32. When You Know
WHEN YOU KNOW
CHLOE
I always thought it was a lie in books—the idea that you have a spring in your step. Now I know where the spring comes from.
Great sex.
No surprise that I’m practically bouncing the next morning. After an early-morning rehearsal at the community theater—where Captain hung out in the auditorium like the goodest boy in the world (well, he is a theater dog, and he knows it well)—we leave and walk toward Dog Tails.
He’ll spend the day there. Why would I not take advantage of free dog daycare? It’s the best benefit ever. As I walk to work, I’m practically whistling a happy tune. I pass the gourmet market, waving to Salma, who is outside arranging a flower display.
“I just dropped off Dandelion at Dog Tails,” she says. “She’s so happy there.”
“It’s like a dog Fantasia,” I say.
Salma cracks a rare smile. “It certainly is.”
I continue past her. The Slippery Dipper is in my sights, and since my first appointment isn’t for fifteen minutes, I decide to pop in and say hello to Noah.
I’ve heard from my mom that he’s already back on his feet and working with crutches.
When I pop into the store, he’s sitting on a stool behind the counter, arranging a display of lotion bottles, his red hair falling over his forehead.
I tilt my head and give him a sympathetic look. “How are you doing?”
He looks up. “I would’ve been better if the theater gods didn’t take everything so literally,” he says, his spirits still bright.
“I’m really sorry that happened,” I say, nodding to his cast.
“It’s okay. The wife’s been taking good care of me, and it only slows my kid down a little bit. I’ve been reading to him more and playing extra games.”
“That’s sweet.”
“But I hear the guy filling in is pretty good,” Noah says with a smile, looking on the bright side. “I’m relieved. Let’s be honest, he had big shoes to fill.”
I laugh, thrilled that word of Sawyer’s singing prowess has made it back to Noah. “He sure did. He does. You have been delighting us with your voice for years.”
“Just glad he’s filling in,” Noah says, shifting his focus to rearranging a pyramid of sage and rosemary soaps on the counter. “Not that jackass who framed you for the balloons.”
My eyes pop. Captain even perks up. “How did you know that?”
“He kept posting on his social about those dumb balloons,” he says, then winces. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be saying bad things about your ex.”
I laugh. “Please feel free. He deserves it.”
Noah wipes his brow in a phew gesture.
“But…my sources tell me my replacement has been good to you,” he says, a little delighted.
Or, really, a lot.
“Who are your sources?” I ask, dying to know.
“I can’t tell, but I don’t think it’s entirely a secret that you two maybe have a thing for each other,” he says.
I guess we were never good at hiding…anything. I think of Esmeralda, how she was on to us. Veronica sensed it too. Then Poorna figured it out. Are we the town’s worst-kept secret?
Maybe, but I admit nothing—just smirk with a Cheshire-cat smile. Even as butterflies erupt in my chest. I kind of like how obvious it is to everyone.
Except, I’m not sure I want the staff at Dog Tails knowing.
It’s just still so complicated. If everything blows up, I don’t want Hazel, Levi, Zuri, and Nisha to feel like they have to pick sides.
I definitely don’t want it to be weird working with Happily Maybe After either.
I suspect Alexandra has a low tolerance for romance in the workplace.
Concern swims through me about how it could all fall apart and the ripple effects.
“He’s the one you were asking for advice about back in June, right?” Noah asks, pulling me from my worried thoughts.
Damn, Noah’s good. No wonder he’s the town’s romance guru.
“Yes, he is.”
“I had a feeling,” he says. “So he showed up for you?” He sounds ridiculously pleased, like he knew his advice would come true.
I think back over the last few weeks. Sawyer fixed my car. Appeared at the dog park and put my ex in his place. Often walks my dog. Runs with my dog too. Slices me mangoes. Stepped up to fill in at the fundraiser even though he could have made another choice—blackmail aside.
He shows up in other ways. Like when he says he enjoys watching me work, how he’s helped me build my business, how he talks me up, and most of all, how he believes in me. In this steady, supportive, quiet way.
All at once I know—this spring in my step isn’t from great sex. It’s something dangerous. Dreadful. And pretty unavoidable.
My stomach flips with the terrifying realization, but I’m pretty sure I’m falling for…my co-worker. My sort-of landlord. My dance partner. The man my business is inextricably linked to. The man I’m sharing secrets with. And nights and days too.
I say goodbye and leave, noodling on all these new thoughts as Captain and I walk the rest of the way to Dog Tails.
When I head into the daycare center and dip into my training nook, my heart thunders in my chest. On the bench above the cubbies sits one red rose, along with a box from The Sweet Spot. And inside it is a cinnamon roll.
It’s not just great sex at all. It’s so much more.
* * *
The next day, we’re wandering through a corridor at the Darling Springs Little Friends Rescue, an offshoot of the flagship San Francisco rescue group. It’s on the outskirts of town, and you can smell the ocean breeze from here, along with the strong scent of disinfectant and hopeful stray.
The cat room is down the other side of an orange concrete corridor, and we’ve been combing the rooms of dogs in the main hallway—each one with some dog beds, toys, and a cardboard piece of paper detailing info about the mutt on the window.
Good with cats. Best without kids. Would do well with another dog. That kind of thing.
Sawyer’s pace is deliberate. He stops at each room, his jaw set hard, his eyes intense as he checks out the pups, stopping to say hi to each one.
At a Pit Bull-Lab mix who wags a hopeful tail his way, Sawyer drags a hand through his hair and blows out a breath. “How do I even choose? I want to save them all.”
“I know,” I say, my chest aching, feeling the same. “But you’ll know when you know.”
He swings his gaze past a Boxer mix, then a Lab-Husky, then a dog with so many breeds in it, I’m not sure anyone knows who he is. Sawyer winces, like it pains him to pass them up, and I bet it does.
It pains me.
When we near the end of the concrete corridor, he stops, and studies the dog behind the glass, then reads the info card. A Finnish Spitz-Basenji mix.
“He looks like a fox,” Sawyer says of the tawny pup with pointy ears who stands tall as he scampers toward Sawyer, his curly tail wagging inquisitively. The card says he’s eight or nine and his name is Foxy, but I suspect that’s likely the name the shelter gave him.
“I wonder what his story is,” Sawyer muses, right as the shelter coordinator walks our way, lugging a plastic container full of syringes.
She stops and nods toward the room. Her dark eyes are friendly behind her black glasses, though her demeanor is super businesslike. “His owner passed away.”
My throat tightens.
Sawyer’s expression softens. “And no one could take care of him?”
The woman shakes her head. “No family.”
My chest hollows out. For the owner. For the dog.
“Do you know what his name was before?” I ask, out of curiosity.
She smiles. “Just…Dog.”
The grin spreads across Sawyer’s face as he turns to me. “It was meant to be.”
I think it was.
* * *
Sawyer and the dog hang out for a good hour, getting to know each other and taking a short walk around the block.
He signs the contract, thanks the shelter coordinator, and then we leave.
On the drive home, with the dog in a crate in the backseat of Sawyer’s car, I say, “You can’t really have a dog named Dog. ”
“Why not?”
“Sawyer,” I say with a sigh.
“Seriously. Why not?”
“He’s not a plant or a car.”
He goes thoughtful as he drives toward his home. “You’re right.”
“You’ll give him a real name then?”
At the stop sign, he flashes me a smug grin. “Yes. I will call him…Mister Dog.”
Nothing is more Sawyer, and I love it.
What I love, too, is how he let me help him set up his home for Mister Dog, since we picked up a collar with ducks on it and a leash, bowls, a bag of food, a dog bed, and dog stairs at the little pet shop next to the rescue.
“Well, it’ll help him sleep on my bed,” Sawyer explains, as if I needed an explanation.
The next morning, I wake to a text from Sawyer. It’s a photo of Mister Dog in bed with him. They both look sleepy and happy. My heart feels dangerously full.
On Monday night, it’s time for another dance lesson.
But this one’s at the theater. This one’s just for us.
My mother gave me the key, and it’s well past nine as we practice and practice and practice.
With Sawyer singing about flying to the moon, then reaching for my hand during the prerecorded instrumental bridge, we dance until he’s as smooth as the singer he’s replaced.
“And this is another thing you’re good at,” I say when he dips me, then sets me down on the piano bench so I can finish playing the song while he sings the final chorus of the romantic tune.
But he doesn’t return to center stage. He sets down his mic on the glossy black baby grand. I keep playing, figuring he’ll improvise.
And I suppose he does. He slides behind me on the bench, one leg on either side of mine, his chest to my back, his face to my neck, his lips on my cheek.
I gasp but keep playing.
It’s hard, though, since he’s kissing me, his open-mouthed caresses turning my brain to mush.
Soon, my fingers are sliding off the keys, and his fingers are pulling up the silky fabric of my dress, then running along my inner thighs, and I’m pretty sure he wants to fly me to the moon in a whole new way.
In no time, he slips his fingers inside my panties. This wasn’t what we came here for, but it feels inevitable.
My breath catches, and somewhere in my mind I’m keenly aware we’re on the stage in a community theater at the piano bench.
But somewhere in my body—or everywhere, really—I’m aware of how much I want him to keep touching me.
“Don’t stop,” I whisper, my voice needy, a plea.
“I won’t,” he says as he kisses my jaw.
It feels like a promise.
The other thing that feels like a promise? When he taps my thigh, tells me to stand, then says, “Get on me.”
It’s a rough, dirty command.
But a necessary one, too, as he adds, “Need you so fucking much.”
It feels like more than sex as I slip out of my panties and hand them to him, and he undoes the zipper on his slacks, freeing his erection. I straddle him on the piano bench, in the theater, under the lights, with no music playing but the notes in my head.
The refrain of “Fly Me to the Moon.” The romantic words, the promises, the possibilities. I feel them all as Sawyer fills me and fucks me and kisses me like everything between us is inevitable.