Chapter 15 #3
With the dog and the parrot.
“LOVE BOMB!” the parrot squawked. “LOVE BOMB!”
Rachel looked over at Reef with a triumphant grin.
“Did you tell Mel to train that thing?” he called out.
“I trained McPirate!” Mel shouted back. “It’s my favorite drink!”
“You know that thing’s not allowed in here,” Reef grumbled as he began pulling espresso, casting suspicious sidelong glances at the animals stacked like a double-decker.
“Service animals are permitted anywhere humans can go. Don’t you dare try to block Caramel from coming in!”
“I meant the bird.”
“McPirate is Caramel’s emotional support animal.”
“Dogs have emotional support animals?” Reef groused. “Now I’ve heard it all.”
“HURRY UP!” the parrot snapped. “NEED CAFFEINE!”
“That bird’s been hanging around you for too long, Mel. Picked up on all your bad habits.”
“I don’t scream at people like that!” she yelled.
“DARREN IS A STUBBORN ASS!” McPirate shouted.
Darren Chassi was the local veterinarian and Mel’s ex-husband.
“Yeah, right.”
Mel ignored Reef with a wave and turned to Colleen. “You heard from Dennis lately?”
“Den? Sure. Last week on our family video call. Why?”
“He asked me about taking a retired military dog. Haven’t heard from him in a week.”
“He’s on a mission. Something he can’t talk about. He goes quiet like that.”
“Ah. Makes sense.” The parrot pecked at the old Lab’s fur, but gently. The dog’s left shoulder relaxed a bit, the bird lifting its feet and setting them back down.
“Is that parrot seriously an emotional support animal?”
“Yep. Can’t separate them. Tried to adopt Caramel out. She’s an old service dog but still workable. McPirate escaped and found her. Twice. The foster family was going to take Caramel but refused on McPirate, so…”
“Now they’re both part of your zoo?” Reef cracked, delivering a Love Bomb to Mel.
“My family,” she corrected him. Reef went back to the counter and rang up Mel’s order on the iPad. Most of the townies had their credit cards on file. Mel slipped a dollar bill into a tip cup.
“Maybe you’ll find someone who will take them both,” Rachel said excitedly.
“That’s my hope.”
Colleen pulled out her phone and texted Dennis:
We’re at Love You Coffee. Mel’s asking about a military dog you contacted her about. Hope you’re safe.
She added a heart. Her big brother hadn’t lived in Luview for decades, but he was still part of the emotional fabric of daily life.
Weekly group video calls and the occasional trip home, plus Mom and Dad’s big Germany trip a few years ago, kept Dennis a part of their lives, even though he’d taken himself out of Luview.
“There. I texted Dennis.”
“Thanks. Worst case, I figured I could sic Deanna on him.”
“Whoa now. Let’s not call out the cavalry.”
Mel grinned at her and took a sip of her Love Bomb, moaning with pleasure.
“Rachel, thank you. Best improvement you’ve made to the town yet.”
“What about the trolley? The parking meters? The–”
“Nope. This,” Mel called back as Caramel led her to the sidewalk, McPirate riding along like the king of the world.
The pink Love You, Maine, electric trolley let out a series of bells, the sound it made when entering a stop zone. A moment later, a group of female shoppers, all part of a large tour making its way through town, descended on the coffee shop.
Reef got busy making some welcome tourist dough, the women ooohing and ahhhing over the red mugs, the heart-shaped everything, and quite a few eyeing Reef himself as if he were a souvenir they’d like to take home with them.
Finishing their respective coffees, they sat in amused silence until Rachel finally said, “I don’t know how you know when it’s time to leave. I never felt planted firmly in place like you Luviews do. Leaving L.A. was easy.”
“Leaving this place is not.”
“So don’t.”
“I’d have to, in order to get the education I want.”
“How badly do you want it?”
“Not sure.”
“It sounds to me like you’re still in the information-gathering stage. Not the decision-making stage.”
“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“Sometimes you have to make a choice because there’s a deadline.
But sometimes you have loads of time to collect your input and see where the information takes you.
Why not view this phase that way? You don’t have to know where you’re going, or when.
You just have to know that you’re interested in a journey with a specific endpoint, but maybe lots of different ways to get there? ”
“Kell’s right.”
“About what?”
“You have a unique, sharp way of organizing things.”
“No, I don’t. Anyone can do it.”
“Not true. Don’t sell yourself short.”
“Right back atcha, sister.”
Rachel’s words hit home. There was no looming deadline before her. No huge conflict. All she really had to do right now was learn what her options were.
“Thanks.”
“For what?”
“Listening. Hanging out. Being discreet,” she said pointedly.
Rachel looked down at her Love Bomb. “Was this a bribe?”
“Did it work?”
“Yes!”
“Then it was a bribe.” Standing, Colleen reached out for a hug, happy to have a sister figure in her life. Both her younger brothers had now found their soulmates, and that meant Colleen got the sisters she’d never had growing up.
Both men had chosen well for her.
And she knew that with Moore, she’d chosen well.
How?
Because he was already Luke’s best friend.
And yet...