“Aren’t we all.” And with that, Oliver carefully shut the door. “Come on. We should get him home.”
* * *
Watching Oliver with a puppy was, if you can believe it, even better than watching him fill out paperwork. We’d set up a kind of playpen in what was nominally my study, although it was more just the room I sat in when I was meant to be working from home. It had toys and bowls and a blanket, and, once we’d got in, we’d set Spud’s box in the corner, letting him come out at his own pace, as the books recommended. Well, as Oliver had informed me the books recommended. Spud’s own pace had been “immediately” because, like every dog I’d ever met, he’d taken one look at Oliver and decided he was clearly Best Human. Not that I blamed him. I’d come to a similar conclusion myself, even if it had taken me slightly longer. Initially, Spud had been keen to explore the room, but he’d soon decided he’d rather just explore Oliver, and now the pair of them were folded in a pile of adorableness on the floor.
After what felt like six million years, Oliver looked up from the dog. “You should probably say hello, Lucien.”
“Hello, Lucien,” I said from the corner. It was safe in the corner. You couldn’t accidentally fuck anything up in the corner. Even if it meant you didn’t get to pet a puppy. Your puppy.
“Don’t confuse him. He’s too little to understand irony.”
“And boundaries,” I added as Spud rose up on his stubby little hind legs to lick Oliver’s nose.
“This is normal bonding behaviour.”
“You say that, but if I licked your nose, you’d get really cross at me.”
Oliver was still nuzzling Spud with the effortless confidence of a natural dog-haver who, finally, after three decades in the wilderness, had been granted the chance to have a dog. “I’m not aware of your ever having tried.”
“Well, I can’t now. The dog’s beat me to it.”
“Lucien, unless you have a kink you’ve been hiding for a very long time, I don’t think you want to be in competition with Spud.”
He had a point. A bunch of points. On the kink thing, the competition thing, and the bonding-with-the-puppy thing. Gingerly, I approached the dog-and-barrister combo who looked slated to be a major part of my homelife from now on and crouched down next to them.
“Hi, Spud,” I said, trying not to sound too much like I was introducing myself to the cool kids at a new school. “I’m the other one.”
Spud gave me a look as if to sayWell, they can’t all be winnersand went back to love-bombing Oliver like some kind of canine narcissist. I tried patting him, but it increasingly felt like I was in one of those threesomes where the other two clearly wished you’d just leave them to get on with it.
Eventually Oliver decided the dog had lavished enough affection on him. “We should probably encourage him to explore his den a little.”
“Sorry?” I asked. “Are you talking to me?”
“No, I was telling Spud we should encourageyouto exploreyourden.”
“Have you hidden any treats in it?”
“I’ve secreted some French toast under your pillow.”
Oliver stood, brushed off his jeans, and went to linger temptingly by the open door to the playpen. “Here, Spud,” he said, in an offensively charming singsong voice. “What have we got over here?”
“You sound like you’re kerb-crawling for a puppy.”
“Do you really think people who solicit sex workers go up to them and do this?” He patted his legs, continuing in what was clearly on track to being his dog voice. “Come on, boy, there’s a good boy. Come and see what Daddy Oliver’s got for you.”
“Oh, Jesus,” I yelped. “What are you doing?”
“I’m calling the dog over. Whatever is going on in your head is your problem.”
Tail metronoming happily, Spud had already trotted over and, having briefly investigated Oliver’s feet, was now inside the playpen unearthing the treats and toys that Daddy Oliver had, with typical fucking everything, tucked away yesterday.
“I think,” mused Oliver, watching Spud chewing the toy I’d been repeatedly told not to refer to as thebutt plug, “unless it’s bedtime or there’s an emergency, we should avoid closing him in until he’s had time to develop positive associations with the space.”
“Sure,” I said, in the voice of someone who really, really wished he’d read more than zero dog books. “Sounds great.”
Oliver gave me the look of a smarter, kinder friend who knew I hadn’t done the homework and was doing his best to cover for me with the teacher. “He’ll be happy here,” he said, “if this is where happy things happen. It’s like the opposite of your old flat.”
“My old flat was fine,” I replied with semi-ironic defensiveness.
