Chapter 4
Max
“Come on, Toffee. Time for some more training,” I say as I click the leash onto the collar of the household’s newest addition, a brown lab with paws better suited to a creature five times her size. She’s got delightfully gangly legs, a rich, chocolate-y coat, and a pink tongue that’s constantly trying to lick my face whenever I’m near. She’s totally captured my heart.
The elder statesmen labs, Lemon and Pepper, cock their heads inmy direction.
“Not you two. You’re going out with Marco and Sofia shortly,” I tell them, and my sister looks up at me from her spot snuggled up against her husband on the sofa.
“My feet are sore from being on them all day. You don’t think you could take them out for me, could you, Max? Please? Be a good brother,” she says.
“Three dogs are a lot to handle on your own, you know. Particularly with Toffee’s four-month exuberance,” I reply, watching as Toffee gnaws at her leash as though it’s a chew toy.
But better that than one of my shoes, which she did yesterday, leaving it looking like vintage fashion, if “vintage” means “partially digested by rabid canine.”
“Your brother can handle three dogs. Can’t you, Max?” Marco says, grinning at me. “While you’re there, take a look at the flower bed by the south tower. I planted it only last week, and already it’s taking off.”
My brother-in-law is totally delusional if he thinks I’m going to look at a bed of flowers. Gardening is his jam. It’s definitely not mine.
Toffee tires of chewing the leash and begins to tug on my trouser leg in a not-so-subtle way of telling me that it’s time to get a move on.
“All right, you two. Let’s go for a walk,” I say, and both Lemon and Pepper rise from their beds. They look positively sloth-like in comparison with their younger counterpart.
With a total of three tails wagging, one like a windscreen wiper in a driving blizzard, I tell Sofia she owes me one, and together we leave the room, heading for outside.
It’s a warm and sunny afternoon when we reach the garden, and I collect a couple of tennis balls from the tub by the stables and hurl them out onto the lawn for Lemon and Pepper. Toffee immediately bolts, yanking on my armand coming to a sudden stop when she reaches the end of her leash.
“Sorry, Toffee. You’re not long enough in the tooth to run with the big dogs yet.” She looks up at me with a questioning look on her adorable puppy face. “Quite literally, cutie.”
I trudge across the lawn, trailing after the older dogs, who have now secured a tennis ball each, making their way back to me to repeat the exercise. They drop the balls at my feet, and as I lean down to pick them up, Toffee, little minx that she is, worms her way out of her collar and darts across the lawn.
Hastily, I throw the balls for the dogs and rush after her. “Toffee! Come back here!” I call, doing the one thing you’re never meant to do with a dog—chase her. Of course, my puppy thinks this is a great game and goes careening through an open gate in the garden wall with happy abandon, her tail wagging like it’s trying to power a small wind turbine.
And then I lose her.
“Toffee! Toffee! Come back here, you furry little maniac!” Fear grips my chest. The staff carpark is behind this wall, and that means frequent comings and goings. At only four months old Toffee is small and could easily… No, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
With my heart pounding, I sprint through the gate. “Toffee! Come here, girl!”
The parking lot is packed with cars. She could be anywhere.
I sprint between vehicles only to come to a crashing stop when I see a stunning blonde woman in a skirt suit leaning down to pick Toffee up in her arms.
“Hello there, gorgeous,” she coos in a soft, melodicvoice. “What are you doing running wild through a carpark? Don’t you know that’s dangerous?”
Relief washes over me.
She’s safe.
I slow my pace, my fear over Toffee’s brush with death evaporating as I make my way over to the woman.
They say having a dog is good for your health, and perhaps it can also be good for your love life, too.
Toffee wriggles like an excited brown bundle of limbs in her arms, her long tongue trying desperately to lick the woman’s face.
“Thank you so, so much,” I gush as I approach her.
She looks up at me, a smile on her face, and I come to a sudden stop as recognition hits me.
