8. Bennett
EIGHT
BENNETT
I’m lying in bed trying not to think about the beautiful stranger sleeping down the hall. Nothing about today went according to plan. I think back to how I froze when I first saw her. Normally I’d have called the dogs off immediately, but I just stood there staring like a moron. I’m mentally kicking myself for letting her be scared at all and then for probably coming across like an asshole by not saying anything.
I try to ignore the little voice that keeps reminding me that I’m not exactly upset that the road is out. It’s not so bad having someone in this huge house with me. But I squash it down because it makes me feel a bit like Heathcliff, and that’s certainly not a character I’d like to emulate.
Rolling over, I close my eyes, willing myself to sleep. But I’m afraid this will be the one time I actually don’t wake at the quietest disturbance and miss Marley needing help. I’m still not sure she’s real. Her lips are what I noticed first, and then when she bit down on the bottom one, that action did something to me. Even thinking about it now, I’m willing myself not to be turned on.
My damn brain keeps taking me back to moments that drew my attention to those lips or the moment I saw her in my clothes.
“You’re a fucking creep.” I reprimand myself, reaching over to my night table to grab my book. Maybe if I throw myself back into the space opera I’m reading, I’ll be able to think of anything else and fall asleep. But the second paragraph has the captain of a ship engaging in some horizontal diplomacy with an alien, and I end up tossing the book to the end of the bed in frustration.
I kick my blankets off and get up, slipping on a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I go downstairs to track down the baby monitor I use for new dogs and set the receiver outside Marley’s door. Then I head out to the barn.
The dogs seem a bit confused as I walk in and turn on the lights. Yogurt, who has never let a little confusion stop him, immediately jumps up and runs over to me. I like to think Yogurt’s enthusiasm for all things is his gratefulness to be out of whatever situation he was in before. I sit down on a dog bed and pull the little dog into my lap, looking around at my family. I laugh to myself thinking about how annoyed my grandfather would be at not only the sheer number of dogs, but the fact I refer to them as my family. He’d probably drop dead of a heart attack if he saw what I spent on the memory foam beds for them, even though the cost didn’t scratch the surface of my current wealth.
I close my eyes and lean my body back against the wall. Today I’ve been puked on, painted with snot, and sprinkled with urine water. Usually those things wouldn’t be included in a day you’d consider great, but I can’t help but label today as just that. The last thing I think, before sleep finally claims me, is “Please, let her love dogs too.”