“I know you’re afraid of getting hurt,” she said. “But don’t you see that I’m afraid of the same thing? This is scary for me too. Boston is my home. I don’t know if I can build a life for myself here in Vermont, but I’m trying.”
“And I really appreciate that,” I said. “Because I know I could never live in Boston.”
“Not even for me?” She rested her head on my shoulder, peering up at me.
“I could say yes,” I told her, deciding to be as honest with her as she’d just been with me. “I could move to Boston, but I’d never truly be happy there, and sooner or later, it would poison our relationship.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “Well, I love Boston, and my friends and family are there, but I like it here too. I can’t get the same kind of job here that I had there, but I could expand my job search to the Burlington area and see if there’s anything here that could work.”
“Really? You’d do that for me?”
She smiled, wrapping her arms around me as we swayed to the music. “Yeah, I would.”
My throat tightened, and tears glazed my vision. “That’s a pretty big deal, Phoebe Shaw.”
“I know, and like I said, I’m not making any promises. I’m just keeping all my options open right now, okay?”
I nodded, feeling hopeful for the first time since she’d come back into my life. “Okay.”
* * *
I woke in Phoebe’s bed the next morning, wrapped in the welcome warmth of her body. Except…Phoebe wasn’t usually a snuggler. Since I’d started sleeping here after Cherry’s surgery, I’d generally woken on one side of the bed, while she was curled on the other. I opened my eyes to discover Violet pressed against me, fast asleep with her head on the pillow. “Oh boy,” I whispered.
“What?” Phoebe mumbled from the far side of the bed.
“I think someone’s ready to join the adults.” I reached out to rub Violet. Her eyes popped open, and her tail started wagging.
Phoebe’s arm slid around my waist as she rolled to face me. “Oh my God. What is she doing in the bed?”
“Her bed is full of small nursing creatures who’ve got their baby teeth in now?” I suggested, giving Violet another rub.
“Yikes,” Phoebe murmured. “Do they bite her when they nurse?”
“I don’t know, but they’re old enough that it’s fine for her to want some time away from them.”
The puppies were cute, but they were kind of a mood killer, because instead of fooling around in bed with Phoebe like I wanted to, we had to get up and take them outside. Even so, the pads in the whelping pen were a mess and had to be swapped out. Four weeks old was a challenging age. They were old enough to play, almost ready to start eating solid food, and they could go to the bathroom on their own now but weren’t old enough to have any real bladder control.
“Yuck,” Phoebe said, echoing my thoughts as we cleaned out the pen together. “No wonder Violet got in bed with us. I wouldn’t want to sleep in here either.”
The situation was made more complicated by Cherry, who still had to be separated from the rest of her siblings unless one of us could supervise. The good news was that she’d get her staples out in two days. The bad news was that her current T-shirt was soaked in pee. I removed it and carried her outside to see if she’d pee again on her own before I cleaned her up.
Then I bottle fed her while Phoebe took the other puppies outside. By the time I’d finished, Phoebe had started a pot of coffee and gated the puppies in the kitchen with her, where they were currently rolling each other across the floor, yipping and playing. Violet was on the other side of the room, eating her breakfast.
“I liked them better when they stayed in one place,” Phoebe said, brushing a curl out of her face with the back of her hand. “This is insanity.”
“It is,” I agreed. “But it only lasts a few weeks.”
“I don’t know why anyone would voluntarily sign up for this.” She narrowed her eyes at the puppies.
“Because they’re cute?” I scooped Blaze off the floor and held him out to her. He wriggled in my hands, leaning forward to lick her face.
She smiled, shaking her head. “They’re cute, but oh my God, please grow up already so we can send them to their new homes.”
“Soon.” I was already fielding adoption applications for them and hoped to finalize their forever homes in the next week or so. I’d been dragging my feet a bit, waiting for Holly to make her pick, knowing I wouldn’t have trouble placing the other three. Puppies were easy that way. Violet would be harder to place, but if she and Minnie got along, I could take her in as my new foster after the puppies were weaned, unless Phoebe was still here.
If Phoebe was still here. If Phoebe wanted to keep fostering her.
If…
