“It would be unethical,” I say, more to myself than anything. “I can’t sleep with clients.”
“Jesus Christ.” West rolls his eyes. “Unethical? Mason, you’re a dog trainer, not a doctor. Who cares if you slip a little extra sausage to them from time to time?”
“Fuck you,” I growl, but it’s mixed with laughter. “You did not just say that.”
After that, the subject shifts. We talk about my dogs, West’s job, the usual. Eventually, when the sun has gone down and our silences get longer, I pack up the dogs and drive home. The house seems quieter than usual. There’s trees all the way around the property and a path that leads down to the public beach on Lake Laurel, though the bathers have mostly gone home for the season. At night even the sound of traffic feels muffled.
But tonight I’m left with a restless sensation that means I can’t settle when I turn on the TV. Nothing holds my attention. Dante’s unconscious beside me on the sofa, but I wake him up and take him out for a walk. The moon is out, so we can see our way.
When I get back, Juniper is asleep on my bed, and despite it being early, I climb in with her. She shifts until her head is resting on my thigh, then she sighs loudly and falls asleep again. Dante scratches at the rug like he’s thinking about digging to New Zealand, before he finally settles, a round, donut dog shape that starts snoring almost immediately.
It’s been a while since I had anyone out here. Friends, yes. West, a couple other guys I know from town. But lovers? It’s been longer. It’s so much work. I’ve tried a few random vanilla hookups, but it always leaves me unsatisfied. The town is full of starry-eyed college students just starting to explore their kinks and sexuality who think it would be fun to find someone they can callDaddyorMasterbut still keep it low commitment. Finding someone, though—an actual adult—who really wants a relationship like I want, who wants to let me call the shots, has been a challenge.
Whether I mean to or not, I pull up Athena’s Instagram again. I stare at the Christmas morning photo. Charlie and his partner look so happy. As I scroll through later photos through the winter, I find one where both of them are tagged in the caption, so I click on Charlie’s name. His account includes lots of pictures of him and the boyfriend, whose name appears to be Gavin. A trip to Mexico. Sleepy pictures of the two of them in bed. It feels a bit personal to be looking at them, but if Charlie didn’t want strangers looking at pictures of him without his shirt on, he should have set his account to private. Lately, the pictures have changed, so Athena is in almost every one of them. She goes from being softball size, mixed in with a litter of nearly identical siblings, to something closer to dog shaped. No sign of the boyfriend—or the ex-boyfriend, I guess. Whatever happened, the other guy is literally out of the picture.
I lie in the dark long after the phone screen fades to black. My dogs whimper as they chase imaginary squirrels, but I can’t follow them to sleep.
Who even knows what Charlie’s into? Or if he’s looking for someone right now. He may be licking his wounds. Hell, he may have already met someone else.
But I’m never going to sleep if I don’t at least try. Not after the way I felt around him this afternoon.
I send a simple text.
Hey, sorry about today. A client just canceled, so there’s space in my schedule after all. If you want to do more sessions with Athena, I think she’d probably be a great dog in no time.
There. Done. Ball’s in his court. After I cocked up my departure earlier, I may never hear from him again, but at least I can tell West and Mrs. O I tried.
5
Charlie
The next day is warmer,so I take the excuse to walk Athena down to Bold Brew. I practice walking like Mason told me to, with my chest out and my chin up, even though he also told me to watch Athena at all times so I can see when she’s about to pull something fast and get ahead of her. Overall, the effort leaves me with a stiff neck, but I think I understand what he was going for.
If only I were going to see him again so I could ask to be sure.
The coffee shop has a couple hooks embedded into the facade that you can loop a leash onto while you go inside to order, but I don’t trust Athena to not escape and dash out into traffic, so instead I text my order to Vann. The shop is busy, so he doesn’t get the message right away, but I’m not in any rush.
I settle down at one of the small tables outside. I tie Athena to the chair. She protests, but I brought her favorite squeaky otter and about half her body weight in dehydrated sweet potato treats, so it only takes about five minutes before I’ve basically lulled her into a temporary food coma and she’s asleep, with Otter wedged under her chin, because Miss Princess would never do anything so pedestrian as sleep with her head on the ground.
“Charlie?”
I’ve only just pulled out my laptop when the sound of my name makes my blood run cold. I glance up, and Gavin is standing in front of my table.
“Oh,” I say, minimizing the screen out of habit. “Hey. How’s it going?”
When Gavin and I broke up, we had a lot of conversations about equitable distribution of shared belongings. Not that we had anything so complicated as a mortgage to split. But I got to keep the dog and the apartment. Gavin got most of our furniture. He also got to keep most of our friends, because he’s always been the funny, charming one, and apparently cheating is a forgivable sin when you’re not the party who has been cheated on.
“What are you doing here?” He bends to pat Athena’s head, and I nearly snap at him not to wake her up, but instead she goes from unconscious to awake in a split second and does the snapping for me, nearly catching his fingers between her teeth.
“You can’t sneak up on her like that,” I say. “I’ve told you before.”
“Nah.” He smiles, pulling Otter from the ground and holding it just over her head so she has to sit up to reach for it. My chair creaks ominously under me. “She’d never hurt me, would you?”
You never know with these things. Dogs are unpredictable. Also, Gavin always swore he’d never hurt me—unless it was consensual, of course—and now look where we are.
I let the conversation lapse, hoping he’ll take the hint.
Gavin glances at my laptop. “Working on your book?”
