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Liz
The Humane Society of New Hope is full of old strays unlikely to ever be adopted. The signs on their cages are like the descriptions on real-estate listings, trying to make them sound fancier than they are. Shepherd-Lab mix, Husky-Corgi mix, Poodle-Lab mix. In all cases, mutt would be more honest. These are dogs without homes. A lot of them were simply dropped here—people like to come to the country to drop dogs. It makes them feel better about abandoning them. As if they’re just trying to give the dogs a good life, when the truth is they found the dog to be too inconvenient or their infatuation wore off once they weren’t cute puppies anymore.
“Welcome back,” Ryann says when I walk in the door. “They’re waiting for you.”
She hands me the keys that open the locks on the kennels and a pair of leashes, and I enter into the loud hallway lined with kennels of the older dogs. There are a few puppies around the corner in the next room, but the puppies get plenty of playtime and attention. These raggedy old mutts, though? They need me.
“Hey, Princess,” I whisper, coming to the first dog’s cage. The sign says Black Lab mix, and that’s probably accurate enough. Part black Lab, part something that makes her nose squished, and something else that makes her tale fluffy and curly like a Husky’s.
I open the cage and slip on the leash. Her tail swishes back and forth in the universal dog sign for love, happiness, and dinnertime.
A lot of the dogs I can walk two at a time, but Princess needs special treatment. It’s almost as if she gets sad to have to share my attention with anyone else, so I’ve taken to walking her on her own.
I wrap my scarf around my neck, and we go out the back door and through the play area to the gate. The snow crunches under our feet as we walk. The air is frigid, but the sun is shining today and the sky is blue. More snow is coming in this weekend, pretty much guaranteeing we’ll have a white Christmas.
“When are you going to adopt that dog already?”
I turn at the sound of the voice and find Sam walking behind me. He must be walking home from work. He has a long, heavy coat on, but it’s only partially buttoned, and underneath I can see he’s still dressed in a shirt and tie. “Oh, hey.”
His eyes warm with his smile and he lengthens his stride to catch up with me. “Mind if I join you?”
“I—of course not.” Dear Heart, Chill the fuck out. M’kay? Thanks. Because my heart can’t be doing somersaults at the sight of Sam anymore.
If Sam found out about River . . . about Connor . . .
My stomach mimics my heart and does a somersault of its own—but the sick kind, not the happy, fluttery kind. “How was your week?” I ask to end the silence.
“It was okay. I’ve been . . . distracted most of the week.”
We stop as Princess sniffs at a tree, then does her best to water it. “Distracted? Why?”
He cocks his head at me, and the corner of his mouth quirks in a self-conscious smile. “Weren’t you? Even a little?”
My cheeks heat. Right. Distracted. Because we spent Saturday night and the better part of Sunday morning having wild and crazy monkey sex. And it was so good, really, who could think of anything else? Only a woman who has some terrible secret to hide, that’s who.
“You’re fucking adorable when you’re embarrassed, Rowdy.”
“I’m sure,” I say. Then I give Princess’s leash a gentle tug to pull her back onto the sidewalk and we resume walking.
“Be my date to the gala on Saturday,” he says.
“What? Why?”
“I can think of a number of reasons, but I don’t want to say them out loud and embarrass the dog.” He tucks his hands in his pockets and smiles softly. “Besides, I’m told I look pretty irresistible in a tux.”
“Haven’t we already hit our one-date quota for the year?”
“My sister interrupted us, so that constitutes a do-over. I need a date, Liz. Be my date.”
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” I’m sure that’s a terrible idea.
“It’s a great idea.”
I’ve spent most of the week rewriting Mr. Bradshaw’s speech forty different ways and trying to decide what to do about my job. I can either quit—cut line and run before Connor finds out I’m Tink24 or, worse, someone else finds out what’s been going on between us online. Or I can stick it out for a little longer and have a chance at the greatest opportunity of my life. I don’t want to lose a chance to work on Governor Guy’s campaign, so I don’t want to quit. If I’m going to keep my job and avoid Connor, wouldn’t it be better to do so with Sam by my side?