The dog raises his droopy eyes toward me.
“You look like my old first grade school teacher. He had hair like yours, but you didn’t hear it from me. Can I call you Frank? I’m Birdie.” I stretch out my hand and run my fingers over his bristly head.
Frank smells like wet laundry and sadness, if sadness had a smell. And as much as I hate the thought of muddy pawprints on my clothes, I can’t leave him.
“I get it,” I mutter, crouching next to him, preparing to lift. “If I wasn’t worried about getting run over, I’d lie down here with you.”
As I’m about to heave, I hear a familiar sound approaching.
“Should I call animal control, or is this a rescue mission?” Noah leans out the white mail truck, grinning like this is the best thing he's seen all day.
“Depends.” I straighten my back, brushing at the dog hair that’s already managed to find its way to my black yoga pants. “Do they still make Lassie-style Lassos for middle-aged women trying to guilt-trip stubborn dogs?”
He parks, hops out, and walks over, his long legs easily closing the distance between us. His navy uniform is slightly wrinkled and sun-warmed, his sleeves pushed up. And when he kneels beside the dog, who still doesn’t move, but gives a theatrical groan, Noah frowns.
“He’s hurt. Back right leg.” He gently presses the dog’s hip, and the old boy yelps.
I wince. “I knew something was wrong. I didn’t want to leave him in the middle of the road, but I can’t lift him.”
Without saying a word, Noah slides one arm under the dog’s chest and the other beneath his haunches, and raises him up. His forearms and biceps flex as he adjusts his grip before turning his attention back toward me. I feel a hot flash starting from deep in my center, radiating through my entire being until I feel like I’m on fire. It has to be a hot flash, right? Because there’s no way my guilt would ever let me feel anything for another man, especially my long-term friend and dead husband’s best friend.
I clear my throat, fanning my flaming cheeks. “Thank you. That’s, um. Impressive.”
“Perks of hauling Amazon boxes for fifteen years.” He grins and starts toward my house like it’s the most natural thing in the world, carrying the fifty-pound mutt like a sack of potatoes. “Where are we putting him?”
“We?” I follow, a little breathless, not sure if it’s from the impromptu jog or the fact that my perimenopausal, irrational body responses were short-circuited at the sight of veins on a man’s arm. “I don’t even know if I’m keeping him.” Luckily, we’re only a few houses down from my modest two story colonial.
“You found him. He sighed at you. That’s basically a blood pact.”
I snort. “I was trying to save his life. Not adopt him.”
“Finders keepers. I'd say you're about to be bonded for life. What's his name? You named him already, right?”
My nose scrunches up in snobbish horror. “Of course I didn'tnamehim.”
Noah levels me with the “no BS” look, the same one he used to give me in college when he knew I was lying about my study habits from the night before, and like I always did back then, I crack. “Fine. It’s Frank.”
“Like I said, he's yours now." Noah nods toward the front yard, and I unlock my door and gesture to the worn beige rug.
“Put him there. If he pees on it, you’re buying me a new one.” The rug might be faded, but it’s vacuumed every Sunday like clockwork. There’s an exact corner where shoes go and a basket for umbrellas that I rotate seasonally. The idea of muddy paws and dog hair at the threshold makes my eye twitch.
As a second thought, I rummage in the closet for the old pile of towels I keep stacked precisely for emergencies—mostly to mop up the Seattle rain when it dares to follow my shoes inside. They’re folded by size, because of course they are.
“Fair.” He lowers the dog down with surprising gentleness, not waiting for me to finish finding my thickest towel, and gives him a slow head rub. “I’ll even throw in a chew toy and one of those ridiculous bandanas.”
“You’re really pushing for this to be a Hallmark movie, huh?”
His eyes crinkle with a smile. “Always cheering for that happy ending.”
“I gave up on those.” I try to shrug off the surprisingly dark comment with a sunny smile and a little side-eye, all while knowing my shoulders are slumping, giving me away. “You’ve always had a thing for Hallmark movies.”
Noah’s mouth pulls into a flat, unimpressed line. “We swore we would never speak of Christmas 1994.”
“If I remember correctly–” I fish around in the cupboard for the drinking glasses before pouring us both a glass of water. “You begged me. And I offered my silence in exchange for the last five gummy bears. I really should’ve driven a harder bargain.”
He groans and covers his face with both hands. “Youdefinitelyshould’ve. I would've traded my soul for that night to stay buried in the past. I was emotionally compromised.”
And just like that, we’re back there—December ’94, the dorms deserted and echoing with leftover finals-week chaos. Everyone had vanished home for the holidays, but both of our plans had crumbled last-minute. Owen had invited me to come home with him to meet his parents, but it felt too soon, tooseriousfor someone who had started casually dating a few months earlier, and my parents were on some midlife crisis cruise in the Bahamas.
