Spud’s fur was silky under my fingers.
I closed my eyes for, like, half a second.
Chapter 7
“Lucien.”
My first thought was that Oliver’s morning breath was really,reallybad. My second thought was that his voice sounded weirdly far away. My third, fourth, and fifth thoughts were that my arm was numb, my neck was killing me, and I was sure I had carpet marks on my face.
“You do realise,” Oliver was saying, “that attempting to preserve our sex life by keeping the dog out of our bedroom will be somewhat undermined if you move into the dog pen?”
“Mrrffhhh,” I groaned.
“Ruff,” said Spud, nuzzling closer.
I rolled over and squinted up at Oliver. He was already showered and dressed for work, which meant shiny shoes and a three-piece suit, while I was in my pants, on the floor, with—I was slowly coming to realise—one of our hidden dog treats stuck to my arse.
“Well.” Oliver actually put his hands on his hips. I wouldn’t say he was looking at me disdainfully, but I’d definitely seen more dainful expressions on him. “At least you weren’t in hospital this time.”
“Ruff,” said Spud.
“And you”—Oliver gazed sternly down at our dog—“shouldn’t encourage him.”
He turned crisply around and disappeared into the hallway. I wobbled to my feet and followed, Spud trailing close behind me.
I found Oliver in the kitchen eating bircher with the ferocious concentration of a man who wanted to pretend nothing was wrong.
“I’m really sorry,” I said.
“Mruff,” agreed Spud.
“It’s fine,” Oliver replied to both of us. It blatantly wasn’t.
With a picking-a-scab instinct, I circled right back to: “He wasreallysad. And I couldn’t sleep.”
“You made your bed, Lucien. And to your credit, you also lay in it.”
I tried my most disarming smile. “You’ve been working on that one since you woke up, haven’t you?”
He half smiled back, but it was pretty fucking grudging. “I’m genuinely not angry with you,” he admitted at last. “And I know you’re somewhat afraid of responsibility. But you can actually do this.Wecan actually do this. But we have to do it right, or we’d be better off giving the dog up entirely.”
“Hey.” Crouching down, I put my hands over Spud’s ears. Which confused him, but he was willing to go with it. “Don’t say that in front of him.”
“He’s a dog. He’s not going to understand.”
“He might pick something up from…from…your tone of voice. Or the vibes. The vibes might be bad.”
In what felt like a pointed challenge to my vibe-related dog concerns, Oliver put his spoon and empty mason jar into the dishwasher and opened the cupboard that I haddefinitely rememberedwas the one we were keeping the dog food in. The second he opened the pouch of nutritionally balanced puppy food, Spud bounced out from between my hands and scampered over to Oliver, taildodoinginglike one of those springy doorstops you get in old people’s houses.
“He doesn’t seem traumatised,” said Oliver with a smugness I felt was at best ten percent warranted.
There’d been no way I was winning this conversation last night. And there was no way I was winning it this morning. And the fact I’d started thinking in terms of winning and losing was probably a bad sign. Not, like, in a relationship-ending sense. But in an argument-ending sense.
Leaving Spud with Oliver, I creaked upstairs in the hope a hot shower would make my body feel more like a body and less like a coat hanger.
It didn’t particularly.
I was just sitting in my towel, hoping to drip-dry because normal towelling motions had become a Doctor, Doctor joke about how it hurt when I did this, when Oliver knocked on the door.
