His mother turned her head back and yelled, “Marv, he’s home!” before leading Ashton inside the house. As with the outside, nothing had changed. The old, brown cloth couch was still in the living room along with its matching chair. They had a pattern of green stripes in the fabric, but age and use made the lines almost an optical illusion at this point. I chipped a baby tooth on the arm of that couch, he thought, warmth filling his body at the memory of silly and simpler times. Chasing the cat. I can remember that but I can’t remember the cat’s name. Was it Snuffles?
His parents had a penchant for naming pets with S names. He didn’t know why. He’d never thought to ask. It was just another odd quirk of theirs.
Ashton’s thoughts were soon distracted by the sound of his father coming down the stairs. He looked at the old man, who seemed considerably less saddened than his mother, and gave him a slightly shy smile. It had been a while since Ashton was last in the same room as his childhood idol. Marvin Miller had grayed as well and he was now slightly stooped by painful joints in his left leg, but he was otherwise the same tall, strong man he’d been when Ashton left town all those years ago.
“Hey, Ash,” he greeted his son, returning Ashton’s smile. He wasn’t the type to give hugs, which was okay by Ashton because in a lot of ways he was the same as his father. “How have you been? It’s good to see you. You look like you’ve been doing well, taking care of yourself.”
“He looks a little skinny, though, doesn’t he?” his mother asked, also smiling now that all three of them were standing there together in the house at long last. “No one is feeding you in New York?”
Ashton chuckled. “I get plenty of food, Mom. I just also have a gym membership that I use from time to time.”
His dad winked at him, his smile turning into more of a grin. “Don’t tease him. He looks good. I wish I’d had a body as fit as his when I was his age. I enjoyed Pringles and soda too much.” He patted his belly as if to prove his point. But he and Ashton both knew that he had a bit of a belly because of all of the delicious food that Mrs. Miller made for her husband. Ashton would look like that, too, if he’d stayed.
After such pleasant conversation with his parents, it was difficult to believe that Ashton was actually there for a sad reason. He patted the front of his legs, looking around the floor. “Where’s Skipper?” he asked. “Where’s my good boy?” He whistled softly, hoping to see the old beagle hobbling into the room with a happy, panting grin like usual.
His parents’ smiles faded a little and his mom’s expression became clouded with concern again. “He’s probably asleep in the den. He doesn’t have as much energy like he used to.”
Ashton’s smile faded as well and he nodded his head a little. Of course the old, sickly dog wasn’t going to be acting the way he expected. He walked down the hall and into the den, careful as he went down the stairs. The room was a bit sunken in and had been added to his parents’ house when Ashton was young. It still felt new to him, and it stood out from the rest of the house even though they’d matched the walls and the polished pine flooring to the original. But Ashton didn’t care about what the room looked like right now. He found Skipper sleeping in his large, gray, plush dog pillow near the center of the den, right between the TV and the fireplace. He’s always liked the warmth there, Ashton thought, immediately going to him and kneeling beside him.
“Hey, buddy,” he said softly to his old friend, scratching him behind his ears. The beagle looked at him and thumped his tail against the bed, clearly appreciating the love even if he didn’t have much energy to give enthusiasm back.
“He’s been lethargic for a while,” Ashton’s father explained, nearly making him jump out of his skin because he didn’t expect his parents to be standing there in the doorway of the den now.
“At first we thought he was just getting old,” his mom said. “But he’s barely eating. He just lays there in his bed or on the floor somewhere else, looking for all the world like he’s depressed. And recently he started vomiting.”
Ashton’s eyebrows knitted a bit as he kept gently petting his dog. It seemed like a lot of bad symptoms had cropped up. Had his parents been ignoring them for some reason? Guilt? “Have you made him an appointment at the vet?”
They looked at each other. “We really do think that it might turn out to be his last appointment,” his dad said sorrowfully, sighing.
That meant that they hadn’t made an appointment, though. “Guys,” Ashton said as he rose up from the floor. “You can’t put it off just because the news might be bad.”
“We wanted you to be here,” his mom said. “In case…”
Her eyes filled with fresh tears and she looked away, as if that might help disguise the fact that she was crying. She wasn’t really fooling anyone.
“I’ll make him an appointment for him,” Ashton said thickly. “But I’ll spend a few days with him first before we go, to say goodbye if—if that’s really what has to be done.”
He didn’t know why he’d been holding onto the hope that his pal wouldn’t be as bad as his mother had described on the phone. It wasn’t as if he’d flown to Meridian on a whim. Still, seeing the poor old dog as sick as he was, and seeing his mom in tears, didn’t make Ashton feel very good.
“Is it okay if I stay here tonight?” he asked his parents, not wishing to assume that he could. Alexa had hooked him up with a nice hotel room nearby as well, but he figured what he could really use was some family time since he was there. It had been a long time since he’d been back home and chatted with his parents about anything other than just the usual mundane stuff.
His mom sniffled, wiping her eyes and then nose on a tissue. “Of course,” she said with a small smile. “We’d never ask you to come all this way and then stay somewhere else.”
He smiled back at her and nodded his head. “Thanks.”
Naturally, his suitcase had been delivered to that hotel room, but he could easily call and have it delivered to his parents’ house instead. Once he’d settled down some and stopped being so embarrassingly emotional.
Instead of worrying about that for the time being, Ashton explored the old, familiar rooms of his youth. Meanwhile, his mom went into the kitchen to make some coffee and his dad reclined in the armchair near the dog’s bed. “So, how have things been here with you guys?” he asked his dad awkwardly, not really knowing what else to talk about. Small talk wasn’t really his forte. And his dad was just as stoic as Ashton could sometimes be.
In some ways it’s like I never left, Ashton thought. But in other ways, it’s like I’m a special guest in my own home. My parents don’t know how to talk to me outside of discussing the dog.
“Oh, we’ve been doing okay here,” his dad said, looking pleased that he’d asked. “You know us. We like to stick to our usual routines. We don’t really get out much.” He chuckled a little. “But there have been some changes to town. There’s a new brew pub. It replaced the bank. I guess we didn’t need three banks.”
Ashton looked at his dad, tilting his head inquisitively. Then he chuckled, shaking his head. “I’m surprised that this town needs two banks,” he joked. It was amusing to him that a new pub could be a point of interest to this town. It seemed like new restaurants opened and closed every day in New York City, but he supposed that was just another difference between city life and life in a small (microscopic, really) town. “Is the brew pub any good?”
“We haven’t been there yet,” his dad said. “Like I told you, we have our routines.”
Ashton just chuckled even more. His dad wasn’t a curmudgeon by any means, but he could be a bit like one of the Grumpy Old Men when he wanted to be.
His mom came back into the den soon after with a tray full of mugs of coffee, cream and sugar. She smiled at him and her husband curiously. “What did I miss out on?”
His dad shook his head, sitting up straight in his chair so he could help himself to some coffee and cream. “Not much. We were just talking about that new br
ew pub.”
“Oh,” she replied, making a face like she’d just devoured a lemon. “My friend Martha told me that it gets pretty noisy there on the weekends.”
Ashton didn’t think that a brew pub sounded so bad, except that he didn’t know if he’d have the time or the inclination to go there while he was in town. He was a man on a mission, after all, and dogs were likely not allowed there. “It’s nice to know that not much had changed here,” he said with a smile. In actuality, that was one of the reasons that he’d been so keen to leave as soon as he graduated high school, but he wasn’t going to say that and spoil the nice mood. He didn’t want to upset them, especially because if they were upset, Skipper would be upset. He was the type of dog that fed off of emotions like that; at least he used to be that way.
“Maybe we should nip it in the bud and go there tonight with Ash,” his dad said suddenly after taking a big sip of his coffee, beating a fist lightly against an arm of his chair. “Since we’re talking about it.”
Ashton smirked a bit before shaking his head. “You don’t have to. I don’t want you to go someplace you might not like on my account. I’d feel bad if it turned out that you really didn’t like it.” And it doesn’t sound that exciting to me. But then again… “Although, if it gives Mom a break from cooking and she wants that, I won’t say no. But I want to spend more time with Skipper here first.”
“We don’t have to go tonight,” his mom said. “I’m not really all that interested, but your dad apparently can’t stop talking about it.” She rolled her eyes a little at her husband.
Ashton was amused that his parents had differing opinions about the place. He brought his hand down from Skipper’s ears and rubbed gently at the dog’s belly instead. In the good old days, the dog had been a big fan of belly rubs, but now it didn’t elicit a single response from him. Ashton noticed this and sighed softly. “It’s okay, boy. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
He and his parents continued hanging out with the old dog in the den for a while, sipping their coffee and reminiscing. Eventually, his mom went back into the kitchen to start cooking dinner since they weren’t going to go to the new pub in town that night. She was more interested in making lasagna from a recipe she found online and Ashton was never one to turn down homemade lasagna.
Later that night, belly full from the delicious dinner, he lay in his childhood bed and looked up at the ceiling, thinking about Skipper and what it meant to come back here to this town and be confronted by so much nostalgia. He wasn’t looking forward to going to the vet with his dog so he planned to take him to the park to play ball in the meantime. I wonder if I ought to try to track down some of my friends from high school, he thought, which was ironic because he never thought about tracking them down before, when he was in his mansion in New York and had full Facebook stalking capabilities at his fingertips. True, he could do such a thing with his phone, but he preferred reading on bigger screens.
His suitcase wasn’t going to be delivered until the following morning because he delayed letting Alexa know until it was too late, but it was okay because the hotel could safely hold it for him. In the meantime, he could make do with things that his parents let him borrow. He was both too tall and too thin for his dad’s pajamas, so they hung or clung to him depending on which place you looked. His parents thought this was just hilarious. In his mom’s typical fashion, she had more than enough toothpaste and toothbrushes, so Ashton didn’t have to worry about that either.
That’s funny, he thought as he lay there, closing his eyes and trying in vain to fall asleep in this familiar yet unfamiliar place. I’ve had planes lose my luggage or send it to the wrong place, but I can’t remember the last time I was totally without any of the things I’d packed. I knew I should’ve brought a carry on.
The thing was, carry ons reminded him of work. If he brought a laptop bag on a private jet with him, it meant that he was traveling for business instead of pleasure. And this trip home, sad as it also was, was supposed to be for pleasure. He’d left Alexa with all of the work to do in his absence, and he didn’t feel too bad about that now that he was out here in Colorado. He had his cell phone if he needed it, but he was going to do his best to devote all of his time and energy to his old pal, who apparently was running out of both.
Chapter Four
Dating apps weren’t something that Becca ever had fun using, but ever since her friends had hung out with her, she’d taken more of an interest in checking them out and seeing who she might mesh well with. There weren’t a lot of singletons her age in Meridian, but the beauty of using an app was that the guy didn’t have to live in the same town as her. Preferably, he’d still live nearby, or at least in Colorado, but she wasn’t going to be too picky about location. She’d never had a long-distance, online relationship before. Maybe I’d really like it? She didn’t really think she would, but with her work schedule being what it was, maybe an long distance relationship was the way to go.
In the afternoon, after her shift at the animal hospital, she clicked into the app on her phone and noticed that she had a message from someone new by the name of Bryce. Becca and Bryce had a nice ring to it. Maybe it was too cutesy, and it was certainly too soon to be imagining their names on wedding invitations. Her friends would’ve loved it, though.
“Hey,” he’d written to her. So eloquent.
Becca would normally ignore a typical message like that, but she was going to be more proactive now. It helped that she thought his profile picture was cute.
“Hey right back at you,” she typed into her phone. “How’s it going? You seem fun. :)”
She put her phone into a pocket of her purse as soon as an Uber arrived for her and she went home before she looked at it again. She thought that not being too eager was one of the best things she could do, especially at the beginning of whatever this might turn out to be. Sure enough, the next time she checked, she had another message from Bryce, and this time it was much wordier.
“It’s going good, how are you? Haha, I hope I’m fun. What do you like to do for fun? Could I be a part of it?”
Becca smiled, even blushing slightly. She appreciated his playfulness. “I’ll be honest, I don’t have a lot that I do for fun. I’m trying to figure that out at the moment. But I’d be happy if you joined me for dinner. Do you recommend any restaurants in the area? (The more chill, the better.)”
She didn’t often message guys like this, and hoped that he wouldn’t think she sounded like a weirdo. Messaging as a means of introduction was definitely better for her than chatting up people in person. Small talk tended to be excruciating for her, even if she was friends with someone, so with a stranger it was always worse. She just didn’t see how the weather or someone’s health was supposed to carry a conversation more than a few sentences.
Thankfully for Becca, Bryce continued to talk with her. He was interested in her small talk, even if she thought it was silly. “I really like this place called Hacienda Colorado,” he wrote back. “It’s in Englewood. Is that okay with you?”
“Sure!” she wrote back, hoping that her enthusiasm wasn’t too jarring for him. “I’m always in the mood for Mexican food, LOL. I’ll meet you there. How does tomorrow at seven sound?”
“:) It’s a done deal.”
Now that she and Bryce had a date set up, Becca felt the nervous butterflies fluttering within her abdomen. Now she was going to actually go meet him in person. And not make a fool of herself, somehow. Also, she was going to need to make sure to request an Uber. I guess not everything can always be within walking distance, she thought. As nice as that would’ve been…
She was jittery all the next morning, thinking about her date. She was proud of herself for actually being proactive for once, but she wasn’t planning on telling her friends about it until afterwards, in case it was just another dud. Then she recalled some horror stories she had read online about meeting dates through apps and she decided to at least tell Erin where she w
ould be going, lest she end the night in a body bag.
“Get it, gurl!” Erin sagely texted back.
Becca smirked as she changed out of her pink veterinarian scrubs and into some gray, pinstriped pants and a nice black blouse with ruffles on the collar and sleeves. She knew that she was dressed more like she was going to a business meeting than on a date, but she didn’t think that club attire was a good choice for a sit-down restaurant date. If she liked him enough, she planned to up her game in the future. As soon as she was finished getting dressed, fluffing up her reddish-brown shoulder-length hair, and putting on a modest amount of makeup, Becca used her phone to hail a ride to Hacienda Colorado.
The ride to the restaurant was about twenty minutes, which wasn’t a problem for her, although as soon as she was in the car and her mind was wondering as they made their way through traffic out of town, she started to second guess it. What if the date didn’t go well? She’d have an awfully long way to ride home afterwards, which seemed like such a drag. She knew that she’d be able to call upon one of her friends if she needed a ride back and didn’t feel like riding home with another stranger, but it always made her feel bad to use her friends for rides. The animal hospital where she worked was actually in another small town called Parker, but it was an easy train ride away or a decent walk when she felt like it, and of course there were rideshares and carpools. Traveling to Englewood felt like a bigger deal, mainly because she didn’t go there very often.
It’s okay, she told herself, clutching the strap of her purse as she sat there in the backseat of the Uber. Nothing bad is going to happen. Just think of yourself as Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit. You’re just going on an adventure.
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