“Oh my God!” I shouted before forcing my voice back to a passionate whisper. “Jesus fluffing Christ, you are the devil,” I told Walter as he paced a line in front of the crib to hold me back.
This fluffing cat was a lunatic.
“I’m just trying to check on her. You and your bang buddy can rela—”
Oh, fuck.
Back and forth, my eyes searched the room like ping-pong balls.
Where the fuck was the dog?
“What happened to he doesn’t leave her goddamn side?” I whispered desperately, scanning the room once more.
“Oh, sweet Jesus. Not another missing pet,” I cried softly, continuing to keep my voice low for two reasons. One, the baby was still sleeping through this mania, and two, Walter was on the fucking rails, and he seemed to raise his hackles more when I raised my voice.
At least you didn’t lose his kid, I comforted myself.
Still. Stan was practically Kline’s only ally in that house.
Dropping to my knees, I pulled up the unnecessary ruffle on the bottom of the crib and searched the rug underneath for evidence of a motherfucking horse. Nothing looked different from before, but to be honest, I didn’t spend a whole hell of a lot of time on my knees in the nursery of our unborn child, and there wasn’t much fluffing chance Stan would have been able to contort his limbs to get under there anyway.
Quick as a cat, I jumped back to my feet and moved from side to side, peeking around furniture and pulling it away from the wall carefully until I’d checked every piece.
No Stan.
Think, think, think, I coached myself. Remain fucking calm.
Spotting some stuffed animals in the corner, I charged forward and dove to my knees to pluck through them one animal at a time.
Elephant.
Lion.
Tiger.
Gazelle.
Fucking shit. Where are we? Africa?
One by one, I tossed the safari haphazardly over my shoulder until the corner was completely empty. No fucking dog. Not even a stuffed one!
“Ohhh, fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
“FUCK!” Ace yelled immediately, taking pride in following in his father’s footsteps, as per usual, and alerting me to their presence. Julia giggled. I, however, put my hands to my face to catch the tears I knew were coming. Forget about the missing dog, Cassie was going to kill me for teaching Ace the real F word.
Of course, don’t actually forget about the missing dog. That’s pretty fucking important.
“Ace, buddy, don’t say that word.”
“FUCK!”
Okay. Fine. I had much more immediate problems. Cassie killing me wouldn’t happen for at least another four or five hours, but the longer Stan was missing, the harder it would be for me to find him. I’ve watched 48 Hours. I knew how crucial these first moments were. “Listen, guys. I need you to help me. Stan’s playing hide-and-seek, and I know the two of you are the best seekers out there.”
Truthfully, Ace sucked fucking donkey balls at hide-and-seek. But I was hoping he’d improved exponentially overnight. Either that, or Julia was a hell of a lot better at playground games than my son and she would lead him around by the dick like only a woman could.
“Yay!” Julia cheered. “I love hide-and-seek!”
“Good.” Fucking fantastic. “Okay, I need you guys to fan out and start looking for Stan.”
“But we didn’t count, Dude,” Ace pointed out soundly.
Dude, we don’t have time to fucking count!
I nearly came out of my skin.
“Onetwothreefourfivesixseveneightnineten, GO!” I shouted on a rush.
They both bolted, running through the house like little maniacs. I searched the nursery once more, but when I came up empty, I went straight to the front door, the back door, the side door, and the windows. Locked. Every last one of them. And the last time I checked, dogs didn’t have opposable thumbs. He had to be in the goddamn house.
“Okay, Thatch,” I coached myself. “Just calm down. He probably just went for a little stroll, but he’s in this house.” Probably pissing all over everything you hold dear. “You’ve been here the whole time, and all of the doors are locked. Just relax and think like a huge motherfluffer of a dog. Where would you go?”
Fuck.
“Okay, don’t think like an actual dog because their reasoning isn’t fully developed to human cognition, but think like a thirty-eight-year-old thinking of where a dog would be.”
Yeah, that was better.
Immediately, I dropped to my knees, closer to his level, and set out to scour this place inch by inch.
I would not be the one to lose Kline and Georgia’s dog and Walter’s only barrier against straight-out devil worship.
Not today, Satan, not today.
One interesting drive, a pit stop at a gas station to find bladder relief, and three sticks of beef jerky for Stan later, we found ourselves sitting outside of a little coffee shop just on the outer rim of Chelsea. Unloading and loading a huge motherfluffer of a dog into a vehicle wasn’t something I was used to, and I could still taste a tinge of his testicles on my tongue. And no, I’m not referring to any kind of kinky, bestiality situation. It was more, I turned my face one inch too far to the right during removal of a horse from my vehicle and found myself officially teabagged by a canine.