“Well?” Oscar prompted. “I hate to rush the decision, but we need to get moving.”

“It’s up to him,” Sophie said, choosing her words carefully. “I have my own opinions, of course, but it’s not my call to make. If he thinks Bubbles can do it, if he feels she’s ready for this, then he’s free to do what he wants.”

“Wait—what?”

“I’m not your puppy’s keeper anymore, Harrison. You are. I even brought the paperwork to prove it.”

For one long, suspended moment, Harrison didn’t move or breathe. He held her stare for one second. For two. About halfway into the third, he crumbled.

“Goddammit, Sophie! Why are you so determined to destroy me?”

Sophie blinked, started by the violence of his reaction. “Um.”

“A normal human being would have answered with a simple yes or no. Yes, they’re ready. No, they’re not. But no. Not you.” He stared at her through those stony and oh-so-familiar eyes. “You’d never make anything that easy on me.”

“Does this mean you…don’t want the papers?”

He appeared not to hear her. “From the very start, you looked into my soul and took full measure of what’s there, didn’t you? You saw my weaknesses. You discovered how to hurt me. You learned where I bleed. And not for one fucking minute have you stopped stabbing me right there.”

She almost laughed out loud at the villainous picture he was conjuring up, but her own emotions were too raw. Mostly because he knew her weaknesses too. He knew how much she valued her independence, how important it was for her to be seen as someone strong, someone confident, someone worth loving. He knew all that and still said those horrible things to her.

Harrison Parks claimed not to be great with words, but he’d managed to cut her down with them just fine.

“Excuse me for believing you capable of making rational, adult decisions about your life,” she replied, her chest tight. “Go fight your fires, Harrison. Or don’t. Alienate yourself from everything and everyone. Or don’t. What you do with your life is no longer of any interest to me.”

There were countless more things she could have said, all of which had to do with vulnerable puppies and the even more vulnerable men who carried them, but she turned to Oscar with a nod. “I’ll stand by whatever he decides. Is there anything else you need before I go?”

It wasn’t Oscar who replied.

“You’re impossible,” Harrison said, his voice heavy with meaning. “You have been since the day I met you, and I can’t wait until I find a way to cut you out from under my skin.”

“I take that to mean you won’t be heading to the fire?” Oscar prodded.