“She needs water,” Travis said, already filling the bowl at the kitchen sink. “And food, but I don’t have dog food.”
“What do you have?”
“Plenty of people food. Plus, emergency rations, canned goods, enough protein bars to survive six months, and approximately 4800 energy drinks.”
I didn’t know if he was joking about the energy drinks. The way he consumed them, he could be serious. “Of course you do.”
“Preparedness isn’t paranoia.”
“It’s a little paranoia.”
His mouth twitched. Coming from Travis, that was basically a standing ovation.
We settled into an odd rhythm. Travis monitored the mama dog’s water intake with the same intensity he probably applied to monitoring international cyber threats. I sat on the floor next to the bin, letting the puppies crawl over my hands, marveling at how small they were. How fragile. How completely unaware of the fact that they’d been abandoned to die in a snowstorm.
“Someone just left them out there,” I said. “On Christmas Eve.”
“People are shitty. That’s why I never leave my house.”
“That’s festive.”
“It’s accurate.”
One of the puppies—the smallest one, mostly brown with a white patch over one eye—had climbed onto my palm and was now attempting to scale my wrist. Its eyes were barely open, and it kept bumping into my thumb like it hadn’t figured out how depth perception worked yet.
“Where are they going to go?” Travis asked. “After.”
“Pawsitive, probably. Lark takes in strays all the time. She’ll find them homes.”
“All of them?”
I looked down at the brown puppy, now attempting to chew on my finger with gums that had no teeth yet.
“All of them. They’re puppies, not tech hermits with emotional walls and a caffeine dependency. People actually line up for puppies.”
“I don’t have emotional walls.”
“Dude, you have a moat. With alligators.”
The mama dog had fallen asleep, her breathing slow and even, her body curved protectively around her babies. Travis had settled into his usual chair—the one facing the monitors, because even in his living room, he needed to be able to see every screen—but he hadn’t turned anything on. He was just sitting there, watching the dog sleep.
“Thanks,” I said. “For letting me crash your Christmas Eve.”
He didn’t look at me. “I wasn’t doing anything.”
“Me neither.”
A pause. The kind of silence that would be awkward with anyone else but somehow wasn’t with Travis. We’d spent enough time together over the years—missions, stakeouts, long nights waiting for intel that never came—that we’d gotten comfortable with not talking.
“The puppies are acceptable company,” he said finally. “You’re not too bad either.”
I grinned. “High praise.”
“Don’t let it go to your head. By the way, the feds were asking about you going undercover again.”
The feds really wanted Travis, and all the computerized goodies he’d concocted, but that wasn’t an option. I was a very distant second, but it at least gave them a reason to be in contact with him.
“Yeah. I got the message. We’re going to meet after the holidays.” The brown puppy had given up on my finger and was now attempting to burrow into the space between my palm and my knee. I scooped it up, held it against my chest, felt its tiny heartbeat racing against my shirt.
