Page 3 of Men or Paws

“I know, but it was all I could come up with on the fly.” I laughed. “Anyway, I was just out in the garage yesterday.”

“And you actually got in one of the cars?” Oliver asked.

“Nah, but I did see three of them out of the corner of my eye.”

The fame, the money, and the lifestyle of being one of Hollywood’s top film actors were far from difficult. I gave Oliver permission to slap me if I ever complained about my life. Sure, I was getting tired of traveling and living in hotel rooms, but that could be easily remedied since I was now in a position to call the shots.

And I was ready for a change.

Ready to put down some roots.

Slowing things down would be a good start, since I barely spent any time at home. The best way to do that was to work on a sitcom at one of the networks, since Hollywood was only two hours away from my place in Rancho Santa Fe.

At the moment, the real problem was that I was known for my superhero trilogy. I’ve already had plenty of offers to transition to television, but they were all dramas, thrillers, mysteries, and reality TV. I was looking for something lighter, something I could have more fun with. It didn’t have to be the nextFriendsorSeinfeldorThe Office, but I did expect the sitcom to have enough “com” in it to make it enjoyable. How hard could it be to find a good pilot script that made me laugh?

“Hey—I have an idea,” Oliver said. “Drop off Houdini at one of those doggy day care places. Then you can get your work done in peace and go pick him up whenever you’re ready.”

“I don’t want to dump him off on someone else.”

“Parents of humans do it every day. Being a dog dad is no different.”

“Last night I was going through scripts way past midnight,” I said. “That won’t work since Houdini sleeps with me.”

“Fine. Then have someone watch him at your place during the day, but make sure they can also be available after hours whenever necessary. Actually, you can put them up in the guesthouse.”

“Stay here on the property? That would be a little weird, wouldn’t it?”

“It’s no different than having an assistant taking care of things for you.”

“Most assistants don’t spend the night with their bosses.”

“You obviously don’t spend enough time in Hollywood,” Oliver chortled.

Luckily, I would never have to worry about that since my personal assistant was a man.

“Okay, think of it like having a butler or a ranch hand, someone who works for you full-time and also lives on the property,” Oliver said.

I thought about it. “I don’t want Houdini to think I don’t want him.”

Oliver chuckled. “Trust me—there’s no chance of that. The dog is obsessed with you, hence the part where he follows you everywhere you go. Trust me, get someone to doggy sit. Actually, I think I know just the person who can help you. I’ll call you right back.”

“Wait—”

Too late. Oliver had hung up.

I picked up the remnants of the mangled script from the tile floor and tossed it into the recycle bin, then walked down the hallway to my office. Houdini was glued to my hip the entire way.

Stopping in the doorway, I sighed as I eyeballed the mile-high stack of scripts on my desk. I had originally been excited and motivated to find something good, but there were so many.

All bad, so far.

And that didn’t even include the PDF scripts I had on my laptop that Oliver had emailed me.

Still, I had hope that one of them would get me excited. I just needed to have a little patience.

Fifteen minutes later, my phone rang again.

“Yup,” I answered.