Logan:I bet you’d actually give him one
Me:Obviously. He deserves it. And he loves me best.
Logan:He’s got questionable taste.
Me:Doesn’t a dog take after his owner?
The dots blink, then vanish.
Logan:Go walk the damn dog.
I bite back a smile, thumb hovering. He doesn’t know that half an hour ago, Betty was declaring us an “obvious match” and Zoe was practically doubled over at the idea. He doesn’t know how the words still rattle in my chest.
Obvious match.
And if I let my brain wander, I can imagine it. What it would be like if this wasn’t just playful texts, if that gruff voice of his dropped low in the dark. If the cracks I’ve glimpsed in his armor split wider.
Dusty’s tail whacks my hip, jolting me back. I tuck my phone away before I type something I can’t take back, but my pulse is still thrumming like I already did.
Instead, I drop into the grass, and Dusty bounds back over, collapsing against my side, warm and heavy. My phone rests in my palm, Logan’s last message glowing up at me.
My chest hums, full and restless as the sun sinks low, and I can’t help but think I’d love to take his cracks and pry them wide open.
Chapter ten
It doesn’t feel empty anymore
Logan
The door barely swings open before Dusty launches at me, paws skidding on the hardwood, tail swishing fast enough to power a small engine. His whole body wiggles with the kind of joy no human has ever greeted me with, and I crouch down, letting him shove his nose against my neck until I smell more like retriever than cologne.
“Miss me, bud?” My voice is rough with travel, but he doesn’t care.
What I do notice, the second the door clicks shut behind me, is what doesn’t belong.
The faint trace of coconut and something floral hangs in the air as I walk into the kitchen, the way it clings as if someone’sjust slipped out the door ahead of me. A neon splash of pink bobs out the back window where my pool used to be flamingo-free.
The flamingo I left in its package is now blown up and very much in the pool. Only it’s not alone anymore. A swan, massive and regal, floats next to it, wings curved in some ridiculous parody of grace.
I’m gone four days, and my backyard’s been turned into a zoo.
Dusty noses my leg farther into the kitchen, where another reminder waits: a pink Post-it, stuck to the fridge with looping handwriting.
Don’t let him trick you into thinking he hasn’t been fed. Good luck tonight! – Lu
I peel it free, thumb lingering on the curl of her L, then tug out my phone. It’s habit at this point to check my messages before I even drop my bag.
Our text chain is ridiculous, filled with pics she’s sent me over the past few days. Dusty, at the top of Birch, where she says she goes to clear her head, his ears flapping against the wind as he bounds about. Dusty on Betty’s porch, Lulu at his side, the two women clinking glasses filled with something fizzy and blindingly pink. A shot of Dusty next to a child’s drawing that looks more like a shaggy potato with legs than a retriever, her caption:Modern art from class. He’s flattered.
And then the one I keep going back to: Dusty standing guard by the pool while she floats on that fucking flamingo. Pink bikini straps tied at her neck, sunlight flashing across water and skin, her grin wide enough to make me forget how to breathe.
Her commentary on several other photos is no better.
Dusty is the goodest boy.
Dusty misses his dad.
Dusty loooovesSummer Shoreline, too. Such a cultured boi.
