Two's Company (Four of a Kind #2)

by Kellie Bean

  Maybe one of my resolutions for the new school year should be to stop paying quite so much attention to Noah. Of course that’s the exact moment when he turns and looks right at me, almost as though he could feel my gaze.

  Knowing I’m caught, I wiggle my fingers at him. I’m totally okay with Noah knowing I was watching him.

  "Reece?" Jamie asks from beside me.

  I blink once and shake my head a little to regain my focus. "What's up?"

  "We were just asking if you wanted to head into town to grab burgers with us?"

  It’s so tempting to say yes. While I've seen a lot of people over summer vacation, it’s been a long time since this many of my friends have been in the same place at the same time. I end up shaking my head no instead. "There was something kind of unexpected at the shelter today.” I explain. I deliberately leave out the puppies in case anyone got it in their head to follow me to my volunteer gig. "I kind of want to go back in and see how things are going." After a second and a small bout of hesitation, I continue. "Actually, do any of you guys know John… I'm not sure what his last name is. His aunt is Kendra Bishop. The woman who runs the shelter."

  Emma grins, her white teeth stark against her dark skin. "Oh yeah, I know John. He's a bit of a geek, and he can't play sports to save his life, but he's a nice guy. Our moms are in some book club together, so we end up stuck together sometimes when they do family get-togethers. Why? You like him?"

  "Nothing like that.” I stammer out. “I met him this morning when he came in to help out and didn't even realize we had a class together last year. I just kind of felt like an idiot for not knowing who he was. I guess at this point there are still a lot of people I don't know."

  Jamie laughs. "To be fair, you have been here for less than a year and you probably already know more people than I do. I'm willing to bet you have a bunch of friends back in your old hometown you stay in touch with too."

  I do my best to nod knowingly, not wanting to admit just how little I'd gotten to talk to Aly and Aditi all summer. We had all these plans to get together after the school year ended. They’d come here and I’d get to visit back home, but as the months went on, we talked about it less and less. Now with only a couple of weeks left of summer vacation, it doesn’t look likely that it is going to happen at all.

  That wasn't even the sad part. What really bugs me is how little I really care anymore. I love talking to them and I love hearing about everyone from back home, but there’s a distance now that’s all too easy to explain and not just literally. I’ve made new friends in Fairview and a new life here, while Aly’s and Aditi’s lives have kept going in Virginia. The exact thing we all promised one another wouldn't happen when I moved is happening, and I wasn't even trying to stop it.

  What kind of friend does that make me?

  As a group, we all get up and climb down off the bleachers. It doesn’t take long to walk out around the school and back toward the main street leading into town. Fairview High School isn't big by any standard, I’m totally okay with putting my back to it for at least another week, two if I don't end up making the team.

  Walking back toward the animal shelter, my mind is completely divided between soccer and puppies. I'd woken up this morning not thinking about anything except how badly I wanted to make the team. It was kind of all I’ve been thinking about for months. Now, a big part of me just wants to know that those dogs are going to be okay.

  Chapter 4

  I spend the half hour before dinnertime fast asleep in my bed, only waking for a few seconds at a time as Reilly sneaks in and out of the room, doing her best to stay quiet but not doing a great job. If I didn't have something far bigger I wanted to ask my mom and dad for, I would probably be more inspired than ever to make a play for my parents building new rooms in the attic, so that we could each have one of our own. Our sixteenth birthday is only a few weeks away now, my dad has always been a sucker for sentiment and milestones. After all, sixteen is a big one. Sixteen could be a getting-our-own-rooms kind of birthday.

  I'm not even going to bring the idea up to my sisters because deep down, I just can't stop myself from being a little bit selfish on this one. I'd rather have a dog for two weeks than a room to myself for two years. This could be our last chance at getting our own rooms, but I don’t want to use up any potential parent influence points I have on that. All I want is to convince them to take in one tiny puppy for a couple weeks. If things go well with that one puppy, it could open my parents up to the possibility of getting a dog permanently one day.

  The thought of the puppies is what finally pulls me into being fully awake. I lay in bed for five minutes daydreaming about what it would be like to bring my favorite of the pups home. Would I keep her in a crate by my bed? Or would my parents insist she sleep downstairs by herself?

  No, probably not. She’d sleep with me.

  If I'm going to have a dog in this daydream, I might as well have one that lives in my ideal imaginary life.

  "Guys, dinner is ready." my dad calls up the stairs, banging on the wall at the same time to make sure he gets everyone's attention. If we're not all downstairs in the next five minutes, he’s almost guaranteed to do it again. He's even been known to go all crazy old lady on us and use the broomstick handle to bang on the ceiling, even though it's his own bedroom that sits above the kitchen. We can still hear him just fine.

  Wide-awake due to nerves, I get out of bed and pull my track pants back on.

  I still have Jean-Anne’s party to look forward to later tonight. First, dinner.

  I can do this.

  "I mean, I didn't get any goals or anything." I'm doing my best to be humble as my sisters give my parents a play-by-play of the soccer tryout. Humble is definitely not my default mode.

  "Hey now.” Reilly interjects. “You were great! I'm pretty sure that you're not supposed to make any goals while playing defense. So I don’t think anyone’s going to hold it against you."

  Leave it to my nicest sister to believe my attempt at self-deprecation, then actually try to make me feel better about it.

  I grinned. "Okay, yeah, I was great. But there were some really talented girls out today! A lot of them were on the team last year, so the coach already knows them."

  This time, I genuinely am trying to talk myself down. At least a little. I know without a doubt I did really well at the tryout. I wouldn't go so far as to say I played my absolute best, but I wouldn't rule it out either. Either way, my performance might not have been enough.

  There are no guarantees, which is something I’m not quick to forget. Last year, finding out that we had moved to Fairview too late for me to even attempt to make the team had hit me pretty hard.

  This time, I’m trying not to leave myself open to disappointment.

  I’ve been talking about soccer for almost ten minutes already, and as much as I'm loving that my family is actually trying to sound interested, there's a voice seeping into the back of my head, egging me on to change the subject.

  "I actually had a pretty big win at work today too.” my mom says, finally changing the subject for me, taking matters out of my hands. Have I lost my chance?

  "Wait, one more thing about me." I spit out. My mom shoots me a look that promises she's a little annoyed. A second later, she laughs. "Of course, there's one more thing about you."

  "No, this is actually pretty interesting. I'm not even sure that soccer tryout was the best thing to happen to me today. Okay, I don't know if this other thing is good, but it’s interesting. The end result is you are getting to see some adorable puppy pictures on my phone!”

  Over the next few minutes, I run my family through a play-by-play of my showing up at the shelter in the morning, to getting the puppies from under the dumpster, to my search and rescue of the other two. If anything, I’m going into even more detail than I did for my moves during soccer. Probably because it’s easy to see that my family is far more interested in my daring puppy rescue than they ever were in any of the sports
I play.

  I finish things off by passing my phone around, so everyone can see all of the pictures I took when I went back to the shelter that afternoon after tryouts. John had held up every single puppy for me to get a headshot, after I insisted that the puppies’ eventual families would love to have photos of them from as young as possible.

  I know I would if it were me.

  I also have plenty of pictures of the puppy that I'm already calling mine in my head. I know it's a bad idea, that I'm only going to end up sobbing in my room for a week whenever she goes home with someone else, but for now, I at least know she loves me the most. When I was at the shelter, she spent a whole hour following me around the examination room. When I eventually went to let some of the other dogs out to play, she whined a little at the door for me. I felt a little bad that absolutely everyone's attention was on the puppies, instead of the dogs who had already come to rely on us for not only food but also all of their attention.

  After feeding the other dogs, John showed me how to bottle feed the puppies, I was pretty sure I earned more points with my girl by giving her lunch than I did by saving her life.

  "Do they have names?" Reilly asks, cooing over a picture of the three boy pups.

  "Kendra let John and I each name half of them. I picked Stella, Sophie and Molly for the girls." Molly is my dog, but I don't say that part aloud. "John picked Louis, Milo and Bear for the boys."

  "Bear?" Reagan says with a snort. "Which one of these tiny fuzz balls is named Bear?" I lean over and point out the mostly brown dog to my sister. "He wanted to name him BowBow, but Kendra said we couldn't put that on the website. So he settled on Bear.

  “We can tell people that it's meant like teddy bear, but I'm pretty sure he’s still hoping that little guy will grow up to be the biggest of the litter. Far more ferocious than he looks now."

  My family continues to flip through the pictures for a few minutes more, before my mom finally gets a word in edgewise and has a chance to tell her story about Mrs. McCluskey's burst appendix. As she tells her story, I still can't convince myself to open my mouth and ask the question, or even to tell my family that these dogs are looking for foster homes, and soon.

  If I don't at least try as soon as possible, Kendra will find other people who are more than happy to foster these puppies for her.

  Tonight, I can't get the words out.

  I can see myself missing my opportunity, still I’m paralyzed.

  I want so badly to get the words out, but if I ask and they say no, then it's all over.

  Dinner finishes up, I help clear the plates on autopilot, lost in thought while my sisters keep chatting happily. My dad is already headed to his office, my shot is disappearing just like that.

  Crap. Do something.

  I put a stack of plates in the sink and take a long breath.

  Okay Donavan, you got this. New plan. Maybe it was better that you planted the idea of puppies and didn't press the idea right away. Now your parents are thinking happy, calm puppy thoughts. No stress, no responsibilities.

  No matter how much I try to steady myself, my heart still races even faster. I’ve never had any sort of finesse when it comes to talking my parents into much of anything.

  Now to move on to phase two. My parents have already split up, maybe that's for the best. I could pick the easier target and start there. Then, if I can win them over...okay let's face it, the easier target is my dad. If I can convince him, then I’ll have an ally in asking mom.

  I plug the drain in the sink and turn on the hot water, filling it up with bubbles and promising myself that as soon as the sink is full and the dishes are soaking, I'm going to go. No more waiting.

  The sink fills up way too quickly, but I'm going for it anyway.

  "Are you okay?" Rhiannon asks as soon as I start to move toward dad's office. "Not now. Ask me in like ten minutes. Maybe half an hour. I'll get back to you."

  Okay, so now Rhiannon knows something is up. That's okay. If I screw this up somehow, she's going to be my best bet for coming up with Plan B.

  I stop in my tracks. Slowly, I turn to face my sister who's watching me like I've gone a little nuts.

  It feels like I probably have.

  "Actually, I could use your help with something."

  “What’s up?” Rhiannon asks, looking genuinely curious and a little surprised that it’s her I’m asking.

  It’s fair to say that Rhi and I have been growing apart a little recently, not just because she was in a really weird place for most of last year. She’s been more like herself for months now, but it still feels like the two of us don’t have as much in common as we used to.

  Where I’m social, Rhi likes to keep to herself. Where Rhi loves school and studying… I don’t. Even on the days when I feel like we have nothing in common at all besides DNA, there’s one thing I always know I can count on her for.

  Rhiannon is a pro when it comes to talking our parents into things.

  “I’m kind of hoping that maybe Mom and Dad would be up for the idea of fostering one of the puppies until they’re old enough to eat on their own. I’d do all the work, and the pup would be back at the shelter or adopted into her new home by the time school starts up. It’d be just a couple of weeks.”

  For a second, I’m worried Rhiannon is going to refuse to help me, which means I’ll be stuck doing this on my own even though I still don’t have anything even remotely resembling a plan. “Yeah, all right. I can do that.”

  “Wait… what?”

  “Wait here.”

  Still staring open-mouthed at my sister’s retreating back, I try to piece together what just happened. I’m not sure exactly what I’d been hoping for, probably just advice, but Rhiannon seems all set to handle this all on her own. Or maybe I’ve misunderstood. A minute later, our dad follows her from his office to the living room.

  My youngest sister told me to wait, so that’s what I do. If I do anything differently, I might somehow screw this all up.

  I stay almost perfectly in place, only moving to scan through Facebook on my phone to try to distract myself for nearly ten minutes. By the time I spot Rhiannon’s dyed-red hair coming out of the living room and then back toward me, I’m trying to convince myself that I shouldn’t get my hopes up.

  That's the thing about me… my hopes are always up.

  Rhiannon’s expression is unreadable as she walks back toward me. Yes? No? Maybe? Not a chance in hell?

  I’m not even sure I’m breathing anymore.

  “They said okay.” Rhiannon finally says with a casual shrug.

  Nope. Now I’m definitely not breathing. I replay the last minute over in my head, making sure I heard her right.

  “They said yes?” I ask, just to be sure.

  “Yup.”

  “How did you do that?”

  Only now does Rhi genuinely smile, either pleased with herself or happy to have made me happy. “I told them this would get the whole dog thing out of your system. That you’d realize how hard having a dog is and maybe realize you didn’t want one after all.”

  For the span of a heartbeat, I feel like maybe I’m the one that has somehow been tricked here, but I think I’m just looking to find a pitfall where there isn’t one. “That worked?” I ask.

  “Not quite. I pointed out that it is only for a couple weeks, and that we’re all going to love having a dog around. Especially when it doesn’t come with a lifetime commitment. I mean, really, what’s the harm? Mom looked kind of surprised that she couldn’t come up with a real argument against it. I think she’s actually kind of excited.”

  “Huh,” is all I can come up with to say, the news still settling over me. “Do they want anything from me in exchange?”

  “Nope. Technically speaking, they don’t even really think this was your idea. Just that you really wanted it but were too scared of them saying no to ask yourself… which is mostly, kind of, sort of true. Mom’s going to call Dr. Bishop now for details, probably to convince herself
that this is as easy as it sounds.”

  “It will be!” An uncontrollable grin starts to spread itself out on my face. “I swear I’ll do everything.”

  Rhiannon shrugs again. I can tell she isn’t as unaffected as she’s trying to look. “I know you will. I don’t actually think you’re getting in over your head with the whole puppy thing. You know what you’re getting into. You’ve got this.”

  The rest of the night spins by in a blur of excited squealing and bouncing around my house. I probably hug each of my parents five separate times to try to show them just how excited I am about this. Reilly and Reagan are just as pumped—and as shocked—as I am.

  I’m still running high on puppy excitement by the time I show up at Underhill Beach where Jean-Anne is throwing her birthday party. As my friends and I dance together on the sand, drinking some pretty disgusting brand of beer that Emma got from her brother, I feel like I can take on the world.

  Chapter 5

  My nonstop pacing in front of the living room window is clearly driving my family crazy. I can't seem to make myself stop.

  Kendra should’ve been here five minutes ago.

  It's hard to believe that only last night I didn't think there was any way I could ever make this happen, now thanks to my mom's kick-ass organizational skills, helped along by the fact that Kendra probably doesn't want to have to deal with all six puppies for a minute longer than she has to, Molly is already on her way over.

  Or, at least that's the theory.

  Where are they?

  "Relax." Reagan says from the couch, looking up from whatever comic book she's reading. I can never keep track.

  "You relax." I snap back, even though I know it sounds ridiculous. I just need to be doing something. I don't see how my family, people who have known me my whole life, can have any real expectation of me sitting still and doing nothing.