Lingus

by Mariana Zapata

  His face flamed pink as he gave me a sheepish smile, looking at me out of the corner of his eye. "I did," he snorted, embarrassed. "I had a crazy crush on her until I found out about Spanish-language soap operas."

  Immediately, I imagined a teenage Tristan masturbating to stunning Hispanic women on the Spanish channels and it made me laugh. "Your soap operas were my Men's Health magazine!"

  "What's with you and older men?" he teased, throwing an empty water bottle from his console at me.

  "They're just like fine wine!" I laughed, hitting his forearm with the bottom of the plastic bottle. I couldn't help but take note of the fact that his nice, blue dress shirt was rolled up at the sleeves and unbuttoned at the top. God, so he was so handsome it was unreal.

  "There are men in there old enough to be your dad!" he said, turning to face me when we stopped at a red light. His eyes narrowed in my direction. "Please tell me you haven't dated an older man before."

  "Well..." I trailed off, trying to keep the expression on my face straight but I couldn't. I had a horrible poker face, and then a snort blew out of my nose when he gave me a horrified expression. "I haven't, I promise. The oldest guy I've dated was six years older than me."

  "How old are you, goldie?"

  I was not ashamed of my age at all, and I didn't think I ever would be. My mom still looked like a teenager right before she died, and one of my student's dad's thought I was joking when I told him I was the teacher. Heh. "I'm twenty-five, Mag. How old are you?"

  His eyes widened at my admission. "You are not twenty-five."

  "Yes, I am." I told him, perking up expectantly. He was going to tell me I didn't look a day older than sixteen, I could feel it.

  "No way. You've got to be at least thirty," he laughed.

  "Fuck you," I laughed in response, whacking him with the plastic bottle again.

  He winked at me before turning his attention forward. "I'm kidding! You look like you're eighteen max. I just turned twenty-nine."

  I did the math in my head; if he was twenty-nine and almost done with law school, what did he do after finishing his undergrad? He’d never mentioned taking time off between schools. Before I could think anymore about it, he'd parked the car in front of a drab looking little building. "Mag, what did you do between your bachelor's and law school?"

  The sigh he let out was long and drawn out while we walked up the building. He held the door open for me, ushering me in. "Remember I told you it took me some time to figure out that I wanted to go into law? I was pre-med in college and went to medical school for two years. Then, I figured out that the last thing I wanted to do was medicine, so I dropped out."

  There was a sweet looking lady with hair that resembled white cotton candy sitting on the other side of a table, who cleared her throat to gain our attention. "Hello darlings. Can you sign in for me, please?" she asked in a sweet voice.

  We made our way over to the table, where Tristan started signing in for the both of us. The lady was looking at me with a smile. "You two are precious together," she mused. "Come to find a new addition to your beautiful family?"

  I saw Tristan's head shoot up not missing a beat, and he nodded at the old lady. "We sure are, we want to get a dog."

  Her cute little face pruned up in a smile. "I am sure you two will find a perfect companion back there. You can go through those doors. All the animals are in separate rooms," she said, indicating toward the heavy metal door behind her with the sweep of a hand. "Have fun, sweethearts."

  Tristan's arm slung over my shoulder a moment later, his side pressing into mine as he led me in the direction of the door. He opened it up for me, and then threw his heavy arm over my shoulder again. "Well precious, let's find us a dog."

  We made a plan to start on one end of the building and make our way over.

  "So, you went through two years of medical school, and then quit?" I asked, thinking of the amount of money that four years of pre-med and two years of medical school must have cost, only to get flushed down the drain at the end of the day. Shit. I still owed a good chunk of money for my graduate school and couldn't imagine how much more he could've possibly owed before starting law school.

  "Yeah," he mumbled as we walked down the aisles still pressed together. There were so many dogs of all colors and sizes that it made my heart hurt looking at them. "I had to go back and take more classes before I applied to law school," he explained.

  Each cage had a dog in it, and I pulled away from Tristan to crouch by the gates separating me from the friendlier dogs. Some of the dogs barked when we walked by, others growled, but a good portion of them were all too excited to have visitors. We made our way out of the first room and into the next one, where I saw about ten dogs that I wanted to adopt for myself.

  "I want to take all of them home," I whispered to a particularly sweet pitbull that was licking my palm through the holes in the fencing.

  "Choose one," Tristan said, squatting down next to me before pressing his hand against the gate to also get a lick.

  When we started to get up, the honey colored pitbull whimpered, and I had to bite my lip not to cry. She was so sweet it broke my heart, but I just didn't feel like she was the right dog for Tristan. My dad and I had two dogs after mom died, and he let me choose each one of them. I just had this feeling when I found each of them, it was a type of connection telling me that the dog was destined to be mine. Even though I wanted to feel it, the cute pitbull baby didn't feel that way to me. Tristan sensed my emotional turmoil because I felt his hand on my shoulder as we went through to another room. It was getting harder and harder for me to go from room to room, looking at the countless dogs that deserved to be adopted.

  "Hey," he whispered right next to my ear. His hand trailed down from my shoulder, over my arm until it slipped right against my own before interlocking his fingers with mine. "Don't be sad, just find one you like and we'll take him or her." He squeezed my hand.

  There were so many sad faces looking at us while we walked by that tears pooled in my eyes. I wanted them all‚ even the mean ones, but I hadn't found the right one yet. His hand was warm and reassuring in mine, long fingers wrapping my shorter ones in a meeting of long and slim. We were getting close to the end of the row of dogs when I heard something that sounded like a whisper coming from up ahead. There was another whisper again a minute later. I pulled Tristan toward the cage where the whispering came from, only for me to let out some sort of squeak.

  He was there. A massive looking puppy with four huge paws that floated in the air, he had a massive, square head with oversized, floppy ears resting against the floor. Best of all— his legs spread wide and his massive balls were pressed against the fence. The puppy had a dark fawn coat. He was all puppy fat and rolls, and as soon as I dropped to my knees I heard another whisper... and it was coming out of his ass. The smell was so awful I had to pull my shirt up over my nose as Tristan started gagging.

  "What the hell is that smell?"

  I pointed at the puppy's crotch. "He farted!"

  Tristan made a face and started reading the information listed on the outside of his crate. "He's eight months, a mastiff-great dane mix, and it says he weighs... holy shit, he weighs a hundred and forty pounds, Kat."

  The oversized puppy rolled over onto his tummy with one ear cocked back and the other flopped over his face. He was looking at me with big brown eyes and a slowly wagging tail. "This one," I said softly to Tristan but kept my eyes on the big boy sitting up across from me.

  "This one? You're sure? I was thinking more about a small one. You know, maybe like a terrier or a yorkie."

  I had to snort at the idiot behind me. "You want me to buy you a carrying bag for your yorkie, Miss?"

  The dog started licking the fence when I put my hand against it. "Whatever," Tristan laughed before dropping to balance on the balls of his feet next to me. The giant puppy looked at him and wagged his tail even more. "Fine, get him if you want, but if my mom doesn't want to watch him for me then yo
u're stuck on babysitting duty."

  Nicole's words from a few days before reminded me that he was leaving without telling me. "Oh yeah... Nikki told me you're leaving next weekend for work?"

  "Just a weekend," he replied in a low voice. He was up on his feet again, holding a hand out to help me up. "Let's go start the paperwork to take him home," he said, effectively cutting off any talk about him leaving to do his porn stuff. The puppy started crying when we walked away so I pushed Tristan, taking a split second to enjoy the press of my fingers against his back like a deprived hussy, to hustle him out of the room faster.

  Over an hour and one hundred and twenty-five dollars later, I was getting dragged through the parking lot while holding Tristan's son's leash. He was big and cl, but Tristan was walking fast and the puppy was trailing right behind him. You could tell he was enamored with his new owner, like he realized and appreciated the gift Tristan had given him. When we got to the car he muttered an "Oh fuck," when he looked at the leather covering his backseat and shrugged. "Oh well."

  "I think you should try to let him pee before we take him anywhere," I warned him.

  "We're just going down the street," he protested, waving the unnamed puppy in. While we waited for the adoption paperwork, I helped him make a list of the things he'd need to go buy his son before going home.

  The giant baby just stood there looking at Tristan like he was an idiot for a good five minutes. After five more minutes of careful weight distribution, Tristan finally hauled him into his arms and shoved him into the backseat as gently as possible. As soon as we were both inside, the dog's large, square head popped into the space between the two seats with his long, pink tongue dangling.

  "We need to come up with a name for him," he said, putting the car into drive.

  "Nuh uh, you need to come up with a name for him. I'll just approve it," I told him, rubbing the big boy's head.

  Since the radio wasn't on, the short blow of air that sounded like a whisper filled the car. A second later, I was pulling my shirt up to block the godforsaken smell of garbage coming from the backseat.

  "Oh my fuck! You had to get the farting one, didn't you?" Tristan half laughed and half groaned, throwing an arm over his face.

  The dog pulled away from me to hop up completely onto the backseat before I saw him start to squat while the top of his back grazed the ceiling of the car.

  "Pull over! He's peeing on your seat!"

  Chapter 28

  "T-Rex?"

  "No."

  "Hercules?"

  "No."

  "Fat Boy?"

  "Definitely not."

  "Stewart?"

  "Are you out of your mind?"

  "No," he sighed. "Okay, what about Chuck?"

  I had to think about that one for a second. "Maybe."

  "Romulus?"

  "Isn't that from Star Trek?"

  "I think you're a closet nerd."

  "I think you should shut up. I had a thing for the guy who played Kirk."

  He laughed but I couldn't see his expression. "At least he's in your age range. I was worried you were going to say you had a thing for old Spock."

  "Leave me alone," I laughed in return.

  "Skittles?"

  "No."

  "Midas?"

  "Maybe."

  "Bruno?"

  "No."

  "Gomer?"

  "Maybe."

  "Jigsaw?"

  "You are not naming him after a character in that movie."

  Another sigh. "Fine. Yoda?"

  "Ooh, I kind of like that one. He looks like a Yoda, doesn't he?" I asked, propping myself onto my elbows to look at the unnamed puppy. He was busy taking a nap on the grass five feet away from us.

  His big face was all scrunched up in a deep sleep, and he totally looked like freaking Yoda. Tristan snorted, and I saw him prop himself up on his hands to look at his new buddy. "He does look like a Yoda."

  It'd been five days since Tristan adopted the mastiff-mix from the shelter, and the poor dog had been called everything from Sugarpop to Spot to Wesley. I finally had to tell Tristan that he needed to decide on a name before the poor baby had an identity crisis. Everyday, Tristan had dropped by my apartment to pick me up and take me over to his house after work so we could spend time with his son. After the pee-incident in the Audi, I sensed the hesitation in Tristan's body language when he first walked into his house. I think he expected to see the worst, but the gigantic baby was an angel in his crate. We'd taken him for walks around the block, but mainly, we hung out in the spacious backyard and laid around. Every once in awhile, we tried to teach Sugarpop/Spot/Wesley how to play fetch. It wasn't going so well.

  At that moment, we were plastered on the grass with the late afternoon sun warming our skin. It was kind of wonderful out there. Two huge trees loomed over the backyard, the grass was cut short, and Tristan had been training the future Yoda to poop in the same section of backyard, so we could pretty much lay down anywhere and be safe from his huge shits.

  Tristan made a funny noise from his spot a couple of feet away. "I think Yoda it is," he paused, before turning to look in the puppy's direction. "Yoda!"

  Big brown eyes looked up in Tristan's direction when the name was called out. His huge head tilted in a way that looked like he was asking what was going on. I'd grown to really, really like the big boy in the time I'd been around; he was the sweetest thing. Even though he farted every ten minutes, I thought he was awesome. It was even more awesome that he followed me around everywhere instead of Tristan. When we sat on the couch, Tristan on one side and me on the other, he'd go and stick his big head right in front of one of our faces to get our attention. Matlock, on the other hand, was not so fond of the dog smell when I got home every night.

  "Kat?" His voice was softer than usual.

  "Hmm?"

  "I'm really glad we're friends," he said, and it was enough to make me tear my eyes away from Yoda licking his butt-hole in order to look at him instead.

  I was sure the smile on my face was so big and goofy that it looked like my face might get stuck like that, but his words seemed so sincere and sweet that I couldn't help it. "Me too, Mag."

  Chapter 29

  "Do you think she has a bun in the oven?"

  I made a noise of disbelief in my throat while simultaneously keeping my eyes on the road— I also didn't trust Zoey to multitask safely. Driving and talking was much harder for her than talking on the phone and ironing, which she had failed at spectacularly on several occasions. "No way, they've only been seeing each other for how long? Two weeks?"

  Nicole had called earlier in the day demanding that we meet at a pub down the street from her place. Zoey and I were at the gym when I answered, and as soon as I told her that I wasn't in the mood to go out, she threatened to change the password to her online porn subscriptions. That bitch. She claimed she had something very important to tell us. Which was exactly why Zoey and I were brainstorming ideas as to what could be that important.

  "Maybe she got a promotion at work?" Zoey chirped up, taking a sharp right turn that made my toes curl.

  Nicole worked at the same law firm that her dad owned, so that could have been a big possibility. "Yeah, maybe or knowing Nikki, she probably managed to deep-throat Calum and wants to celebrate."

  Zoey snickered and nodded, while steering her Beetle into a small spot on the street. "Maybe she's getting a sex change?"

  We'd joked around about Nicole being more of a man than a woman because of the sheer size of her imaginary balls. People at work called her Nicole "The Ball Buster" Jonasson because of her take-no-shit attitude. Men cowered in fright from her like they rightfully should. Last Christmas, Josh bought her a set of those metal balls that guys hung off the back bumpers of their trucks as a joke.

  We were out of the car and through the door of the pub a few minutes later, still thinking up ideas as to what Nicole could have been wanting to announce. It wasn't too packed considering there was a baseball game on
the large screens mounted over the bar. I spotted Nikki's tall frame in a back corner and pointed in her direction before Zoey poked my side, gesturing toward the bar.

  "I'm going to get a drink first. What do you want me to get you?" she asked.

  I was glad it wasn't so loud enough that I couldn't hear her. "Whatever you get, Zo." I shrugged. She tended to stick to really girly drinks which I was all for, so I knew her choice would be good. She nodded and headed to the bar while I weaved through the people milling about, spying both Nicole and Calum sitting up on stools at a table.