“This is the protocol.” One of the men shrugged. “Better than my last call, when a woman insisted that a stray dog she found was possessed with her dead husband’s ghost and demanded that we burn it.”
Jack Frost, the building’s owner, came in on the heels of the firemen. His husky, Milo, padded along beside him.
“Dude, I’m giving you a discount on rent, and you’re burning down my tower!”
“You’re giving me a discount because mine was the only company that wanted to move into this tower,” I reminded Jack as the burly firemen gingerly extracted the coffeepot from the white mountain of fire extinguisher foam. The whole break room was ruined.
Jack’s dog wagged his tail at Brea then stuffed his nose into her crotch. She immediately yelped.
Jack swore and grasped the dog by the collar. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said.
Jack had ice-blue eyes and platinum hair. I knew women went apeshit for him. Brea wasn’t much of an exception.
“Oh, ha ha!” she giggled and blushed. “It’s okay. I like dogs.”
“I’m sure Mark’s going to be mad if Milo tries to steal his girlfriend,” Jack said with a wink.
“I’m not—”
“That isn’t—”
We both spoke at the same time.
“Oh,” Jack said.
“I’m just here to help on a wedding website,” Brea explained in a rush.
Jack’s eyes shifted to the clock on the wall.
“This was the only time that would work, as we are both very busy,” I growled at him.
“Very busy,” Brea added, nodding emphatically.
Milo jumped on me, his big husky paws almost knocking me down. Then he went to sniff each of the firemen, tail wagging.
“I’m not sure why he’s acting like this,” Jack apologized as one of the firemen handed him paperwork to sign. “He’s usually better trained.”
The captain of the fire team barked some orders into his crackly radio then narrowed his eyes at a baby-faced rookie, who was the latest target of Milo’s infatuation. He was especially excited by the man’s helmet.
“You!” the captain barked at the rookie. “You didn’t bring that ghost dog with you, did you? I told you to leave it in the truck.”
A furry head with floppy ears poked out of the rookie’s helmet. Milo was ecstatic. He added hisarroosto the still-blaring fire alarm.
“Can someone shut that off?” the captain barked into the walkie-talkie on his chest.
The alarm cut off. Brea bounced over to the rookie. He seemed way too excited to have the pretty seamstress next to him.
“You have a puppy!” she said, delighted.
Why do you even care? You can’t stand her.
“Do you want to see?” the rookie offered.
Brea lifted the puppy out of the hat, cradling the fluffy, chubby dog to her chest.
“You cannot keep that animal,” the captain barked at the rookie as the other firefighters milled around. “He’s going straight to Animal Control in the morning.”
“No,” Brea said in horror, “you can’t abandon him!”
