Epilogue
“It’s not big enough!” ten-year-old Marcie cried. “We need to make it deeper!”
Ottis frowned, opening the back door. “What’re you guys up to now?”
“Shhh!” Little feet pattered. The pups ran off, leaving Ottis to face the... massive hole in their backyard.
It had to be a feat of engineering. Ottis stared at the gaping brown nothingness in the middle of all the shrubs. It could fit two of him, if he were to stand on his own shoulders, and it was... wide. So wide. “What the fu—fudgesicles?!” he yelled. “Pups!”
“We’re not here!” nine-year-old Franklin shouted back.
“You’re clearly here, if you can hear me! Besides, I heard you.” Ottis sighed at the shovels abandoned at the bottom of the pit. “I’m not going to explain this to your Papa. You’re going to tell him why you thought digging a massive hole in his backyard was a good idea!”
“It’s your backyard too!” eight-year-old Matthew pointed out.
“Well, yes, which means I’m going to be mad!”
“Eek!” More pattering feet; they were running further away. Ottis sighed.
Luckily, a car came rumbling up the driveway ten seconds later. “Doc!”
“Yes, sweetheart?” Doc asked from the car. He parked and jogged around the mansion, sweeping Ottis off his feet and kissing him soundly.
Well, Ottis could set aside the massive hole and kiss him for a while.
“What’s got you agitated?” Doc asked after they finally broke apart. (Ottis heard the chorus of “Ew”s, but he chose not to respond.)
“You didn’t see the hole, huh?” Ottis said flatly.
“... Which hole?” Doc smirked.
“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Ottis grumbled, his heart skipping. “We’ll continue that conversation later.” He cleared his throat and gestured. “Behold the Deep Hole.”
“Deep—” Doc turned. And stared for a few long seconds. “Huh.”
“Right? The pups did it.”
“We did not!” seven-year-old Karen yelled.
“Don’t lie to me, Karie,” Ottis yelled back.
“Pups. Get over here,” Doc said in his alpha-dad voice. “All of you.”
They shuffled out from behind the mansion, looking half-guilty.
“It’s huge,” seven-year-old Brett whispered to Doc. “Isn’t it amazing?”
Doc huffed. “Well, yes—”
The kids cheered, and Doc cleared his throat loudly. They fell silent.
“But you also destroyed several plants while you were digging that hole,” Doc pointed out. “Some of them were wolfnips, and some were pretty flowers that your daddy likes. Not to mention that a hole that huge is just not safe. You could’ve been badly hurt.”
The pups looked down and shuffled their feet.
Ottis leaned into Doc, tangling their fingers together.
“As punishment, you’re going to put all the dirt back into the hole.
We’re not saying you can’t dig a big hole, but it has to be something we agree on, and we’ll find a spot where it causes the least damage.
You’ll also have to watch out for each other, because big holes can be dangerous. ”
“Okay,” the kids chorused. “Sorry, dads.”
Ottis melted. He stepped forward and hugged all of them, starting with the twins, who were the youngest. Karen and Brett were fraternal twins; Karen, Franklin, and Matthew looked more like Doc, while Marcie and Brett bore more resemblance to Ottis.
On top of their mischief-making, the pups had begun to amass a collection of shopping carts from their family trips to the grocery store; there were five carts wheeling around on the property somewhere.
As the pups trudged off to put the dirt back into their hole, Ottis leaned against Doc, breathing him in.
“I didn’t think our family would keep growing,” he said. “First the pups, and now the carts.”
Doc laughed. “Pretty soon, we’re going to have pets too. Then they’ll all grow up, and they’ll have pups of their own.”
Ottis sighed. “They grow up so quickly. I miss their baby faces.”
“Want to make another?” Doc grinned.
“Well, I don’t see why not.” Ottis returned the smile, laughing when Doc tickled him a little.
“Why were you all digging a hole, anyway?” Ottis called out. “Weren’t you watching that show on TV?”
“You and Papa were talking about holes,” Matthew explained. “So we thought we would dig a hole too.”
Doc froze.
They definitely hadn’t been talking about garden-variety holes.
“Oh gods,” Ottis whispered, hiding his face in his hands. “We need a different way to talk about holes.”
“We do,” Doc said dryly. “Nothing involving pink books, though.”
Somewhere in the mansion, Hijinks cried out gleefully. “Never fear, Probe Master! I will save the day!”
“Oh no,” Ottis muttered.
“Oh yes,” Hijinks replied.
“I appreciate your efforts, Jinks, but not today,” Doc said.
Hijinks answered by cackling.
Ottis sighed deeply, wrapping Doc’s arm tighter around himself. “We live a crazy life.”
“I wouldn’t call this crazy,” Doc said with a grin. “But I wouldn’t give it up for anything else.”