"Kevin, I don't understand. Why don't you just buy another dog?"
"That's not the point, Nick. The point is that that woman broke the thing and now I don't have anything to ship up to Jerald." Kevin said in an annoyed voice.
Nick looked over at AJ and Howie and they all looked at each other with confused looks on their faces. They'd never seen Kevin get this riled up over something like this before. "Why don't you just buy another and ship it up?" AJ asked "I'm sure Jerald would understand if it were a little late."
"A little late?" Kevin asked, turning around to look at AJ "It would have to come from China, and then after it finally gets here, I'll have to ship it to Kentucky. It's too much trouble."
"Well, if you're not going to do anything about it, quit being so upset about it. What does he want with a mechanical dog anyway?" AJ asked.
Kevin shrugged and sighed, saying "I don't know. Something for the kids I think." He walked over to the window in his living room and gazed out. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but he wasn't all that upset about the broken dog. He was at first, of course but now, what bothered him the most was the fact that he couldn't get the woman out of his mind since he'd first seen her at the airport. He remembered seeing her for the first time and his first thought had been that she was very beautiful, that was before he noticed she'd broken the expensive remote-control dog he'd bought for his brother. He knew it looked life like but he didn't think someone would think it was an actual dog.
Cursing under his breath, Kevin moved to the window on the far side of his living room and thought of the woman again. She was tall, but not too tall, Kevin thought. She had long slender legs, he noticed those because of the shorts she was wearing, but her most striking feature was that amazing red hair of hers. It was shoulder length and was full of unruly, messy curls that fit perfectly with her petite face and perfect facial features. Her blue eyes sparkled as she yelled back at him as loud as he'd yelled at her. It bothered him that even what she did to his dog, he still couldn't stop thinking about her.
He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he didn't turn around when the door opened and Brian came through. AJ, Nick and Howie rose to meet him as he said hello and introduced them all to his girlfriend.
"Guys this is Lily Knight. Lily this is AJ, Nick and Howie. And that over there is Kevin. What's wrong with him?" he said the last in a whisper to Howie who only rolled his eyes and waved his hand in dismissal and turned his attention back to Lily.
Lily heard Howie speak to her and responded shortly but her attention was directed towards Kevin. Although she could only see the back of his head, something about him was naggingly familiar.
"You'll have to excuse Lily." Brian was saying "She's tired and she had this awful experience at the airport. Some crazy guy attacked her after she accidentally broke this real-looking dog and-" Brian stopped when he heard AJ choke on the drink he was drinking and saw Kevin whip around from the window.
"You!" Kevin and Lily yelled in unison and Kevin stalked angrily over to her.
"You broke my dog!" Kevin yelled.
"If that thing wouldn't have almost attacked me I wouldn't have had to break it!" Lily responded in kind, standing on her tip-toes to look Kevin in the eye and yell at him.
"It was fake! It wouldn't have attacked you!"
"Well, how was I supposed to know that?! It certainly look real enough to me!" They both started yelling at each other at the same time but cut off as they heard laughter coming from Brian. They both stopped what they were yelling and glared over at Brian.
"It's not funny!" they yelled in unison again and that made Brian laugh even more.
"You're the crazy guy from the airport?!" he said in between fits of laughter "You should have seen how she talked about you! I really thought you were crazy!" he said and collapsed into a fit of laughter again. Lily and Kevin glared at him until he had himself under control again.
"I'd really like to get some rest now, Brian. Could you show me to my room?" Lily asked, annoyed.
"Sure, honey." Brian said, wiping tears of mirth from his eyes and taking her hand as he led her upstairs to a guest bedroom.
