"Vinnie, come on baby…"

I pulled at his leash and he pulled away from me with all of his weight nearly pulling me over with him.

"Come on… don’t… fight… Mama…"

I practically grunted as I played tug of war with him and began to laugh at how insane I must have looked. Vinnie was making moaning noises at me trying to pull away from me and it only served to make me laugh harder.

"Vincent, you big lug, come ON!"

That was my Mama voice… it didn’t work. He laid himself down on the floor of the hallway with a groan and I tried pulling him along the carpet.

"Vinners please?"

I pleaded and stopped pulling. I gave up and sat down on the floor next to him and he plopped his head in my lap and licked my hand breaking my heart.

"Honey I know you hate the elevator… I know you do…" I told him quietly as I sat there on the floor oblivious to the rest of the world stroking his soft head. "But honey… We‘re not walking up five flights of stairs. You want to go to the doggie park don‘t you?"

I swear the dog understood English because he picked his head up and looked directly at me.

"That’s right… Uncle Christian needs us to water his plants upstairs and we have to use the elevator. So please, baby? Can we try again… it’ll be over before you know it and then we’ll go to the doggie park."

I ruffled his ears and bent my head closer to him to whisper, "I’ll even let you swim in the pond…" I stood up and held his leash in my hand again.

"Come on, baby…" He let out a sigh and slowly stood up causing me to grin, "That’s my big boy!"

"That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen…"

The voice from behind stopped me dead in my tracks. It was so quiet, yet so strong, so beautiful. A real Man’s Man voice. Goose bumps formed on my arms and I did a little shiver before turning to face him after pressing the elevator button. I patted Vinnie’s head reassuringly and then looked toward the guy with the voice. "Sorry, I didn’t mean to block you… He’s got issues with the elevator…"

He chuckled and nodded from behind two big brown boxes he was holding stacked in his arms, "I’ve never seen a dog respond to someone like that... It was kinda cool."

I smiled and scratched behind Vinnie’s ear while I talked, "I respect him so he respects me. It’s not that difficult. Plus, the harder I pull, the harder he pulls… and let’s face it, he could pull me down the street without even thinking about it."

"I bet…"

The guy shifted a bit with the boxes and I could tell they were moving boxes by the Sharpie notes scrawled on the outside of them in boxy guy handwriting, “So are you moving in or helping someone else move in?”

He peeked around the boxes enough that I could see he had sunglasses on, and his hair was longish but pulled back into a ponytail. I couldn’t tell just how long it was from the way he was standing though. "I‘m moving in… sorta. Just for the summer. My friend lives here but he‘s going to be out of the country most of the summer so I told him I‘d stay here and use his place."

“Wait… are you Roland’s friend?”

“Yeah… how’d you know?”

I pushed the elevator button again as if it were going to make the elevator come faster. The building where my best friend Christian and his boyfriend Josef lived was an amazing high rise condo community right on the beach in Daytona Beach Shores. Everything about the building was fantastic except for the elevators that took for freaking ever. “My friends live up on Five, they’ll be your neighbors for the summer when they get back from their trip tomorrow. A few weeks ago we were having a cook out and Roland was telling me that he had a friend coming to stay in the condo for the summer. Is he already gone?”

"Yeah, I spoke to him yesterday and he'd made it to London."

"That's good.  This is a great place, you'll love it here."

“So do you live here too?” the guy asked and shifted with the boxes again as we waited for the elevator. I was hoping the boxes weren’t too horribly heavy. He didn’t look to be suffering and although I considered offering to help him hold the boxes, I had visions of me taking a box and Vinnie deciding to make a run for it pulling me and the box down the hall. It wasn’t a good thought.

“Nope… I’ve got a house not far from here. Vin and I just visit. Although we’re here enough that people probably think that we live here… Everyone in the building knows who Vinnie is even if they don’t know my name.” I looked at Vinnie and he wagged his nub of a tail. "He’s the building superstar… other than Roland, of course.”

The man laughed and nodded, "Good to know… Are the elevators usually so slow?"

“Always… they’re horrible. Everything else is great though.”

“I suppose I can‘t complain too much in that case…” Just then the doors of the elevator finally opened and I let the guy walk into the elevator first. He sort of propped the boxes up between him and the wall of the elevator with his leg.

I followed him in with Vinnie. “Fifth floor, I presume?” I asked lamely with a smile.

“Yes, please…” the guy answered with a chuckle. He was still facing the wall so that he could rest the weight of the boxes on his bent leg. All Roland had told me about the person moving in for the summer was that he was “a nice guy.” I took this to mean that his friend was somehow famous. Roland was a record producer, a very successful one, and had a lot of famous friends. Usually if he refused to tell us the name of someone he was speaking of it meant they were in the business and he wasn’t going to name drop. I admired him for that. I’d been around enough people whose main goal in life was to meet famous folks just so they could name drop and it was rather annoying. Even with my limited celebrity status, I knew that Roland’s no name dropping rule was a breath of fresh air in the often stuffy business of being a celebrity.

I looked at the back of this guy and couldn’t for the life of me figure out who he was, if he was someone famous. All I could tell was that his hair was well kept and a lovely dark chestnut brown. It was long enough to be in a pony tail but not long enough to creep me out. I wasn’t a fan of guys whose hair was longer than my own. The guy also had a great butt from what I could tell by admiring his khaki cargo shorts. His legs were nice too, as were his arms, and his shoulders, neck... I may have been destined to be single for the rest of my life but I wasn’t dead. When I saw a good looking backside of a man, I knew it.

Apparently Vinnie knew it too. He typically spent the ride in the elevator leaning his full weight against my leg groaning in misery like he were being tortured because he hated it so much. He was quite the Drama Queen for a dog. This time though Vinnie dared to move about the elevator during the ride and put his nose directly up the cute butt of the guy taking a few deep sniffs and snorts. “Vinnie, no!” I cried and tugged on his leash. The guy laughed and nearly dropped his boxes, “Jesus, I’m so sorry… he never does this…”

“It’s okay…” he said, still laughing.

I began to giggle and before long the two of us were standing there cracking up. I looked at Vinnie and scratched his "good spot" on his head for him, “Goofy dog… you’re at least supposed to wait until the second date to goose someone like that.” Vinnie looked up at me and cocked his head to the side and then began “smiling” as he panted. I’d never seen him so comfortable in an elevator.

When the doors of the elevator opened I held Vinnie back and let the guy walk out first then followed him. We reached Roland’s door and just as I was about to offer my help in getting the door unlocked the guy set the boxes down on the floor and pulled his keys out of his pocket. He started to unlock the door and stopped in mid motion then turned to me, “So, Hi…"

I smiled and glanced at him for a second finally taking in his full face, "Hi…"

Vinnie pulled at his leash trying to get to the man‘s boxes for a good sniff. I tugged at his leash and the guy took his sunglasses off sticking them in the collar of his shirt and outstretching his hand to me, "I’m Kevin, by the way…"

I looked into his eyes for the first time as I switched the leash to my left hand and reached out with my right shaking his hand firmly, "Kel…" I smiled and chuckled hearing my mother’s voice in my head, "He has green eyes… Stunning green eyes."