Deadly Obsession

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I hunkered down and hugged her. “It’s okay, Myrt. It’s a...it’s a puppy. It is a puppy, right? Not a piglet?”

“Of course it’s a puppy. I figured it was high time Josh had a dog of his own.”

Ouch. That really hurt.

“And he’s been missing Myrt so much, I thought a puppy would help him get over it.” He carried the little creature around the sofa, then knelt down and set it on the floor in front of Myrtle.

Myrt puffed out her great big bulldog chest and growled. She was shaking. I grabbed her around the neck and held her back. “Jeez, are you nuts? She’s gonna eat it!”

“She’s not gonna eat it. Go on, let her check him out.”

“Him?”

“The breeder said Myrtle would be more receptive to a male pup than a female.”

Made perfect sense to me, and I felt a little bit soothed that he’d at least considered Myrtle in this decision. “She’s going to kill him,” I said, but I let her go.

Myrtle leaned forward and put her nose directly on the little guy, sniffing him all over. The pup whined like he was being whipped. “Yeah, I’d be scared, too. Shit, Mason, what were you thinking?”

The pup started to back away. Myrtle plopped a paw on top of him, flattening him to the floor so she could continue her inspection. I quickly lifted said paw and checked to be sure the pup hadn’t popped open. He hadn’t. Myrtle growled at him, and I think she was saying, “You don’t fucking move until I tell you to fucking move. Runt.”

“I think it’ll make Josh happy to have a dog.”

“He already has a dog,” I said. “Jeez, where have you been, Mason? Myrtle has been more his dog than mine since she set eyes on the kid.”

“Well, yeah, but you know, I mean here. Where we live.”

Yeah. And just like the boys, Mason didn’t live with me. Nor, apparently, did he want to. He didn’t have to beat me over the head with it. I got it already. I sighed heavily but didn’t take my eyes off the dogs. Myrt finished her inspection of the pup, heaved a huge sigh and walked away, crossing the room to plop down on a blanket one of the boys had left on the floor.

The pup stood where he was, staring at her and shaking. Then we heard Mason’s winter rat, a Jeep, pull into the driveway out front. The boys were home. Mason scooped the puppy up again. “You really don’t like him?” he asked.

“Of course I like him. Fucking Attila the Hun would like him.”

“But—”

“No buts.” There were a lot of buts, in fact. I could have listed them. But I thought we’d move in together eventually. But I thought Myrtle would be our dog when we did. But doesn’t having one dog for each household sort of mean there have to continue to be two households? But this isn’t the solution I was expecting you to come up with.

I grabbed hold of myself and gave myself a shake. You know, inwardly. What the hell was wrong with me?

And then it dawned, slow and dramatic. The problem, I realized, was that I had, at some point during his recovery, become ready for more of a commitment in this relationship. Or maybe not during his recovery. Maybe it had been during those moments when he’d been inside that burning house and I’d been sure I would never see him alive again. I got it. I got why he’d finally blurted that he loved me after seeing me nearly get shot, thinking I had been shot for a horrifying moment. He’d been feeling then the way I was feeling now. And he’d told me so, said he loved me. But I hadn’t reciprocated. And now that I was ready to, he might have already moved on.

I mean, he’d bought his own damn dog. Wasn’t that a pretty big message?

The front door opened, and the boys surged inside carrying pizza boxes and containers of hot wings and bottles of soda in bags.

Josh dropped his burdens on the table, smiling ear to ear. “Hey, Rache! Did you bring Myrtle?”

Before I could answer, Myrt came trotting into the kitchen, right to her favorite human. Josh dropped onto all fours, and the two of them rolled around on the floor together.

Jeremy, watching them, smiled. “Hey, Rache,” he said. Then he blinked. “Wow, you look so much younger.”

I lifted my brows, though my bangs probably hid it. “You bucking for a really huge graduation present or what?”

He grinned. “Yes, but it’s still true.” Then he frowned. “What the heck...?”