by Julia London
Jamie came around the bed and shoved his shoulder. “Dog show.”
Max got up.
Jamie grew increasingly anxious as the clock slowly ticked toward ten o’clock. He wanted to go. When Max told him he’d have to wait, that the dog show hadn’t started, Jamie punched his fists against the wall and bed.
Carly had FaceTimed him in the middle of Jamie’s frustration. Max had had exactly two thoughts: one, that she looked incredibly sexy and hungover. Her hair was a tangled mess around her face, her eyes luminous in the natural light wherever she was. And two, he did not want her to see Jamie’s meltdown. He didn’t know why, exactly, but he didn’t. He wanted to stay on the line and talk to her, but Jamie was getting agitated, and he’d had to cut the call short.
He and Jamie arrived at the arena at nine thirty. Jamie hadn’t even allowed Max to stop for a cup of coffee.
The Midwest Regional Dog Show was a benched show, which meant they could walk through where the dogs were being groomed and talk to handlers. Or rather, Max talked while Jamie stared at the dogs. From there, they attended the agility trials, and then the best in breed. Jamie sat on the edge of his seat, and when he saw a dog he liked, he’d say, “Good dog.”
By the time they reached the evening judging rounds, Max was running out of steam. He wanted a gin and tonic. And/or a burger. Whichever came first, whichever he could get his hands on. But Jamie made it clear he wasn’t going anywhere until the last dog was shown.
Still, they passed the day without incident and returned to the hotel and spent another evening with room service, Jamie poring over his books, Max restless and wishing he could have a very stiff drink.
Sunday began much the same way as Saturday. Max woke with a start, and there Jamie sat, not two feet from him, dressed and ready to go. “For fuck’s sake, Jamie,” Max said, blinking back the sleep. “You have to stop acting like some weird stalker.”
“Dog show.”
“Yeah, I know,” Max said wearily. “Believe me, I know.” Max was a dog guy, but this was a lot of dog.
He got up and showered. The trouble started when he packed up their things to store with the concierge. They were leaving on a seven o’clock flight back to Austin. Jamie didn’t want to store their things. He began to rock back and forth, flapping his hands, growling. Max tried to explain to him why it was necessary—they had to check out, had to leave their bags someplace safe. Jamie whirled around and pushed the desk chair across the room. It crashed into a floor lamp, which fell over, taking a small glass coffee table with it. Max had to physically restrain his brother before he did some damage.
Jamie finally agreed to let the concierge hold their bags, and they made their way to the dog show, but Jamie never fully settled. And it seemed to Max as if there were twice as many dogs on Sunday. The arena was filled with confusing smells and crowds, and Jamie had rocked in his seat, chewing the cuticle on his thumb, and moaning that he wanted to go home. It wasn’t until the herding group entered the ring that Jamie’s attention snapped to the dogs. “Beauceron,” he said.
Max didn’t understand him.
“Beauceron,” Jamie said hotly.
“Do you need a bathroom?” Max asked dumbly.
Jamie opened up his program and jabbed his finger several times on a page. Max looked down. Beauceron, as it turned out, was a type of dog.
“Never heard of it,” Max snapped back.
By the time best in show rolled around, Jamie was better. He wanted the whippet to win and kept whispering whippet under his breath. The French bulldog took the grand prize, and Max steeled himself for another outburst, but Jamie surprised him. He surged to his feet, clapping louder than anyone.
They stopped by a booth on the way out of the arena and Max ordered digital disks of previous National Dog Show broadcasts. They went back to the hotel, and Max collected their bags from the concierge, had to physically push Jamie into a cab, and they headed to the airport.
They arrived in Austin at 9:45. Max spent much of the flight exhausted by the weekend and his arrogance. His guilt weighed heavily on him—he kept thinking how many times he’d assured his dad that everything would be okay. Of the many times he’d left his dad’s house secure in his belief that his father and brother were fine, just fine, without him there. He’d been acting the part of an egotistic professor and thought he knew more than his father who lived with and cared for Jamie every day. Max was ashamed of himself.
But one thing was becoming clear to Max. Jamie really needed to be in a supervised group home, living with other adults. He needed to be with peers, to learn how to navigate life better than he was learning at home. His routine was isolating him from real-world experiences. His dad needed his own life, too. Max was convinced that if Jamie had a comfort dog, and experiences outside his routine, he would learn how to cope better than he’d coped in Chicago.
He wearily drove his brother home, then texted Carly. Too late to pick up the beast?
She responded simply, No. That was followed by a picture of something orange. He had to zoom in to see it. It looked like it might have been a pillow. He didn’t know what had happened to the stuffing but could probably assume it was either inside a dog or a trash can.
Your dog’s handiwork, she texted.
Max frowned. Had Hazel’s separation anxiety kicked in? Was Carly really so certain the culprit was Hazel? She seemed to think Baxter could do no wrong. Max hadn’t seen Baxter do anything wrong, but, come on. He texted back, asking for her address.
Ten minutes later, he pulled through the gate at Carly’s house—at first mistaking the modern mansion as hers, then seeing the wooden sign that pointed to her address near the back of the property. He parked his car in the drive of a cute little cottage that reminded him of his childhood, when bungalows were what covered the central part of Austin. The little house was set among some towering pecan trees. It was white with green shutters. There was a semicircle of brick steps that led up to a small covered porch.
Max walked up to the black door with the three transom windows and looked around for a doorbell. When he didn’t find one, he knocked. Somewhere deep in the house, one of the dogs bayed.
A moment later, the door swung open.
Carly looked harried. Her hair was tied up at her nape, but a few tendrils wafted around her face. There was a slash of something like dirt on her cheek. She was wearing a hoodie and no shoes, and stood with one hand on her hip and the other on the door. But it was her hip that caught his attention—or rather, the skirt. It looked like two small boxes had been glued on the inside of a red silk skirt, and from there, it tapered down to a tight circle just above her knees. She was basically wearing an inverted triangle with a hoodie. It confused Max, and he didn’t realize he was staring before it was too late.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You don’t know what kind of costume this is.”
“I am . . . I really don’t get it,” he answered honestly.
She pushed the door open all the way. He could see behind her into a living area. Directly in his line of sight was a white couch, which he immediately considered the worst choice if one had a dog. On the arm of that couch, two bassets had perched their heads, side by side, lazily watching the door. Some guard dogs they were.
“You didn’t answer my texts,” she said.
He was a bit confused by this. “I didn’t?” He’d answered some of them. He thought back. “I guess there were a couple . . . but I didn’t think a response was necessary?”
Her gaze narrowed. “You didn’t think a response is necessary when someone texts you? Like, that’s the whole point of texting.”
“Not always. The picture of the orange thing—”
“My last good pillow—”
“Came without a question. It looked more like an observation. And the one in the garden bed? Wasn’t sure what the takeaway was and didn’t have
the luxury of time to inquire.”
“Really? You didn’t get the takeaway? How about this? Your dog dug up my sister’s yard.”
He tilted his head to one side. He would really love to know how her brain worked, both professionally and personally speaking. “Do you know for a fact it was Hazel? Because there were two muddy dogs in that photo, and, incidentally, a little girl. She was grinning, so I thought maybe she’d done it.”
Carly’s eyes widened. “She didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “She was covered from head to toe in mud, just like the dogs. Could have been any of them.”
She glared at him. “For the record, I will admit it’s entirely possible it was Millie because, God knows, those kids are out of control. But you’re missing the point here—generally, people answer their texts unless they are otherwise engaged.”
“Engaged,” he repeated. “May I ask exactly what bee has climbed into your bonnet? Because I am not understanding. Like, at all,” he said with a wave of his hand.
“Okay, I’ll just throw it out there. Did you go to Chicago with a woman? Did you make me feel bad about your brother so you could . . .” Her gaze swept over him. “Get freaky?”
“Get freaky?” He couldn’t stop a bark of incredulous laughter. “Are you hanging out at a high school in your spare time? Where the hell would you even get that idea?” He pulled out his phone. “Look,” he said, and showed her a couple of pictures of him and Jamie in front of the Midwestern Regional Dog Show sign. Max, smiling at the camera. Jamie, looking somewhere else.
She squinted. She put her hand on his, her fingers light, and pulled his hand and the phone closer. He swiped through a couple more. In the arena. The two of them with a German shepherd. “Adorable,” she murmured, and glanced up. “Okay.” She sounded only slightly contrite.
“Okay? Is that all you’re going to say after accusing me of lying?”
“Okay, sorry,” she said. “But do you blame me? I don’t know you, and you were so weird when I FaceTimed you. You looked nervous, like you were afraid of getting caught.”
“I was weird? You were the one who looked like you’d been on a bender.”
“Ha! Believe me, I wish I had,” she said. “All right, all right, I am truly sorry for accusing you. I get a little wound up when I think someone has chumped me.”
“Chumped you?”
“You know, when you become a chump because you’re naïve or too trusting or whatever.”
“I didn’t chump you, Carly. I’m sorry I wasn’t more responsive, but it was a long weekend. My brother needs a lot of attention. And are you going to keep holding my hand, or can I put my phone away?”
She jerked her hand away from his like she’d been bit and then nervously tried to smooth the strange panniers of her skirt. “Stop staring at my skirt,” she said.
He looked up. “I can’t.”
“Well, neither can I, and that’s a problem.” She whirled around and stalked into her house. Or rather, she moved like she was doing a sort of quickstep dance move, because her skirt was so tight.
This woman was as confusing as she was pretty. She left him standing there, and after a beat or two, Max decided he was supposed to follow. He walked down the entry hall toward the couch. He couldn’t see Carly anywhere, but Hazel excitedly wagged her tail. She looked very much at home.
Carly suddenly appeared in front of him and held a shoe up in front of his face.
Max recognized that shoe. She’d sent him a selfie picture with this shoe in another text this weekend. What he remembered about that text was her. He’d noticed the tiny smattering of freckles, and how pink her lips were. “I’ve seen that before.”
“Yes, you have. You didn’t respond to that text, either.”
He looked at the shoe. He would like to see her in that shoe, actually. “It was just a picture.”
“I sent it for a reason.”
“What was the reason? It’s sexy.”
“Of course it’s sexy. But you can see the problem, right?”
“With the shoe?”
“Yes, Max, the shoe.” She lifted the shoe higher. “Look at the heel.”
Max shifted his gaze to the shoe and looked at the heel. That’s when he saw the heel had been chewed up. “Ah, I get it,” he said, nodding. “Are you implicating Hazel in this crime, too?”
“Well, there was no little girl here at the time, and Baxter has never chewed anything. Not even his tail.” She dropped her arm. “Plus, I caught her red-handed with the evidence. Your dog definitely did this to my shoe. But my dog did this.” She stooped down and picked up half of an orange pillow.
Another chuckle escaped Max in the form of a snorting cough.
“Was that a laugh? That better not have been a laugh.”
“So not a laugh,” he lied, grinning.
“It must be hilarious to you that Baxter is now a changed man. I knew you’d ruined my dog.”
“I wouldn’t go so far as hilarious,” he said, but he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face. “Sort of funny, though.” He was a little distracted by how bright her eyes were, shining with ire. The effect was strangely arousing. “And by the way, Baxter is a dog, and dogs are pretty predictable in their behaviors. Two, I didn’t ruin your dog, because one of those predictable behaviors is that dogs chew things. They do it to combat boredom and frustration. And it keeps their teeth clean.”
“Are you seriously explaining why dogs chew right now? I know they chew. But Baxter didn’t chew my pillows before you let him on your couch and fed him mac and cheese. How can you not see the correlation?”
He couldn’t stop grinning. He knew she was serious, but she was so damn pretty and weird and interesting right now. “I don’t see any correlation, but I am very sorry for it all the same. I will reimburse you for the pillow.”
“You said it would be a piece of cake. You said the two of them would keep each other out of trouble.”
“I honestly thought that they would.”
She groaned and tossed the shoe and the pillow carcass into a basket on the floor. “You wouldn’t believe the weekend I’ve had. Sure, it wasn’t all bad dog behavior—there was plenty of bad people behavior, too—but still, Baxter won’t stay off my couch now, which is all on you,” she said, pointing at him, “and now I have to humiliate myself and ask you a favor.”
“It humiliates you to ask for a favor?”
“It humiliates me to ask you for this particular favor. It’s not a favor I want to ask of anyone. I am very self-sufficient.”
“I have no doubt.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “It’s just that what I need you to help me with ranks right up there with volunteering for a root canal.”
“Wow. Okay,” he said, nodding. “So apparently, there’s nothing more reprehensible than asking me for a favor. Got it. What is this horrible awful favor?”
She sighed. She tucked her hair behind her ear. She looked away from him and said, “It would seem that I’m stuck in this adorable little number.” She gestured with a flourish to her skirt.
“Stuck. In what way?” he asked, looking at the skirt.
“In the stuck way. As in, the zipper is stuck, and it’s so tight I can’t shimmy out of it. I called my mother, but of course she is never there and her phone rolls to voice mail. And my sister? Forget it. She would have to get three kids in the car. So I am asking you to return the favor of pet-sitting your very bad dog and get me out of this . . . thing.”
Max blinked. And then he was laughing. Oh, but he laughed. He put one hand on his belly he was laughing so hard.
“That’s just mean,” Carly said.
“This is hilarious. How the hell did you get stuck?”
“A long story, but the short of it is, I had an idea about a problem I’m having with my job, which
includes this piece of fashion, among others. But my idea to save the day is not going to work and now I just want it off,” she said with a bit of a shimmy.
“Okay,” Max said. “Happy to help. Where is the zipper?”
Carly reluctantly turned around and presented her back to him. The zipper ran down the center of the skirt. All the way down. It was so tight she’d not been able to zip it all the way up to her waist, and the zipper had stuck just above her center line. Max stared at that zipper. He had a couple of thoughts about whether or not he ought to be doing this. “That thing is on here good and tight, isn’t it?” he asked, looking at the roll of her flesh spilling over the skirt’s waist. “Looks like if you took a big breath you could pop right on out of there.”
“I tried that. And I am aware of how tight it is,” she said impatiently. “Victor does not design for a silhouette as . . . robust as mine. Will you just do it already?” She tried to look over her shoulder at him.
The term robust was clanging in his head. He had a sudden urge to put his hands on her robust hips and her robust waist and her robust breasts. “I’m studying it.”
“You don’t need to study it, just unstick it!”
“All right,” Max said. “I’m going to touch you now—”
“For the love of Pete, I know you’re going to touch me, I asked you to touch me. Can you just get on with it?”
Max bent down to have a closer look. He could see a patch of pale pink fabric had been caught in the zipper’s teeth. “It looks stuck on fabric or something.” He leaned closer. “Oh.”
“Oh? Oh what?”
“I think it might be your panties.”
“Yes, Max, those are my panties, thank you for pointing that out. But you don’t have to announce what you’re finding like an archaeologist. Just please do it.”
“Right.” When he thought of pink silk panties, something waved through him. He tried to carefully manipulate the zipper loose, but the skirt was pulled too tightly. “Can you maybe pull the skirt around a little and give me some slack?”
She sighed. “Max? If I could give you some slack I would have given myself some slack and turned the damn thing around and fixed it!”
