“I mean, we could, on the nights that we don’t have to dance,” Murry mentioned. “If you’re really good with it.”
“Guys, I am more than good with it,” he explained. “It would give us the opportunity to continue to get to know one another outside of work hours. I’d love to take you to the club and let you get lost in your pet headspace if that is something you’d be interested in, or out to dinner and a show. There are several amazing ones coming up.”
“A show, like a movie?” Murry asked.
“Not quite,” he explained. “I was thinking more along the lines of the community theater. They have a rather impressive collection of plays, musicals, improv skits, ballets, and modern dance performances on this year’s production schedule.”
“What are improv skits?” I asked.
“It’s when the actors are on stage responding to one another without a script,” he explained. “They have a general idea that they are going to work with, topic-wise, but they go up there without rehearsing and just play off whatever the other actor or actors give them. Most of the time it turns out to be comedy, but sometimes the responses turn serious, which is cool and unexpected. The best part is that the audience never knows what to expect because each skit night turns out completely different.”
“That sounds like fun,” I replied. “I’d love to see something like that.”
“Me too,” Murry declared. “It would be awesome to see a play or even a musical too. We’ve watched a few really old ones on AMC.”
“Really? Which ones?” Dorian asked.
“Cats,Annie,Grease,Hair,Peter Pan,andOliver,” Murry rattled off. “Those were really cool.”
“Do you guys enjoy classic movies?”
“Uh-huh,” I replied. “We love all kinds of movies, except the long, slow, drawn-out kinds where nothing really happens.”
“Yeah, those are the ones we fall asleep to,” Murry explained.
“I’m not a fan of snoozefests myself,” Mr. Dorian explained. “But I am a huge fan of the theater, and Aspen often performs in musicals and plays, so I always turn out to cheer him on.”
I perked up at hearing that, because Aspen was proving to be as patient and nurturing to Murry and me as Mr. Dorian was. Several times over the past few weeks, when things had grown so busy in the shop that he’d called upstairs for reinforcements, Murry, Mr. Dorian, and I had gone downstairs to lend a hand and even model outfits for clients who were looking to surprise their pets. There, Aspen taught us how to help clients match outfits and accessories, as well as how to properly restock shelves and take inventory.
“I didn’t know he was an actor,” I said.
“He’s had a long history with the theater,” Dorian explained, “including Broadway and off-Broadway productions when he lived in New York. He’s classically trained and everything. He told me once that the only reason he never headed to LA to try his hand in films was that he loved the intimacy of performing for an audience far more than he enjoyed interacting with a camera.”
“That’s so cool,” Murry declared. “I’d love to see one of his performances.”
“Me too,” I said.
“Then I will make sure to secure three tickets for the next one so we can all go.”
I arched up just enough to nuzzle my cheek against his palm. “Awesome. I love how many new things we’ve already experienced since we met you. I can’t wait to see and learn more.”
“Well, I love seeing your natural curiosity shine through,” he said. “I am going to enjoy nurturing it. Being around people who are too afraid to try new things or step outside of their comfort zones to gain a better appreciation for something they might have misconceptions about infuriates the hell out of me. I am a firm believer in not making up my mind about something until I’ve done my best to experience it or, at the very least, learn all I can about it. Life’s too short to get stuck in a rut of doing the same things all the time.”
“That gets so boring,” Murry said. “We’ve got a whole notebook of places we want to visit one day and things we want to try.”
“Bungee jumping is at the top of my list,” I said. “But only because we were able to cross off ziplining, jet skis, and shrimp and grits.”
“The first time I had shrimp and grits was at an all-night diner in New Orleans after a Victorian noir-inspired fashion show. Talk about amazing, and of course, we furthered our pig-out by finishing off the meal with a plate of melt-in-your-mouth beignets.”
“Oh my gods, I love beignets,” Murry moaned. “There was this food truck that made them at a festival in the park we went to a few years back. They were positively amazing.”
“It was so amazing that we forgot to eat anything else; we just kept going back to the food truck.”
“I’d have probably done the same and not felt the least bit bad about it,” Mr. Dorian replied, chuckling.
“Does that mean you aren’t the kind of pet handler who’d insist their pets eat real food first?” Murry asked.
“When I have pets, I insist on the term ‘Daddy,’ rather than ‘handler,’ since ‘handler’ just seems like such a cold, detached term to me,” Dorian explained. “It’s okay if all I’m doing is caring for someone for a night or an event the way Phoenix did for the two of you yesterday, but if the pets are mine, then I’m Daddy, and I absolutely have no problem with my boys indulging in treats like that from time to time, because I know that they are eating proper meals regularly.”
