Lane yaps, scared.
The puppies yap, happy.
Mamma dog snaps at Lane, who cries, looking down at her finger.
“Yeah, you kinda provoked her,” Noah says, not looking at Lane.
“I know! She scared me. The skin didn’t even break,” Lane says. “Who is this?”
Noah turns me around so my back is at his front, his arms wrapped around my collarbone while we give her an account of the situation. Before long, Lane has the puppies on her lap.
“We should go to bed,” Noah murmurs loud enough for Lane to hear.
Panic strikes me at the implication of his words. I want this, yet it scares me.
Lane stands, carefully setting the puppies next to the mamma dog.
Noah tenses, letting go of me. “Where’s pretty boy?” he asks, shifting the awkwardness from our situation to hers.
“You mean Jake?” she responds icily. “He had to go back to work.”
I feel her sadness hit me in a wave. “Are you okay?”
“Goodnight,” Noah says to no one in particular as he leaves the kitchen.
“’Night,” Lane answers, not cluing in to the fact that she’s interrupted something, and her brother ispissed.
Me? I’m confused by what just happened, and I think Noah is as well. We got carried away by an overload of puppy cuteness, and one thing leading to another…. To be honest, I’m relieved we were interrupted. There’s no reason to make things more awkward than they already are, and I have no interest in being a temporary fling for Noah.
Because if he felt something for me, surely he’d tell me.
“Can you tell my brother not to be such a dick to me?” Lane grumbles once he’s gone.
“What do you mean?” I ask as I refill Mamma’s bowl of water.
“He’s not the only one who has a right to happiness,” she quips as she straightens the blankets pooling under and around the dogs. “He’s not the boss of us, you know. I thought he’d cool it now that he got married, but it doesn’t look like it.”
I turn the lights off, the glow from the fridge’s ice dispenser bathing the kitchen in soft blue. “Is this about Jake?”
She leans against the counter. “It’s about whoever. I’m twenty-two, Willow. I think I can sleep with whoever I want. And just so you know, this house isn’t just his. He can’t tell me ‘my house, my rules.’”
I haven’t heard Noah say that, but I bite my tongue. There’s history there, one I don’t know. And she’s clearly wanting to talk to me. “You care about him—Jake?”
Even in the dim lighting, I can make out the tears shining in her eyes. “Yes,” she whispers.
“Then… what’s the problem?” One of the puppies crawls away from the blanket, and the mamma drags it back by the scruff of its neck.
Lane wipes her tears with the back of her hand. “I… he… I want to make my life in New York. I have interviews lined up and he… he says he’ll be settling here, in Emerald Creek.”
I frown, curious. “Really? What… does he work from home?” Didn’t she just say he had to go back to work?
“That’s not really the point, but no. He’s in land management or something. The point is, I’m falling for him and I hate myself for that. I don’t want to change my plans forsome guy.” She pushes herself from the counter.
I wrap my arm around her shoulders. “Then don’t.”
“But he’s notsome guyto me. I know it’s new but it feels so right. You know what I mean,” she says as we leave the kitchen, closing the door carefully behind us.
My voice catches when I answer, “Yes, honey, I know what you mean.”
