Chapter 12
Carrie
I came through the door already calling his name.
"Bob? Bob!"
Nothing. No barking. No nails on hardwood. No golden blur launching himself at me like I'd been gone for decades.
I dropped my bag. Kicked off my shoes. Hobbled through the apartment on an ankle that did not appreciate the pace. Living room empty. Kitchen empty. Bathroom empty.
No dog.
I checked behind the couch. Under the bed. Inside a closet where no retriever had ever fit or would ever fit. I was aware, somewhere in the back of my professional brain, that searching behind the shower curtain was not a reasonable response. The rest of me pulled the curtain back anyway.
Nothing.
I grabbed my phone and called Matt. Rang twice, straight to voicemail.
"Matt, it's Carrie. Bob's not here. Call me back."
I tried again. Voicemail. Immediately, like his phone was dead or he'd decided I was a subscription he hadn't signed up for.
A third time. Same.
The panic was doing real things to my chest now, the kind of tightness that doesn't respond to deep breathing or professional composure or any of the techniques you're supposed to use when your brain is showing you a highlight reel of a lost dog in traffic.
Then the doorbell rang.
I opened the door so fast the hinges complained.
Matt. And Bob.
The dog detonated. Jumping, spinning, shoving his entire head into my stomach like he could climb inside me if he tried hard enough, and I dropped to my knees and held on and pressed my face into his fur and the relief was so total it stung behind my eyes.
"Where were you?" I looked up at Matt. "I've been calling for hours."
"My phone died."
"You couldn't find a charger anywhere on the planet?"
"I was busy." He held up a shopping bag. Pet store logo on the side. "Took him to the vet."
I stared at him.
"You took my dog to the vet."
"He needed to be checked out. Shots, vitamins, the basics.
" Matt reached into the bag and started pulling things out.
A box of vitamins. Premium dog food. A blue leash with little paw prints on it.
Treats. A bone-shaped toy. "He's about eight months.
Healthy. No chip, no tags. Probably got separated from someone during the storm. "
He handed me the bag.
I took it. Held it. Stared at him. This man who kept leaving had spent his afternoon buying my dog premium food and a leash with paw prints.
And the weight of it, the quiet thoughtfulness of every item in that bag, made something shift in my chest that I did not want shifting.
Because caring for Bob was caring for me, whether he'd admit it or not, and I could feel the wall I'd spent all morning building start to give at the foundation.
"Thank you," I said. My voice came out smaller than I'd planned.
"Yeah."
"Do you want to come in?"
"No."
Fast. Too fast. Loaded in a way I recognized from my side of a press strategy, the answer that's been rehearsed.
"We need to talk," he said.
Those words. The same ones I'd used on him yesterday, coming back at me now, and they hit differently from this end.
"About last night," he added.
My chest tightened. I kept my face professional.
"It's fine."
"Carrie—"
"Seriously. It happened. We're adults. We don't need to make a thing out of it."
"I need to know if I should be worried."
I stopped.
"Worried about what?"
"About the condom."
I felt the blood leave my face and come back hot.
"We covered this. During. I told you I was on birth control. I told you I was clean. You said 'so am I.' That was the conversation, Matt. We had it."
"I know. I just—"
"Then what exactly are you asking?"
He didn't answer. Just stood there with his jaw working, looking past me into my apartment like the answer was somewhere on my kitchen counter.
And I understood. Not what he was asking, but what he was telling me.
That last night didn't count. That what I'd told him in the middle of it, breathless, with his body inside mine, wasn't testimony he was willing to accept in the light of day.
That I was a risk to be managed, not a person to be believed.
"You want to know if I'm going to trap you," I said. "With a baby. That's what this is."
"That's not—"
"Because that's what women do, right? Sleep with professional athletes and immediately start planning the nursery. That's the playbook you've been warned about."
"Carrie—"
"I'm not those women. And you should know that. You should have known that last night when you looked me in the eye and I told you the truth and you said you trusted me."
His mouth opened. Nothing came out.
"I'm not looking to fall pregnant, Matt. I told you I was on birth control and I am. I told you I was clean and I am. The fact that you need to hear it again, standing in my hallway, with witnesses removed, tells me everything I need to know about what last night meant to you."
He flinched. Actually flinched, like the words had connected physically, and some small part of me felt the impact too.
The part that remembered how gently he'd held me last night.
How careful he'd been with my ankle. How he'd whispered "ask me in the morning" like it was a promise he was still working up the courage to keep.
I'd aimed for that part. I'd hit it. And the accuracy didn't feel like a win.
I didn't soften it.
I shut the door.
Stood on the other side, breathing hard, my hands flat against the wood, listening to him stand there. One second. Two. Then his footsteps, retreating. Then nothing.
And there it was. The quiet that always followed his exits, except this time I was the one who'd made it.
I'd shut the door. I'd walked away. After spending two days furious at him for doing exactly that, I'd become the person who closes the door and leaves the other one standing in the hallway trying to figure out what just happened.
It didn't feel as powerful as I'd thought it would.
Bob pressed his nose into my palm.
I looked down at him. Those big golden eyes, concerned, confused, radiating the simple uncomplicated trust of a creature who had never once questioned whether I was worth believing.
"Boys are stupid," I told him.
He wagged his tail.
I walked to the kitchen. Put away the vitamins, the food, the treats.
Tried not to think about how much all of it had cost, or how carefully he'd chosen the leash, or what kind of man spends his afternoon at a vet buying premium supplies for a dog that isn't his and then stands in a hallway asking whether the woman he slept with is running a con.
The contradiction was going to drive me out of my mind. The tenderness and the distrust, living side by side in the same person, like he couldn't help caring and couldn't help punishing himself for it.
I clipped the new leash to Bob's collar. Blue with paw prints. Expensive. The kind you buy when you actually give a damn.
And I sat on my kitchen floor with my dog in my lap and my back against the cabinet and let myself feel it.
All of it. The anger, the hurt, the humiliation of being asked to prove myself twice.
The inconvenient, persistent, completely unwelcome ache of still wanting a man who couldn't decide whether I was worth the risk.
Bob licked my face.
At least someone trusted me without asking for documentation.