Chapter 11
THEN: Freshman Year, August
Bennett
“What are you doing here?”
I really shouldn’t be so surprised. In fact, I’m more surprised that he’s managed to stay away this long before showing up unannounced.
“What are you doing here?” my dad asks as I open the door wider for him. He’s still in a suit from work, sharply dressed as always with his thick curls combed back as best he can manage. “It’s a Friday night. Shouldn’t you be out?”
Behind him, still in the doorway, sits a full-grown black Lab with a little bowtie around his collar.
“Whose dog is that?”
My question goes unheard as Rhys shouts a quick “Hey, Mr. Reiner,” from his spot at the kitchen table between bites of the lasagna I cooked.
“You two should be out, or at a party. What about your teammates?”
“We invited them,” Rhys assures my dad, wiping his mouth and joining us near the doorway. “Whose dog is that?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” I mumble, eyes finding my dad’s gaze again. “Dad?”
“He’s yours.”
My dad means well—honestly, he does. He checks on me often, never cancels on me, never shows up late. He’s gone to therapy with me since I was eight years old, and I truly believe he wants me to be happy.
But as much as he doesn’t want things to be different now—they are.
“I’m doing this because I love you, Ben.” His words are the lyrics to a song that only ever plays in duet with my mother’s crying.
“I didn’t ask for a dog.”
“He’s a therapy dog,” my dad says, meeting my eyes. “Not a puppy, so he’s trained. He won’t chew on your things or pee on the carpet. He’s here to help.”
Rhys grins down at the giant dog sitting quietly at our feet. “He will shed, though.” His words are quiet, as if he thinks the dog will hear him say it and be offended. “Will that bother you?”
The question tells me that Rhys is already on board, which doesn’t surprise me because my best friend has always tried to make life easier for me. While I’ve only made his more difficult.
“I don’t know.”
Cleanliness is a delicate situation for me.
I can never explain it, and I have desperately tried.
I wish I could. Maybe then I wouldn’t have spent years crying over the way my mom served my food or the sickness I felt in trying to sleep in sheets I didn’t wash myself.
Maybe my parents wouldn’t have fought so much.
Maybe the divorce would’ve never happened.
“This has nothing to do with you, Ben,” he says, standing in the corner by the door. “I need you to tell me you understand.”
“I understand,” I say, but I don’t. Not really. And I hate changes. This one seems bigger than most.
“Until the custody agreement is made up, I have to keep my distance from the house. But if you need me—”
I shake myself free from the memory again, staring into the eyes of my dad in the present, not the past. Back then I couldn’t meet his gaze. Now I find his blue eyes steadying.
“Okay.”
Rhys winks at me. “Hell yeah, Ben.”
“Great.” My dad pats my shoulder quickly before pulling his hand away. “I have all his paperwork in the car, and I got him a tag and everything.” His voice trails off as I look down at my new dog.
He’s big, with wide brown eyes that look more forlorn and unsure than most dogs I’ve seen. He’s quiet, a little unsure, and he still hasn’t moved from the doorway.
“Come on in, bud.”
“Does he have a name?” Rhys asks, kneeling to pet and coo at the dog as he slowly trots in. My dad closes the door and shakes his head, wincing.
“They had one for him at the children’s hospital he worked for—Superdog.” My dad smiles, lines crinkling around his eyes. “So I think you’ll have to name him. Any ideas?”
Brow furrowed, I cross my arms and shake my head.
Rhys laughs a little, now fully sitting on the ground with him. “Maybe you should name him Gretzky? Or Crosby?” He shrugs. “Something hockey related, since he’ll be living with us. Name him after one of your heroes.”
“Seven.”
The word pours out of me too fast, and my cheeks heat in the aftermath. I duck my head and scratch at the back of my neck.
“Seven?” Rhys questions. “I think—”
“It’s a great name. A lucky number.” My dad reassures me with another brief touch. “Welcome home, Seven.”
I nod as if I agree.
The truth? I have one hero—and that was his number when he played.
Rhys’s phone rings in the distance and he backs away from Seven apologetically, swiping his phone off the kitchen counter with a rueful grin.
“Miss me already?”
The phone is on speaker, so it’s easy to hear the gruff voice of Max Koteskiy as he shouts to my dad, “You could’ve told me you were driving over.”
My dad only grins at the sound of his angry best friend, walking over to speak closer to Rhys’s phone. “I needed to see Bennett.”
“And I wanted to see my son.” He grumbles something in Russian, which Rhys replies to in the same foreign tongue, shaking his head.
The three of them continue to speak, but I don’t hear it anymore, too distracted by a sudden warmth against my leg.
Seven, sitting nearly on my feet, head titled to my thigh. He looks minorly contented, enough that I can’t tell who is comforting who. I reach my hand down slowly and pet his soft, smooth head.
I’m not sure how long we stand there, staring at each other, but the phone call ends and my dad walks back toward me. Seven stands at the intrusion and I spot the fine dusting of black hairs across my jeans and . . .
And it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel the need to take them off and wash them now. If anything, it brings a hint of a smile to my lips, knowing he’s leaving a mark in his own way. The warmth of his body on my leg, the heavy weight on my foot—it felt calming.
All right, Seven. Maybe this will work.
My dad leaves much later, after having dinner with us and checking on me a little heavy-handedly—again. I pretend I don’t see him asking Rhys if I’m all right before demanding I follow him outside to his car. Practically pushing me down the sidewalk.
“You promise that you’re—”
“I’m fine,” I say for the four hundredth time. “Honestly. I’m . . . great, actually.”
His eyes twinkle in the amber streetlights, seeming younger by years at my light confession. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” I skate a hand through my messy waves and step closer. “Don’t tell anyone, but . . . there’s a girl.”
If possible, his eyes glow brighter. “Tell me about her.”