Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
The list of people Sam did favors for was short. The list of people Sam would drop whatever he was doing to help them was even shorter. He wasn’t sure how Lacey had ended up on both of those lists, but as he pulled into the parking lot of the vet clinic, he couldn’t deny that she was on them.
Her voicemail had nearly stopped his heart. He’d denied the call because he didn’t know the number. When the voicemail had popped up moments later, he almost ignored it because he assumed it would be an IRS bot scammer. But the shaky sound of her almost in tears scared him half to death. The next time he talked to his therapist he was going to have to bring up how his mind immediately jumped to things like kidnapping or car wrecks. A dog was, in comparison, a minor problem.
The vet clinic smelled like antiseptic and wet dog. Sam’s nose wrinkled. But he carefully smoothed out his expression because Lacey was sitting on the floor with a filthy dog in her lap, carefully picking debris out of its coat, talking to it in a soft, soothing coo.
Sam cleared his throat, and the dog’s ears perked up. Lacey looked up and gave him a relieved, grateful smile. He might as well have slayed a dragon or rescued her from a tower, or whatever it was knights were supposed to do.
“Is this the dog?” he asked, noting the muddy pawprints in the lobby and on Lacey’s gray sweatshirt.
“This is Daisy,” Lacey said, scratching the dog behind her ears.
“Not Pig-Pen?” he joked.
“Chris said there’s a dog wash in the back of the pet store.”
Sam frowned. Who was Chris?
A tall, broad-shouldered blond man came out from the back room. Jealousy and attraction wrestled for dominance in his brain, because if Sam thought the guy was hot, Lacey probably did, too.
“You must be Sam,” the man said with a friendly smile. “I’m Chris McMahon. I think you know my brothers.”
A McMahon. Of course he was a McMahon. Now that he’d introduced himself, Sam vaguely remembered one or all three of the brothers he knew talking about one of them moving back after school. That must’ve been Chris they were talking about.
“I do know your brothers,” Sam said with a complete lack of charisma.
“I feel like I need to apologize for two of them.” Chris’s friendly smile continued, and Sam needed to forcefully guide his brain back to the matter at hand.
“The twins are great. Cole’s meat is great.”
From the floor, Lacey covered a laugh with a cough.
Chris folded his arms, and Sam could see a vague outline of biceps through his Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine sweatshirt. “So, Lacey and I gave Daisy a quick exam, got her updated on her shots and meds. She’s a very good girl, just needs a bath, some food, and some snuggles.”
“I’ve been working on the snuggles,” Lacey said.
“I can send you home with some dog food,” Chris offered. “Enough to get you through until Monday.”
“I would appreciate that,” Sam said, crouching in front of Lacey and Daisy. “Hey, Daisy. Do you want to come home with me?”
Daisy’s tail thumped against the tile floor as it wagged. Sam cautiously extended his hand for her to sniff, which she did with great enthusiasm. The first tentative lick kicked him straight in the heart.
“Is that how you usually ask girls to go home with you?” Lacey teased.
“You know how I ask girls to go home with me.”
They decided that Daisy would ride in Lacey’s car to the pet supply store. Daisy seemed very comfortable with her, and Lacey’s car was already dirty. Sam put a note in his phone calendar to get her car detailed. As cute as Daisy was, the dog reeked.
The pet supply store had a lumberjack’s hideaway vibe. Sam didn’t know how else to describe it. There was a lot of wood and flannel. There was a full-service groomer on the premises in addition to the self-wash stations, but the kid working the cash register assured him that the groomer was fully booked up for the next few days, so Sam took a card. He didn’t have a lot of confidence in his and Lacey’s abilities to get Daisy fully clean.
“When I said I wanted a date, this wasn’t what I had in mind,” Lacey said as they lifted Daisy into the metal tub.
Right. Her text. He’d seen it after she called him.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Something that didn’t involve me smelling like dirty dog.” She held out the hem of her sweatshirt to assess the damage to her sweatshirt.
“Do you want to come over and help her settle in after this?” Sam offered.
Lacey’s cheeks turned pink. “I don’t think I have enough gas to get to your house and back.”
“We can stop at a gas station so you can fill up.”
“I also don’t have enough money in my bank account to fill up my gas tank.” Lacey turned on the water to avoid looking at him.
“I can fill up your tank.”
Lacey shook her head as she sprayed Daisy down. “I know I’ve made some jokes about you paying for everything, but I don’t want things to get weird between us.”
Sam frowned. “What do you mean weird between us?”
“Money makes things weird. You’re already doing me a huge favor by taking Daisy in for a few days. I can’t ask you for anything else. At least not today.”
“It’s a tank of gas, Lacey,” Sam insisted.
“Yeah, and it all adds up. Trust me. A little here, a little there, and one day you’re annoyed that you’re buying me coffee instead of the other way around.” Lacey got the nozzle close to Daisy’s fur. It was amazing how much dirt was pouring off the dog.
“Look, I needyour help, so I’m going to put gas in your car so you can help me. It’s all a wash. We’re even.” He put a hand on her shoulder and gently massaged the tense muscle there until she relaxed a little. “So, are you going to do this whole thing while I stand here and watch?”
“Well, I’m already dirty?—”
Dirty water splattered their clothes and faces as Daisy shook herself .
“Oh god. I think some of that got in my mouth,” Lacey said, trying to talk without closing her mouth.
In the end, they did their best. Daisy needed a better brushing and a haircut, but she looked and smelled better. Her fur was a sunshine gold, with white paws and a white spot on her chest. Daisy was the perfect name for her.
While Lacey played beauty salon drying Daisy—her words, not his—Sam wandered around the store. Even if she was only staying for two days, the dog should have a bed to sleep in and bowls to eat and drink out of. And a collar. And a leash.
When Lacey and Daisy found him, Sam was pushing a shopping cart.
“Um, are you sure you want to buy all of that? Daisy is only staying for the weekend,” Lacey reminded him, guilt woven into every word she said.
“I can donate it when I drop her off,” Sam reasoned. “It’s a bed and some toys. I don’t want her getting bored and chewing on my shoes.”
Lacey’s eyes widened, and her face paled. “Oh god. You probably have expensive shoes. I forgot about that.”
Sam resisted the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Lacey. It’ll be fine. I can replace them if anything happens.”
Most of them. He wasn’t going to mention some of the limited editions he’d brought with him from Los Angeles.
“I really appreciate this, Sam,” she said, putting a hand on his forearm and giving it a gentle squeeze. Then she surprised him by leaning in and kissing his cheek. “Thank you. You’re my hero.”
His heart fluttered, and his cheeks burned. Casual appreciative affection wasn’t common in his life, and neither was being someone’s hero. At least not anyone who had spent any time with him.
“It’s nothing,” he mumbled, pushing the cart toward the register.
After stopping at the gas station and glaring at Lacey until she let him put gas in her car, Sam led the way back to his house in the woods.
“I think I can almost find my way here by myself,” Lacey declared when she stepped out of her car. “It’s the turn right after I think we’ve missed the turn.”
“I’m going to call the cartographers’ society and nominate you for membership.” Sam opened his trunk and took out all of the stuff he’d bought for Daisy, balancing it all precariously on the dog bed.
“Ah, so you’re one of those people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asked, awkwardly shutting his trunk and nearly dropping his load.
“Part of the ‘I’d rather die than make two trips’ crowd.” Lacey let Daisy out of her backseat. The dog immediately had her nose to the ground, investigating all the new smells of Sam’s property.
“It’s inefficient,” Sam said defensively, taking careful steps to his front door. “Can you put in the code?”
“Oooh, you’re trusting me with the door code?” Lacey teased, tugging Daisy along behind her.
“As you so charmingly put it, you’ve had your tongue in my ass, so what’s a door code between friends?”
Lacey tipped her head back and laughed. The sound echoed through the trees and scared the birds. It warmed his heart and he turned toward the door to hide his satisfied smirk .
“So, we’re friends?” Lacey asked when she’d calmed down, sidling up next to him.
“I dropped what I was doing and came to pick up a dog for you. I hope we’re friends.”
“We’re friends,” she confirmed with a soft smile.
“Six nine, six nine.”
Lacey blinked at him. “What?”
“The door code. Six nine, six nine. Star.”
Lacey tapped it in, but stopped before she hit the star button. “Sixty-nine, sixty-nine. Really, Sam?”
“I’m allowed to have a juvenile sense of humor like any other man,” Sam said with all the faux dignity he could muster.
“But you’re so smart.”
“My best friend is Jordy Taylor. I’ve laughed at a lot of fart jokes.”
“At least I can stop being so intimidated by your intellectual prowess,” Lacey said, re-entering the door code and opening the door for them.
“I’m so glad our PR campaign is working and people think I’m an intellectual.” Sam looked around his foyer, feeling lost. “I have no idea what to do with any of this stuff.”
“Have you ever had a dog before?” she asked, closing the door behind them.
“No. Have you?”
“No.”
“So we got a dog with no idea what to do with her?”
“Yup.”
“Feels on brand for us.” Sam sighed and put the dog bed down near his couch.
“Impulsivity and poor planning for the win.”
Lacey unclipped Daisy’s leash while Sam unloaded the dog bed. She sniffed around, nose glued to the ground like she was a bloodhound tracking an escaped criminal until she made it back to where Sam and Lacey were. Daisy sniffed her bed, then sniffed the couch. She jumped up on the couch.
“No,” Sam chided. “You have a bed. Come lay in your bed.”
Daisy circled twice, laid down, then yawned wide and rested her chin on her paws. She looked up at him with big, pleading brown eyes. His resolve dissolved like ice tossed into a volcano.
“Just for now,” he amended.
“Is that all you wanted from me?” Lacey asked.
What he wanted from her was not something he should say to someone he’d just declared his friend less than ten minutes ago.
“Are you hungry?”
Sam loved feeding Lacey. There. He’d acknowledged the thought.
Cooking was an expression of care—and a way to show off, if he was being totally honest. It brought him joy, and his friends seemed to really like his cooking.
But Lacey appreciated his cooking. She really appreciated it. She made soft, contented noises while she ate, and did a little seated happy dance every so often. It was more rewarding than any professional cook telling him that he knew what he was doing in a kitchen.
And because he wanted her to come back and eat again, he let her finish his strawberry ice cream.
Sam sent Lacey home with leftovers and clamped down on the urge to ask her to video call him when she ate them.
It was just him and the dog now.
“You hungry, Daisy?” he asked. She’d slept through their dinner.
Daisy put her head on the back of his couch to look at him, and he heard the swish swish of her tail wagging.
Sam filled up her water dish and poured some of the dog food Dr. Chris gave him into her other bowl. Daisy trotted over and sniffed her bowls, taking a few drinks of her water, then sniffing her food again. She looked up at him with the most befuddled expression he’d ever seen on a dog’s face.
“It’s food,” he said like she could understand him.
Daisy looked at the bowl, then back up at him.
“Go on. Eat your dinner,” Sam encouraged.
Daisy sat down.
Sam sighed and sat down next to her, picking the bowl up. “This is your dinner,” he explained, holding it under her nose. She looked away like the smell disgusted her. “You’ve got to eat.”
After ten minutes trying to coax her to eat, Sam gave up and pulled his phone out of his pocket. What was he supposed to do?
The internet was full of solutions and suggestions. If they hadn’t just been at the vet’s office that afternoon, he probably would’ve panicked that something was seriously wrong with Daisy. As it was, he had to ignore the insidious voice in his head that urged him to jump to the worst conclusion possible.
“Boiled chicken,” he read out loud from a website that seemed somewhat reputable. They recommended putting some cooled boiled chicken in with her food to make it more exciting and encourage her to eat.
Sam boiled up his last chicken breast, shredded it, then mixed it in with Daisy’s kibble. She danced excitedly as he put the bowl down, and it reminded him of Lacey. Except, unlike Lacey who seemed like she would eat anything, Daisy nosed around her food, carefully only eating the chicken pieces and leaving the kibble behind .
“So much for that idea,” Sam sighed, raking a hand through his hair.
She’d liked the chicken, and he had more of that. Back to the internet.
“What about”—Sam scrolled down the page—“I make you some food? Would you like that?”
Daisy wagged her tail.
Sam dug through his fridge and pantry for ingredients. The internet made making dog food look easy. So why was he so nervous he was going to fuck this up and hurt Daisy? Should he call the vet?
No. He didn’t need to call the vet. Daisy had been outside for weeks eating whatever she could find—probably dead animals and garbage. Boiled chicken, rice, sweet potato, carrots, spinach, and peas weren’t going to hurt her.
Daisy laid by the sink, watching him wash, prep, and cook the ingredients for her dinner. If she could’ve gotten on the counter, it would have been just like Lacey being there, except Daisy was quiet. Sam found himself filling in the silence, chatting to her because she couldn’t talk back. Every so often, though, Daisy would sigh or groan in response to something he said, and Sam wondered how much she understood or if she had incredible timing.
“Bon appetit,” he said, filling one of his bowls with her homemade dinner and placing it on the floor in front of her. Daisy jumped up and shoved her face into the bowl, eating with the same gusto that Jordy had for brunch food. Or any food, really.
Sam took Daisy for two walks before bedtime. He’d never been more grateful to live in the woods than after she took her first shit, because at least he didn’t have to pick it up and carry it home with him.
Sam came into his room after finishing his nighttime skincare routine to find Daisy lying in his bed. He remembered having her lie in her bed before going into his room. He sighed and pulled back the covers.
“Just for tonight,” he told her, and turned off his bedside light.
Then he turned it back on because Daisy had crawled from the foot of his bed to be level with his shoulder.
“Seriously?”
Daisy put her chin on his shoulder.
Women were nothing but trouble.
Sam
There’s a girl in my bed
Lacey
She better be furry and have four legs.
Sam took a picture of himself and Daisy and sent it to her.
Sam
Does this count as cheating?