“And I’m Peyton,” the woman with the baby chimed in.
“I’m Phoebe,” I told them. “And I’m so glad you’re both here. I need all the help I can get.”
12
Taylor
I arrived at the cabin that evening carrying a box of pizza and a six-pack of my favorite hard cider, ready to spend the evening helping Phoebe put down new floors in the living room. I knocked, and she answered the door wearing purple shorts and a rainbow-striped tank top, her hair piled in its usual messy knot on her head.
“Hi,” she said, motioning me in. “Thanks for coming, and dinner is a happy surprise.”
“Figured we’d need some fuel,” I said as I walked into the kitchen, setting everything down on the table.
Violet got up from her dog bed and walked over, tail wagging.
“She looks more settled today,” I said. “How are things?”
“She’s nesting, I think,” Phoebe told me. “This morning, she brought all the stuffed animals you gave her and put them in her playpen. For a minute, I thought she’d had puppies without me noticing.”
“You’ve been taking her temperature every day?” I asked as I crouched to rub the dog.
Phoebe nodded. “It hasn’t dropped yet.”
“I think she’s close, but I’ve only witnessed one puppy birth, and Peyton was in charge. I was just watching.”
“She and Holly were really helpful when they came over earlier,” Phoebe said. “They left me a huge checklist of things to do and watch for.”
“I’m glad. Hungry?”
She nodded, and we sat at the table together to eat the pizza while it was hot. I’d gotten a large pie with the works, figuring Phoebe could pick off what she didn’t like, but she dove right in, devouring everything from olives to prosciutto.
“This is so good,” she mumbled as she wiped her mouth with a napkin and reached for her cider.
“You missed a spot.” Without thinking, I leaned over to wipe the sauce from her cheek, but as my thumb met her skin, an electrical charge seemed to jump between us. I drew back, but not before my heart gave a kick in my chest, pulse racing from that simple touch. I really was hopeless where Phoebe was concerned.
She kept eating, but her cheeks were a little bit pinker than they had been a few minutes ago. “Violet likes the new bedding you brought over yesterday.”
“Yeah?”
“She slept straight through the night, which was much-needed for both of us.”
“I’m glad. I really do think she’s settling in well.”
“Still, if a more qualified foster home opens up, please let them have her. I’m scared shitless about delivering puppies, and I’m not going to be here long enough to see this through,” she said. “I can’t afford to stay here two months. I need to go home and get a new job.”
I swallowed a mouthful of pizza before answering. “I hear you, and don’t worry. I’ll figure something out if you leave before the puppies are weaned. Are you job hunting while you’re here or waiting until after you get home to start?”
“I’m applying for everything I can find,” Phoebe told me. “If I get an in-person interview, I’ll just take a day trip down to Boston.”
“You work in finance, right?”
She nodded. “I’m a corporate financial analyst. I track a company’s financial goals and help them budget and forecast for the future. I was working for a large research firm in Boston before that meme got me fired.”
“I can’t believe they held that against you,” I said, shaking my head. “Like it’s your fault someone took a photo of you without your permission and posted it online?”
“Well, I did flip off a guy on a public street, although that doesn’t go against anything in the employee handbook—I checked—since I wasn’t at work at the time. But after one of our clients recognized me and brought it to their attention, they felt it reflected badly on the company. So, I had to go.”
“Still fuckin’ sucks,” I said.
