Keaton!” Jacob exclaimed when he saw him.
Keaton couldn’t deny he felt pretty good about the fact that Jacob’s enthusiasm at seeing him matched his excitement at seeing Mojo.
“Keaton, what are you doing here?” Avery looked around, probably checking for cameras or Zara.
“Iris snuck the little guy in to see me and told me to stay out of sight. So, I came down here.” He heard his voice get deeper as he said the last sentence. He hadn’t meant for it to. That just happened when he was around Avery.
“Okay, so is this?” Avery looked back down at Mojo who was kissing Jacob’s face. “You said this is Mojo?”
“It’s Mojo now. I changed his name.”
“So, thisisMuffin?” she clarified.
“Yes.”
“And you changed his name?”
“Actually, he did. When Mrs. Campbell passed away a few years ago she left Muffin to me in her will. When I got him home, he wouldn’t answer when I called him. He barely ate. He didn’t want to go on walks. He just laid on the couch and looked out the front window. I think he was depressed because he lost his person.
“One day, about a month after I had him, I told him that we needed to get his mojo back and he looked up at me and barked. So, I said it again. I said we needed to get his mojo back and he hopped up and wagged his tail. He’s been Mojo ever since.”
Avery clasped her hands over her chest. “Aww, that’s so sweet.” She bent down and scratched him behind his ears and was rewarded with several kisses on her nose.
Jacob giggled. “Mama, can I take him by the water?”
Avery looked up at Keaton.
“Sure. Mojo loves the water. He’s a little fish.”
“Stay inside the rocks,” Avery instructed her son as he ran to the water’s edge.
“I will, Mama!”
She sat down on the blanket that Jacob had been sitting on and positioned herself so she could keep an eye on Jacob. “Wow, I can’t believe you have Muffin, I mean Mojo. That’s crazy.”
As much as Keaton would love to take a walk down memory lane, he was on borrowed time and he had things to say.
“I’m not actually with Zara,” he blurted out.
She looked over at him, her brow furrowed in confusion. “What?”
“Sorry, I just… I’ve been wanting to talk to you since I saw you in the hall after we came out of the bathroom together and then yesterday when you saw us at the tug-of-war… It’s not real. The reason that we were in the bathroom was because she wanted to tell me why she picked me. She did it because she knew I wouldn’t develop feelings for her. She figured out that I was only doing the show for Iris—”
“You’re only doing the show for Iris?” Avery asked.
