“A puppy?” Utterly flabbergasted by the cute, chocolate-brown lab with a bright red bow around its neck, I didn’t know what the hell to say. So I simply said, “A puppy?” again, sounding completely like a fool.
Rob chuckled, handing it to me. “Yes, Doctor Carpenter,” he joked at my freshly earned title. “This is a puppy. And it’s my gift to you. Finishing your rotations and being hired atthe hospital, well, those are not small feats.”
As shocked as I’d been by the dog staring back at me, I was even more bowled over by his show of emotion. Though we’d tried time after time to talk about our issues—hell, about anything—we’d failed miserably. Most of the conversations snowballed into knock-down drag-out fights with one of us storming out of our house, only to end up sleeping onthe couch instead of our bed. Our streak of sexless nights had extended well into its third month, and I was starting to wonder if it would ever come to an end.
The bright smile on his face sparked hope to life in my chest. For the briefest of seconds, he looked happy. His eyes soft and shimmering with emotion, I caught a glimpse of the man he used to be.
The man I once fell in love with.
Bathing me in kisses, the dog was a wiggly bundle of happiness. “What’s its—”
“Her,” he interrupted. “Her name is—” He paused, scratching his fingers through the scruff that had recently taken up residence on his face. “Well, I guess I don’t know what her name is. What should we call her?”
It sounded lame as all hell, but in this moment, I felt like we were turning a corner. You don’t adopt ananimal who lives for a decade or more with a person who you don’t plan to spend at least as much, if not more, time with.
Scratching behind her ears, I held her small face up to mine. “Katie,” I announced. “Her name is Katie.”
“That’s perfect,” he agreed, stepping to my side. When he wrapped his arm around my waist, I felt a buzz of excitement at his touch. Turning into his embrace, I hoped—beyondall I deserved—that when I looked into his eyes, I would find desire there.
Fuck, anything more than the state of cool detachment in which we’d been living for the last few weeks would be an improvement. But, just as our eyes met, his phone rang, cutting through what I hoped would be the end of our no-sex streak.
Foolishly, I hoped he would ignore it. Instead of doing just that, he reached intohis pocket and answered the call before it rang for the second time. “No, I didn’t forget,” Rob said into the line, his voice bright and happy. “Yeah, I’ll be there in like five. Ten at the most.”
After sliding his phone back into his pocket, he looked up at me. “What?” The incredulity in his tone did nothing but piss me the fuck off. Without giving me any room to say anything—not that I couldspit out anything intelligible at the moment—he spoke, his voice grating on my nerves like it never had before, “I told you I had plans. Work stuff,” he explained, turning away from me.
And Katie.
“But what about?” I asked, tipping my head down at the living thing he’d just tossed into my arms.
Clapping a hand on my shoulder like I was one of the coworkers he was on his way to meet, he laughed,saying, “A dog?” Moving his hand from my shoulder to her soft, brown fur, he pet her far more kindly than he’d just touched me. “I think you can handle her,DoctorCarpenter.”
And with that, he was out the door before I could voice the list of protests running through my head.
After he walked away, I did the only thing I could think of.
I called Chelsea.
Needless to say, ten minutes later,she was at my door with a bottle of wine, for herself, and some brownies, again, for herself. Paying me no attention whatsoever, she pushed me aside in search of the adorable puppy I’d just told her about.
“So he just up and left?” Chelsea asked, ruffling Katie’s fur. “How could he do that?” Her voice changed into that dog voice everyone has—an octave higher and way faster than it would normallybe. “What was he thinking?” she asked, talking solely to Katie, forgetting I was even in the room.
Beyond annoyed, I flopped onto the couch, watching Chelsea love on Katie. Seeing the puppy dance around, wagging her tail so hard she could barely stand up straight, did nothing to sweeten my ridiculously sour mood. “Yep. Left. Just like that.”
As she walked away from Katie, she clapped her handto her thigh, calling the pup behind her. So much for the no-couch rule. With Katie settled comfortably into her lap, Chelsea reached over to the side table to grab her bottle of wine. With as much grace as I’d come to expect from her, she twisted the cap from her bottle of cheap red wine and took a big swig before looking over at me. “So why the hell didn’t you go with him?” She made it sound sosimple. “I mean, if you two were all googly-eyed over each other, and you wanted to jump his bones, then I don’t get it.”
“One,” I said, grabbing the bottle from her. “No one says ‘jump his bones’ anymore.” She twisted her face into something closely resembling a Dali portrait as she stuck her tongue out at me. “And two—” I took another sip before handing the bottle back to her. “What was I supposedto do with her?” We both looked down at Katie, snoring away on Chelsea’s lap.
“Call Aunt Chelsea to babysit.” Grabbing the remote from the side table, she clicked on some horrible HGTV show and shot me her “I told you so” face. “Are you gonna leave or what?” she asked around the rim of the bottle, without even bothering to look over at me.
Figuring I had nothing left to lose, I might as wellget a move on. Besides, one of us needed to put up a fight.
And if it wasn’t going to be Rob, I knew I had to do anything in my power to make our future as happy as our past.
Knowing exactly where the bar was, I didn’t even have to type the address into my GPS. I’d met Rob here a few times for a quick dinner when our schedules worked out. Or, when they didn’t, itwas far too often that he was only just coming home from work while I was heading to work. And all too many meals took place here in the last year. Thinking about that only annoyed me even more.
As I pulled into the parking lot, it dawned on me that he made plans with people I’d been social with for as long as we’d been together, and he didn’t even bother to invite me.
Pushing those feelingsaway, I chose instead to focus on how I was going to fix things. My new position at the hospital would offer me some more consistent, and hopefully normal, hours. There was no doubt that would help. But unless I got Rob on board, this ship was going to sink.
