“Is something wrong with him?” Beth asked.
Lottie covered Pickles’s ears. “Beth, don’t say that in front of him.”
Beth shook her head and looked back at the smoking chimney standing near the doorway, puffing away.
“Nope. He was just the biggest in the bunch. A lot of times people want those tiny lap dogs first. But they missed out. Pickles was the sweetest of them all. He’s been a good boy for me. Haven’t ya, Pickles?” She pulled out another cigarette, stuck it in her mouth, and lit the end with the one she just finished.
“Well, what do you think?” Lottie smiled at Beth as she continued to pet the dog who was lovingly rubbing up against her, trying to squeeze himself onto her lap.
“I think he’s going to knock you over into a pile of shit if you’re not careful.” Beth grinned. “The two of you obviously love each other. Adopt him and let’s get out of here before I end up adopting one.”
“Okay, I’d like to adopt him.” Lottie smiled and hugged Pickles.
“Welp, let me just finish my ciggie, and we’ll head on inside, fill out the paperwork, and take care of the adoption fee.” She took a long drag and smiled out the smoke.
“You want come live with me, Pickles?” Lottie scratched behind his black ears. He licked her cheek. She giggled and fell back. She quickly righted herself and looked to Beth to ask if there was shit on her butt without offending the human chimney.
“You’re good. Shit free.” Beth gave her a thumbs up.
After the lady smoked, Lottie bought an overpriced collar and leash from the shelter lobby, signed the paperwork, and payed the adoption fee. Pickles pranced out the door as though he knew exactly what had just happened. He had a smile stretched across his face that seemed to match Lottie’s. Although hers grew by about a mile as they were putting Pickles into the back seat and Grant’s truck came pulling into the lot.
“What are you doing here?” She scratched Pickles head as Grant walked over.
“I told Nana and Tiffany that I was going on a beer run. I just didn’t tell them that I’d be going to Lawton to get it. You two wanna come along?”
“Give me your keys.” Beth stretched out her hand. “I’ll drive your car back to my place.” Beth unhooked the car key from the chain and threw the rest back to her.
“So, this is Pickles. Hey, boy!” Grant scratched him on the back when Lottie pulled him out of the backseat of the car.
“Yup, this is him. Isn’t he cute?”
“He’s a handsome boy. Let’s get him in the truck and go get him some food and supplies.” Grant lifted Pickles into the cab of the truck. He swiftly put his paws on the dashboard and started panting.
Beth jumped into Lottie’s car, blew her a kiss, and took off out of the lot. Lottie waved after her.
“Are you sure your nana isn’t going to be mad at you?”
“I’m a little upset with her, to tell you the truth. I think she’s got it in her head that I need to start a relationship with that girl, and I couldn’t be less interested.”
“Really?” Lottie tucked her hair behind her ear and looked out the window. “Don’t you think she’s pretty?”
“I guess she’s pretty, but she’s pretty annoying, too. I don’t know what Nana could possibly think I’d have in common with a girl in her twenties.”
“I don’t think I’d even want to hang out with my twenty-year-old self.”
“Me neither.”
Grant pulled out of the lot and headed for 62 East to Lawton.
“Remind me to get beer before we come back so that I’m not a liar.” Grant winked.
“I’ll try my best.” Lottie smiled.
The Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge was beautiful out Grant’s window. Lottie couldn’t help but stare.
Grant smiled. “Wanna take a detour? It’s early.”
“I don’t want you to have to be gone any longer than you need to.” Lottie scratched Pickles’ ears.
“We can take a quick drive through. See what Pickles thinks of the buffalo? What do you think, Pickles? Should we go?”
Pickles nudged his head under Grant’s arm and snuggled up against him before laying his head on his lap.
“I think he might want to go home with you instead.” Lottie scratched Pickles’ back.
“No way. He’s just happy that I’m taking him on a boondoggle. Aren’t ya, boy?” Grant scratched Pickles’ back. His finger momentarily brushing against Lottie’s. A tingle surged through her body. She let her hair fall from behind her ear to hide the excitement that danced behind her eyes. She wanted more of his touch. All she could think about at that moment was kissing him. Tucking her hair back behind her ear, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. He was looking over at her. Grinning. Perhaps he was thinking the same thing. Something about the look in his eye made her think he was.
As they drove into the Wildlife Refuge, they slowed and watched for buffalo. Pickles once again put his paws on the dash as though he were the lookout. Grant’s cell rang. He fished it out of his pocket and groaned. “Nana.” He tossed it into the cup holder. “She’s always telling me not to talk and drive so I wouldn’t want to disobey.”
“Are you sure she isn’t going to hate me?” Lottie bit her lip.
“Why would she hate you? I told her all week that I was going to help you get Pickles and supplies in Lawton today. And you know as well as I do that it was no coincidence that Tiffany was at the reservoir today.” He shook his head.
“But if she’s set on you two spending time together, she’s not going to like that you were spending time with me today.”
“Who says she has to know? I went to get beer. I’m going to get some beer. If she asks if we went together, I’ll tell her, but if she doesn’t ask, I won’t offer the information. Don’t worry about it anyway. Nana really is a sweet person. She has no reason to dislike you.”
“I hope so. I hate when people don’t like me.” Lottie tangled her hands around the fur on Pickles’ back paw.
“Who could not like you?”
“Somebody.” Lottie’s mind immediately shifted to David and Veronica. She was sure Veronica didn’t like her, not that she did anything to her. Veronica was the one who stole her husband. And every time David talked to her lately, she knew he didn’t like her, either. She needed to ship out his clothes. She would ship out his clothes. Tomorrow.
Sitting here with Grant made her feel like she was finally ready to admit that David was never coming home and maybe part of her was finally starting not to care.
Pickles barked and made Lottie jump. She clutched her chest. “That scared me! What a big bark from such a little dog!”
“A buffalo.” Grant pointed straight ahead. A buffalo blocked the road. Pickles barked a few more times, looking proud for warning his human companions of the danger ahead. “Good boy!”
The buffalo blocked them for half an hour. “Maybe we’ll get stuck here all day and I won’t have to go home. Tiffany will be sure to be gone by then.” Grant grinned.
“She seemed like a nice person, though.”
“Nice? Sure, I guess. But I’m not interested…in her.” Grant’s eyes locked on Lottie’s.
She smiled. They way he’d added the last part “in her” made her cheeks flush and her neck hot. Her eyes teared. She didn’t know what to say. But she didn’t have to say a word. Just then, Pickles farted. It was loud and smelled like rotten egg. Lottie and Grant simultaneously batted the air away from their noses and rolled down their windows, laughing uncontrollably.
“The first thing we have to do when we get to Lawton is get some quality dog food and get this dog’s ass under control. Brutus used to stink up my truck worse than this. Then I switched him to a raw diet and, well, he still stunk up the truck, but it wasn’t quite as often and wasn’t quite as bad.”
Lottie laughed. She’d never laughed about farting with David. He told her that there was nothing that turned him off more than a woman who farted. She hid e
very single one of hers and never mentioned the topic again.
Chapter Fourteen
Grant
Lottie opened the container with the egg rolls and fished one out for Pickles. He gobbled it down in less than two bites.
“That’s probably not going to help his farts.” Grant smiled at her.
Her cheeks flushed, and she looked out the window. “Yeah, I guess not.”
He loved the way she looked when she was a little embarrassed. The pink in her cheeks suddenly matching her lips, lips he couldn’t stop thinking about kissing. She let her hair fall forward to hide her face. That was something else he noticed she did when she was embarrassed. He wanted to reach over and tuck her hair behind her ear and stare at her face. Only the fact that he was driving stopped him.
He wasn’t ready for their time together to be over, but he knew he had to eat and get back home with the six pack of beer that he would insist he was craving but couldn’t find in Altus. Then maybe he’d say how he ran into an old friend while doing so. Okay, part of him didn’t want Nana to have any more reason to dislike Lottie than she already seemed to have. So what if she’d been married? She was free now, and he wasn’t interested in faking anything with Tiffany just to please Nana or Papa Joe’s memory.
Pickles wagged his tail, patiently waiting for another egg roll. Grant reached over and pulled one from the container. Lottie grinned at him.
“Well, it’s adoption day. He needs to celebrate.” Grant scratched Pickles behind the ear as he chomped the egg roll down and then stared at the container as though trying to will one of them to fish out another.
“Grant?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I should change his name?” Lottie twirled her fingers in Pickles’s back hair. “I’m not sure he looks like a Pickle. How did you decide to name Brutus, Brutus?”
“Oh, he looked like a Brutus. Open the glove box. I’ve got a picture of him in there.”
Lottie opened the glove box and pulled out a picture of an odd-looking dog that reminded her of Scrappy-Doo. “You’re right. He definitely looks like a Brutus. So handsome.”
“He was a good boy. I carry that picture in my truck because I miss having him ride around with me. I know it’s not the same, but sometimes I like to get that picture out, when I’m waiting somewhere since I’m usually always early,” Grant winked at her, “and just look at it and remember all the good times we had together.” Grant did his best not to get teary. He wasn’t sure if Lottie was the type of girl that was turned off by a man who cried.
“Do you ever think about getting another dog?”
“I thought about it, but I figure I’ll just let another dog find me. Like Brutus did.” Grant looked straight ahead. He could hear Lottie sniffle, and he was afraid if he saw any tears in her eyes, he wouldn’t be able to stifle his any longer.
“Do you think I should rename him? Or is that mean?” Lottie gently placed Brutus’s photo back in the glove box and closed it.
“I don’t think it’s mean. I’m sure Brutus wasn’t always called Brutus. They adapt quick, and I doubt Pickles was at the shelter long enough to grow attached to the name. If you’re worried about confusing him, just give him two names for a while and eventually drop the Pickles and just call him by his new name.”
Lottie stroked the dog for a while. Grant glanced over at her a few times, lost in thought. She was beautiful. Everything about her was perfect, and he couldn’t figure out how anyone could have ever let her go.
“Do you want me to take you to pick up your car before we head back to your place?”
“No, I’ll just get it later. Maybe I’ll even take Pickles on a walk this evening and we’ll pick it up then.”
“Okay, then you’re going to have to tell me how to get to your house.”
Lottie gave Grant directions to her little rental.
“I know where that is.” Grant grinned. “My best friend in elementary school lived on your road. Probably just a few doors down.”
Once they pulled into the driveway, Grant started to laugh. “Oh yeah. He lived next door. A crazy old man used to live here who always yelled at us for walking too close to his grass on the driveway. We never once stepped foot on his lawn, but we’d walk just as close as we could to hear him yell from the window, ‘Get the fuck off my lawn. Fuck kids.’” Grant covered his mouth. “Sorry about the language.”
Lottie laughed. “I don’t mind. I hear much worse from Beth every day.”
She handed the Chinese food bags to Grant, pulled open her purse, and fumbled through for the key. “Beth did give me the key. Right?”
“Yeah. I saw her do it.”
Lottie dumped the contents onto her lap, blushing when a tampon tumbled onto the floor. She quickly grabbed it up and slid it under the purse. Grant grinned. Why was she so cute when she was embarrassed?
“Here it is.” She held it up and handed it to him. “Knowing me, I’ll end up shoving it right back in my purse with the rest of this stuff. I really need to clean this out.”
Once everything was back in her purse, Grant handed her the key. She opened the car door, helped Pickles out, and unlocked the house.
“Welcome.”
“Nice place.” Grant removed his shoes the moment he came inside.
Lottie let go of Pickles’s leash, and he promptly scuttled over, hiked his leg, and pissed on the corner of the couch.
“Pickles! No! Bad boy!” Lottie clapped her hands, scooped up his leash, and led him out to the patio. She closed the sliding glass door behind him. “Is adopter’s remorse a thing? I didn’t think about house training.”
“Don’t worry.” Grant followed her into the kitchen as she got a bucket, soap, and scrub brush from under the sink. “He’ll learn. You know what I did with Brutus. I kept him on his leash during the day for two weeks. He went everywhere I went. If he even looked like he was going to hike his leg, I’d make a loud noise and say, ‘No!’ then I’d take him outside. Every time he peed outside, I made a big deal cheering for him and brought him back inside for a treat.”
“Two weeks? What do I do when I’m gone?”
“You can put him in the crate. He’ll be okay in there. And once he’s house trained, you can let him out for a little longer each time you’re gone and see how he does. You might find he goes in the crate anyway while you’re out. Brutus always did while I was gone.”
“That’s not mean? Putting him in the crate while I’m at work all day?”
“Well, call it his den, then. Trust me, it’s not mean. He’ll be less stressed than if you come home and find pee everywhere and start yelling at him. He won’t know why you’re mad and it’ll just keep happening. I promise it won’t take long.”
Lottie began scrubbing the carpet. “I hope you’re right or my landlord will take one look at stains everywhere and kick us both out.”
“Why don’t I bring in the supplies and set the crate up while you do that? Then we can eat.” Grant stuffed his shoes on and went outside. He brought in all her supplies. “Where do you want the crate?”
“Um. How about in my bedroom? Down the hall to the left.” Lottie finished scrubbing the pee out of the carpet, and Grant headed into her bedroom to set up the crate.
He looked around for the best place to put it and noticed a guitar leaned up against the wall near the window. “Do you play guitar?”
“Not well,” she called. “I used to take lessons, but I never practiced enough and kind of gave up. Why? Do you play?”
“Only for about the past twenty years.” Grant could hear Lottie pouring Pickles’s pee water into the toilet and rinsing out the bucket. He moved the guitar aside and set up the crate. Lottie was soon in the room sitting on the bed. He suddenly found himself wanting to kiss her again.
After the crate was assembled, she stood and inspected it. “I guess that doesn’t look so bad. You’re sure he’ll like it?”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. It’s got to be better than
being in the shelter. And you might never need to use it anyway. You’ll figure things out before you know it.”
“Ready to eat?” Lottie tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Yeah. Let’s eat.” Grant followed her into the kitchen, where she handed him a plate and fork. They filled their plates and took them into the dining room. “Hey, would you like a beer? I’ve got some in the truck.”
“No, thanks. Besides, how would you explain to your nana that two were missing when you finally do get back home?”
“I guess I could always tell her I guzzled them in the driveway quick to try to handle spending time with Tiffany.” Grant rolled his eyes.
“You wouldn’t do that!” Lottie laughed, and a noodle flew out of her mouth. “Oh my god, sorry. I’m so gross.” She scooped it up in her napkin.
Grant chuckled and wondered if she had any idea of how cute she was.
After eating, Grant helped Lottie clean up. As she washed the dishes, he grabbed the dishtowel that was hanging on the oven rack, asking her where things went so he could put them away. Since there was only the two of them, it didn’t take long before he sighed, realizing he had better get back home.
“I hope Nana isn’t too mad at you.” Lottie bit her lip as she stood at the door as he pushed on his shoes.
“Don’t worry about it. She’ll probably be a little upset at me, but I’ll just remind her that she had intruded on my plans for the day. Also, that I don’t want to spend any more time with Tiffany than I have to.” Grant grinned. “See you at work on Monday. Text me if you need anything. I know it can be a little overwhelming with a new pet in the house. Tell Pickles I said goodbye.”
“I will.” Lottie leaned on the doorframe as Grant stood on the stoop, lingering.
“I had fun with you today,” he said as his heart pounded. All he could think about was kissing her. He had a split second before he’d either be able to lean in and go for it or turn and walk away.
“Me too.” She smiled, her eyes resting on his in a way that told him he should move in for the kiss.
Easy Love Page 11