by Parker, Ali
“But what if he gets lonely or sad?” she’d demanded, and she’d squeezed him into a tight hug and hit me with a hard look.
“He’ll be fine—”
“Can you take him into work with you?” she’d pleaded. “Just for today? I don’t want him hanging around all by himself.”
I sighed but conceded the point. She probably was right, after all. We had just taken this little guy in, and I didn’t want him to think that we didn’t care about him. Besides, the thought of him sitting at home all by himself actually made me a little sad, and I didn’t want to have to put him through that.
So after I had dropped Winnie off at school, I took the newest member of the family along to the office. I had no idea how people would react to him, but I would just keep him under my desk and hope that he didn’t get in the way of anything too serious. What I hadn’t counted on, though, was Yara practically shooting ten feet into the air when she saw him and then crouching down on her knees to greet him for the first time.
“Okay, and who exactly is this little guy?” she cooed excitedly as she scratched under his chin. Tink flopped onto his side and allowed her to pet his tummy. He seemed to relish any attention that he could get, and I knew it was going to make him a popular friend of all the guests we’d have at the house.
“This is Tink,” I explained. “He’s our new dog.”
“Okay, okay, reel it back,” she replied, not taking her eyes off the dog. “When did you get a dog?”
“Yesterday,” I told her.
“And why did you get a dog?”
I sighed. Did I come out and tell her the truth? I knew that she would be so pleased to hear that I had taken such a shine to Raina, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to get her hopes up or anything.
“All right, so you remember that date that you set me up on?” I asked her.
She nodded at once. “How could I forget?”
“Well, the woman on the date, turns out that I knew her already.” I launched into the full story of everything that had led to me getting my hands on this new family member. The whole time, Tink was flopping around on the floor, playing for attention from Yara.
Yara laughed when I had finished up my story. “I can’t believe any of that. You really just went ahead and adopted a dog because you wanted to see this woman again?”
“Hey, now, that’s not quite what it was like,” I protested.
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Oh, yeah? Because that’s a lot like what it sounds like.”
I grinned and ran my hand through my hair. “Winnie had been bending my ear about it for weeks,” I replied. “It just worked out that way. That’s all.”
“Okay, and please tell me that you actually asked her out again,” she told me.
I shook my head. She tossed her hands in the air, and Tink dove to his feet, as though he was sure she was about to toss a ball for him.
“I didn’t want to,” I admitted.
Yara shook her head at me. “Oh my goodness, what does it take for you to actually go after someone you like? I thought you were meant to be all badass and not playing by anyone else’s rules.”
“She said no before,” I pointed out. “I don’t want to hassle her.”
“Yeah, and she agreed to see you again when she could easily have palmed you off on someone she worked with,” Yara fired back. “You know that, right?”
“She said she just wanted to make sure that we got a dog who was right for us.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m sure she did,” Yara replied. “But she’s into you. Or at least, she’s curious about you. Trust me. She wasn’t just doing that out of the goodness of her little animal-loving heart.”
“Such a cynic.” I chuckled, shaking my head. I needed to change the subject. I didn’t want to spend much longer debating this with Yara, or else I might actually start buying into what she was telling me.
I liked Raina, sure, but I wasn’t interested in pushing her to go out with me again. She knew it was on the table for me, and she could have asked me herself if she’d wanted to.
“Anyway, I was thinking about that shelter that we got him from,” I continued, shifting the subject to something that I had a little more control over. “And I thought it might be a good place for us to donate some cash, you know? Get some good press coming in our way.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure the fact that you would get on Raina’s good side is just a nice side effect, isn’t it?” she asked.
I shrugged. I wasn’t going to argue with that.
“They’re clearly working with limited funds,” I replied. “They could do with a cash injection wherever they can get it. Not to mention the fact that it’s a dog sanctuary. I can’t think of any choice that’s going to be as non-controversial as that. Nobody is going to protest us giving money to dogs, are they?”
“I guess you have a point,” she said. “And you’ve already put your money where your mouth is and gotten one yourself, so you’ve got that going for you.”
“Just what I was thinking,” I replied. “You think you could get that set up? I can give you the details of the shelter and everything.”
“Sure thing,” she said. “You keep him around, okay? Could be a good photo op for the two of you at work together somewhere down the line.”
“Always thinking like a businesswoman,” I teased her.
She held her hands up. “Hey, that’s what you keep me around for, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “Don’t know what I would do without you.”
“Well, you wouldn’t have gotten your hands on this dog, for one,” she pointed out. “If I hadn’t set you up on that date...”
“Hey, I think you underestimate the convincing powers of my niece,” I replied. “I’m sure she’d have gotten me to give in some time or another.”
“Nonetheless, I’m taking full responsibility for this,” she said as she leaned down to give Tink another cuddle. “Which means I get to see him whenever I want, right?”
“Something like that,” I agreed. “Though you’re going to have to fight Winnie for him. She’s already treating him like her little baby. I don’t think you’re going to have an easy time getting through her to get your hands on him.”
“Bring it on,” Yara said with a grin. “She’s little. I’ll win. Anyway, I’m going to go get on this shelter and see what I can set up. You take care of this little guy for me, okay? I’ll be back to see him as soon as I get the chance.”
“See you,” I said, and with that, she headed out to leave me to the rest of my day.
It went by pretty quickly, maybe because I could take breaks to let Tink run around outside or maybe because I got a bunch of people sliding into the office to come meet our new little company mascot. Either way, by the time I was finished up for the day, I knew that our office was about as dog friendly as it could get.
I headed over to the school to pick Winnie up, and as soon as I got out of the car with Tink, she practically sprinted toward us to greet us. She pounced on Tink and wrapped her arms around him tightly, hugging him close. It was in that moment that I realized just how much this little dog meant to her.
He might have been a funny little thing, with his mustache and his too big ears, but he was a creature who loved my niece without question. And she needed that, perhaps more than she needed anything else in her life right then.
Once they had finished greeting each other like long-lost friends who had been apart for several straight months, I got them both into the car and drove back to the house.
“Was he okay at the office?” Winnie asked, already fretting and fussing over him. He had his head in her lap, knowing that she was the one that he could suck up to to get anything he wanted.
“He was great,” I replied. “Everyone loved him. He’s already getting to be very popular down there.”
“Well, they’re all going to have to learn how to share,” Winnie remarked, mostly to herself, and Tink lifted his head and gazed at her with those big brown e
yes.
I glanced at them both in the mirror as I pulled to a stoplight. I had to admit there was something utterly heartwarming about seeing them both so happy. I didn’t know what Tink had been through to land him in there, but whatever it was, that was behind him now. I hoped that his arrival would go some way toward doing the same thing for Winnie, too. I could never make the pain go away, but at least we could make it a little easier to bear for her.
We got home, and I let Winnie and Tink play in the garden for a little while. She had asked about letting him sleep in her room, but I wasn’t sure I was totally on board with that yet. Still, I found myself gazing out the window, watching the two of them play, and I smiled to myself. Yes, it wasn’t what I had expected, but maybe this little guy was just what we had needed.
I resolved right then and there to do everything I could to make my whole life more dog friendly. I wanted to make sure that Tink could be everywhere that Winnie went, as much as was humanly possible at least. I had the power, I had the money, and dammit, I was going to use that to make sure that this dog got to stick to his new owner’s side like glue. Anywhere she went, he would go because I knew it would make her happy. And I would have done anything to ensure that.
I called Winnie in to do her homework, and she happily skipped inside and sat at the kitchen table to begin her work. Tink snuggled beneath her feet, catching his breath, panting slightly. I pushed a bowl of water toward him and smiled when he started drinking like it was the best thing he’d ever tasted in his life. He was such a happy little thing. No matter what he had been through, he was with us now.
And I was going to make sure that the time he spent here was the happiest of his life.
Chapter 14
Raina
As I packed up my stuff for the day, I heard my phone buzz where I had left it in my pocket. I turned to check who it was, clicking open the message that was waiting for me in my inbox, and I couldn’t help but beam happily when I saw who was waiting for me.
A picture of Winnie and Tink curled up on the couch together. It looked like the two of them were both passed out asleep. I pressed my lips together and smiled. Gosh, they looked like they couldn’t have been any happier if they had tried. It filled me with joy to see two such sweet little things who had been through so very much taking care of one another. This was how the universe worked sometimes, it seemed, bringing together those who needed each other most.
The picture came with a note. Thank you for this. They’ve both tired each other out. I think he’s going to fit in just fine.
I smiled down at the message. It was the first I had heard from Harry since the day he had come in and picked out Tink to take home with him, and it made me happy to think that I had been on his mind enough that when he had seen the two of them together, he had thought of me.
I hovered my fingers over the keys, trying to figure out what I should say back, and then I remembered that I didn’t have to respond. Not right away, not now. I actually had to finish cleaning up the office before I headed out to meet my brother and Lizzie for dinner together. And besides, I wasn’t going to start dropping everything to bend over backward and make sure that he didn’t have to wait on my messages. I wasn’t that interested. Right?
Maybe I was. Maybe I was, and I was just trying to convince myself that I was still the one in control here, even when I had been thinking about him nearly nonstop for the last few days and wanted nothing more than to just see him again, to talk to him, to hear from him, to tell him that I hadn’t been able to get him out of my head and find out just what he was doing this weekend and if there was any chance at all that I could come join him.
Ugh. This was why I kept my head out of the dating scene. It was just more trouble than it was worth. More headspace than I had room to sacrifice for it. I should have stuck to being focused on my work, not getting caught up in this one guy and this one girl and this one dog.
I jammed in some headphones and listened to some music as I finished cleaning up, hoping that was going to be enough to keep my mind on the matter at hand and firmly away from Harry and Winnie. They were happy, and that was good. It meant that Tink wasn’t going to turn up on our doorstep any time soon. That was all. That was it. That was the only thing I needed to consider.
I changed out of my work clothes and put on something that was a little more suited for the dinner that I had ahead of me. Honestly, I wasn’t much looking forward to it. I liked Lizzie, but she could be so high energy, and I felt like I needed nothing more than to get some sleep and forget about everything that had happened the last few days. But Reed loved her, and I loved that he wanted me to be a part of their lives, and that meant that I wasn’t going to be an antisocial asshole for a change and actually go out to dinner with the two of them.
I headed across town and managed to miss the turn that I was meant to be taking to the little Italian place that we were headed to. I sighed. Man, my head was a mess these days. Was this all that it had taken, just a guy rolling into my life, and then everything just became about him, him, him? If that was the case, then dating could suck it because I wasn’t into any of that.
By the time I got to the restaurant, the two of them were already there. Lizzie waved to me as I came through the door, and I put on a smile and waved back. I didn’t want either of them to see that I was thinking about Harry. The last thing I needed right now was for them to get all invested in a relationship that I knew was never going to happen, not really.
“Sis, it’s so good to see you,” Reed said, getting up and giving me a hug.
Lizzie reached over to squeeze my hand, beaming widely. “It feels like it’s been so long!” she exclaimed as I took my seat.
I wondered how she managed to keep up such a bouncy attitude all day long. I felt like by the time work was over, I wanted nothing more than to crawl into bed with some junk food and binge watch some true-crime documentary. Still, it suited my brother, who had just as much excess energy as she did.
“It really has,” I agreed.
Reed raised his eyebrows at me. “So, I was telling Lizzie about the guy I set you up with,” he remarked. “And she wants the inside scoop just as much as I do.”
“Well, I want a glass of wine more than either of you two want anything else,” I replied, and I waved down the waiter. “Feels like it’s the least you owe me after you set me up like that without telling me.”
“Yeah, yeah, all right,” he agreed, and I smiled at him. My brother knew when he had overstepped the mark, and he knew for damn sure that he had done just that when he had gotten me all wrapped up in a date that I never wanted to go on in the first place.
The food was good, and the conversation flowed, and I managed to keep it, for the most part, away from my dating life, much to my relief. Even though Reed poked and pried a little, I deflected his questions. I doubted he wanted to hear the answers to them anyway. He was just trying to find an excuse to set me up again, and there was no way in hell that I was allowing him to do that.
After a while, the conversation turned to Lizzie’s work, and we chatted a little about her current case, something for some big business who were suing an even bigger business for their troubles. Something to do with infringement on a copyright. I really didn’t follow the story that well, but I nodded along anyway.
“These people need to get a grip on reality,” Reed remarked, shaking his head. “Focus on what really matters in life.”
“Yes, but then where would I get my work from?” Lizzie reminded him with a chuckle.
“Yeah, that’s a good point,” he conceded. “But we all can’t be Harry Porters, can we?”
I dropped my fork.
Reed looked over at me. “You all right, sis?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” I assured him, and I furrowed my brow at him for a moment. “Sorry, did you just say Harry Porter?”
“Yeah, what about him?” he asked. “You know him or something?”
“Yeah, actually, I do,” I r
eplied. And this time, it was Lizzie who practically dropped what she was holding.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” she said. “You know him?”
“That was the guy you set me up on the date with,” I explained, nodding toward Reed. “And the one who I helped out with the dog.”
“Oh my God,” Lizzie said. “Oh my God. No way. You’re really sure it was him?”
“Yeah, I’m really sure it was him,” I replied, and I was starting to wonder what the hell was going on. It was practically the same reaction that the girl at the shelter had had when she’d found out his name. Something was up with Harry, and I had no idea what it was. I wanted to find out what I was missing out on.
“You don’t know who he is, do you?” Reed asked.
I shook my head again. “No, but I would appreciate it if someone could think about telling me sometime soon.”
Lizzie clasped her hand to her chest as though she was just taking a moment to savor the fact that I truly, actually, really had no clue what she was about to tell me.
“Okay, I want to be the one to tell you,” she announced. “I want to see the look on your face.”
With that, she explained it to me. It turned out that Harry was an heir to one of the biggest companies in the state, if not the country. We were talking billions of dollars, all of which belonged to him, more or less. He was set for life, if not several lifetimes. His whole family had more cash than anyone could know what to do with, but he had mostly kept to himself lately, since his sister had passed.
He had gotten around back in the day, but that had changed when he had taken in his niece and started caring for her. There was a lot of speculation about when he would settle down and who he would do it with. He was considered one of the city’s most eligible bachelors.
“And you were the one who actually scored a date with him!” Lizzie finished up.
I couldn’t say a word in response. I couldn’t believe that all of this was actually true. It all added, up though. All those people who had reacted to him like he was the second coming of Christ. The expensive suit, the car, all of it. This was a man who lived the kind of lifestyle that I could never have imagined in a million years, and yet he was humble enough about it that I had managed to meet with him twice and not have it come up once.