Family Affair by Caprice Crane Read Free Book Online Page B

news.
    “Spill!” she demands.
    “They want to franchise TLC Paw Prints booths across the country, starting with a five-store pilot!” I squeal. “We have to get them a prototype.”
    “Shut the fuck up,” Trish says.
    “What, I’m going to joke about something like that?”
    “Shut the fuck
up
,” she says again, and then again, though it’s clear she doesn’t want me to shut up at all. She starts to beg for every detail, right down to how they said the word
pilot
.
    TLC stands for Trish and Layla’s Canine Photography, and even though we’ve branched out to cats and bunnies and the occasional ferret, we are predominantly dog photographers. Plus, tender loving care is exactly what we deliver while readying Sparky for his close-up. We’d been pitching PETCO to let us set up a Paw Prints photo booth—one single booth—in one of their stores to see how it would go over, and unbeknownst to us, they’d done some test-market research that went over like gangbusters. Now they wanted to try out the concept regionally, and possibly franchise hundreds of them. Using
our
name. All we have to do is get together a prototype and some loans to cover start-up expenses.
    “Holy fuckin’ shit,” Trish says, as she backs up from me, shaking her head in disbelief. “We’re huge.”
    “Easy there, big fella,” I urge. “We’re not huge. We have an amazing business opportunity being presented to us. But one step at a time.”
    “Layla?” Trish says, in a tone that means I’m about to be reprimanded. “This is one of those times we’ve talked about. Where you celebrate in the moment. This is a victory. This is not something to be cautious about, this is not something to decide later if you are happy about, and this is not something that is going to be taken away from you. This is an amazing moment. Now start jumping up and down and fucking act like you just franchised your business across the fucking country, because you
did.”
    “Oh my God!” I scream as it really sinks in, and we jump upand down together. But then the dogs start barking—all except Rocco, for some reason (I can tell Rocco from the rest because of his lazy eye)—and I have to go back out and calm the Skinnys down. It occurs to me while watching them that they could easily be the kind of people who can eat anything they want, as much of it as they want, and then burn it all off in fifteen minutes just by being so uptight.
    But what am I doing being catty? I’m more of a
dog
person—one who will soon have photo booths across the country! It’s nice to have something you’ve worked so hard to achieve come to fruition. I should be happy in the moment—and just be glad I got where I was pointed.

brett
    Trouble in paradise. Particularly today.
    A wandering eye has never been my problem. My eye doesn’t wander, really; it stays put in my skull. Which is not to say that into my field of vision does not occasionally cross an obstruction—something or someone it’s nearly impossible to see through, around, or beyond. So I look. But only accidentally.
    There’s a new SID (sports information director) at UCCC. She’s basically the PR point person. Forget the fact that she’s in my direct line of vision, there’s
worse
news: She has particularly perky tits. And she’s on my practice field. That means forty-five boners just popped, and I have to reprimand my football team for ogling these breasts, which are pointing and waving at us,
Hey! Over here! Ogle me!
Well, maybe not the “ogle me” part, but definitely the “Hey! Over here!” part.
    I knew there was potential trouble when I first found out that Hot Girl was not, in fact, just some random chick, but instead the newest member of our staff. Yes, Hot Girl was actually Hot SID, which sounds just a bit too close to STD for my taste, which is maybe for the best. I ignored her in the cafeteria the first time Isaw her, because I find it’s better to avoid cleavage that doesn’t belong to