“You made it,” she said.
“Have I let you down yet?”
The question held more weight than I realized. Hannah straightened to look at me, something indiscernible in her eyes. She shook her head. “No, I guess you haven’t.” She cleared her throat and gestured to the creatures swarming her.
“Huskies?”
“Husky mix, yeah. My guess is they were supposed to be purebreds, and when they came out like this…” She shook her head. “They’re still after the person who dumped them here. So, which one are we giving a home to?”
“How old are they?”
“Two or three months, no more. We got them a couple of weeks ago.”
“Help me out, then. You know them. Do they have names?”
She picked one of them up. “We’ve been using their collars.” She scratched the yipping bundle behind the ears. “This is Blue. She’s the only girl, and she loves giving her brothers a hard time.”
Hannah went through the herd. Green was the runt, but that didn’t stop him from holding his own. Yellow had to be fedseparately from the others because he kept stealing food. Red was the troublemaker who kept instigating fights with the others. Except for Blue—he stayed far away from her.
After going through the roster, Hannah opened the pen and I beelined for Purple. According to Hannah, he was the only one who hadn’t yet found his voice. He was skittish compared to the other four, and more than once he tried to hide from all the fuss. I sat on the ground, and Purple curled up in my lap, only moving to stick his tongue up my nose when I leaned over him.
Hannah laughed. She was being swarmed by the rest of the puppies, who tried to scamper up her legs. “I think he likes you.”
“I’d say so.” I liked him too. “What do you think?”
“He’s perfect,” she said with a smile.
I stood, cradling Purple in my arms. Hannah attached color-coded leashes to the others and corralled them back into the store. I followed her while she grabbed bags of food and picked out bowls. I wandered away while she shopped, finding myself among the toys. I picked up a stuffed bat with wings that crinkled. The noise caught Purple’s attention, and he sniffed at the object, latching onto a wing the second it was close enough. I laughed as he growled, lashing out at the toy like he had a personal vendetta against bats. At least, I think it was a growl. He sounded like the Predator.
I wouldn’t tell James about his aversion to bats.
I picked out a few more toys, including ones designed for teething. After selecting a ludicrous amount of treats, we checked out and I led Hannah out to my car.
I let her get settled in the passenger’s seat before handing over Purple, who was now swaddled in a blanket in case he got carsick. “So, what’s his name?”
Hannah watched Purple sleep. “What about Carlos?”
“Carlos? What kind of name is that for a dog?”
“A perfect one,” Hannah cooed at the small creature. The puppy seemed to approve with a yawn before curling up in his blanket and going back to sleep.
“What will the neighbors think when they hear me screaming out, ‘Carlos!?’” I heard how that sounded as soon as the words left my mouth, and I cut Hannah off before she could say anything. “Don’t answer that!”
We drove home in silence, which left room for my nerves to kick in. This would be the longest we’d spent around each other, and to say I was nervous was an understatement. I wanted it to go well. Not just for me, but for her too. All the drama over the last year had to be taking a toll on her, and I didn’t want it to have been for nothing.
The first night with the new puppy was fairly uneventful. I awoke before Hannah, ushering the impatient creature outside. I paced the back porch while he painstakingly inspected every inch of the backyard before bounding back up the stairs with the prize he’d claimed: a stick that was too big for him. He looked so cute, though, that I let him keep it.
Morning routine and breakfast finished, Hannah and I settled on the couch for our reality TV/movie marathon, surrounded by just about every brand of junk food I could think to buy. We started with the latest season of90 Day Fiancé, but with only a couple of episodes, we quickly got through it. Then we switched to a classic horror movie:Evil Dead—my choice. Hannah retaliated by finding a90 Day Fiancéspinoff that was so awkward, I barely made it through the first episode before I begged her to turn it off. For three more episodes. Blegh. There were some things that the general public just didn’t need to know about someone.
“What’s next?” she asked, holding down the button, wheeling through things on Netflix. My stomach answered for me, grumbling loud enough that even Carlos noticed, tilting hishead at the strange noise—then growling back at it. He almost got a bark out. Almost.
“I think real food is in order. What are you up for?” I asked her.
We went back and forth, and finally settled on Chinese. I glanced at her while I was placing the order; she was curled up in the opposite corner of the couch, Carlos in her lap. He chewed on his stick from that morning, decorating the blanket Hannah sat under with shreds of bark. She scrolled through her phone, sucking on a spoon from the pint of ice cream she’d finished a couple of hours earlier, oblivious to my scrutiny.
I was surprised by how natural everything felt. I’d been terrified to learn that I had a kid out there, but the more I got to know her, the more… saddened I became. I’d missed out on so much—her entire childhood. Erin and Ben had done an amazing job raising her. I had no way of knowing if she would’ve turned out the way she had if I’d had any say in her upbringing.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Hannah asked, snapping me out of my trance. She’d dropped the spoon, watching me with narrowed eyes.
