Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71698 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 287(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Sometimes it’s hard to believe she’s a therapist, but the cats and the dog are family. I’m never going to give her a hard time about them. I adore them.
Woof Woof Dog stands there, more hair than beast, more mop than hair. He can smell Wilder, so he stares in the right direction. I’m just not sure he can actually see him. His ponytail fell out half an hour ago in the backyard, and I haven’t been able to get him to sit still to tame it back again. He sniffs, goes rigid, and lets out a tremendous bark followed by an explosive fart.
Wilder’s mouth drops. “Did your dog just fart at me?”
“He farts a lot in general. Don’t take it personally.”
“Is he… friendly?” Wilder asks.
I’ve never seen anyone look more uncertain.
“He is,” I reply. “He’s just not that into men. He used to belong to an old lady who had had him since he was a puppy. She’s the one who named him. Woof Woof Dog. I have to say, it’s the best name I’ve ever heard.”
Wilder gives me the polite look of someone who isn’t so certain, but would never say so. “The stick thing out front makes sense. I love that, by the way.”
“Oh! The stick library. Leave a stick, take a stick. Woof Woof Dog is a stick thief. I felt so bad that he’d gathered up all these sticks from all over the neighborhood. What if those sticks belonged to other dogs, and they were missing them? I had to create something to give back. I didn’t want him collecting up a bunch of bad karma.”
Wilder blinks at me, trying to gauge if I’m serious or not.
I am. It’s exactly why I made the little building out front by the start of the sidewalk.
“When Woof Woof Dog’s original owner had to move into a care home, she couldn’t take the dog with her. He had to go to a shelter, and it was incredibly traumatizing. My mom volunteers there, so she helped with his intake. He was so shut down that he was deemed unadoptable. She took him home. She couldn’t let anything happen to him. She got in touch with his old owner and visited her until she passed away a few months ago. My mom took Woof Woof Dog every single time she went, and they’d wheel his old owner out so she could see him.”
He blinks, then blinks again and again behind those thick-rimmed glasses. “That’s very kind of your mom,” he says, obviously touched.
It was. It is. My mom is one of the best people I know.
“He doesn’t have a lot of contact with men. It’s not that he doesn’t like them. He’s just unsure. Especially when you’re the one coming into the house. He’s better on walks or in the park or whatever. Men are in their natural habitat there.” For the love of lemon trees, did I really just say that?
“Men are in their natural habitat at the park?”
“You know what I mean.”
“At the dog park?”
“I did not say that. Or think it.” I’m getting flustered. I dig my hand into Woof Woof Dog’s shaggy, frizzy hair and scratch between his ears. His long pink tongue lolls out. I shouldn’t be the one flustered. I didn’t disobey someone’s express wishes.
I’m not the one wearing a fucking top hat.
I’m not the one who looks sinfully delicious in a top hat. Damn it.
“Why are you here?” I ask again. And I’m interrupted again by three cats careening down the hall.
They start from the bedrooms, so they really get going, and they come racing down to the door on the hardwood, but they have zero traction, so they all skid out, one after another.
Murphy, the hairy tuxedo cat, slams into the back of Pumpkin’s arse, who slams headfirst into Maggie’s rather rotund back end. She turns around and hisses at the boys. She’s a fifteen-year-old gray senior cat, and she likes to keep the boys in line. Pumpkin can’t help himself. He’s an orange cat, and the whole world knows about them now. Murphy tries to be good, but he’s the youngest at just a year old, and he pretty much follows Pumpkin’s lead, and Pumpkin may or may not have absolute menace in him.
Maggie hisses at Pumpkin, who smacks Murphy for no reason. Then Maggie takes off, Pumpkin chases after her, and Murphy brings up the rear of the feline tornado on its way to tear the living room apart.
Wilder grins. Not his smirky grin, but a full-on dimple grin. In that fake beard and wig, his beefcake factor is way beefed up and off-the-charts cakier. It’s no wonder my hormones stand zero chance. Did I mention what those glasses do for his gorgeous eyes? This is unfair. He has an unfair advantage just by existing.