Page 46 of When in December

It looked old enough that it had to know better than to do its business inside, right?

Aaron didn’t bother answering any of my questions. He immediately started to walk away from me. With the dog. “The dog is none of your business.”

“What’s its name?”

Aaron never looked like he got much sleep. This morning, somehow, he looked worse than usual.

He looked quite perturbed.

“You didn’t answer my first question so?—”

Aaron huffed, reaching back to rub the back of his neck. “It’s just a dog. Yes, don’t worry; your precious floors are safe. No, it’s not a stray. I’m watching him for a friend for a little while.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah,oh.”

For some reason, I hadn’t expected that answer. Mostly because, though I knew he had once had friends, the past week and a half had been quiet.

This Aaron Hayes still has friends?

The corner of his eye twitched. Turning on his heel, he made it halfway around before I stopped him.

I reached out a hand as if I was going to grab him. Both he and the dog stopped. Maybe I wouldn’t have to worry about the dog after all. The unnamed pet appeared as if it was going to be officially attached to him from here on out.

“I’m going to use some of the power tools,” I said. “It might be a little loud once I get everything set up.”

Aaron glanced over his shoulder. “And?”

“I didn’t know if the dog would be okay with that,” I said.

“He’s fine with loud sounds. He’s trained to be okay with them.”

“Oh.” I eyed the dog I still didn’t know the name of.

He slowly lay back down at Aaron’s feet like the world’s grumpiest foot warmer.

Grump and grumpier. This was a work dog? The scariness of this animal was quickly wearing off as he all but fell over to his side with a harrumph.

“Are you sure?”

“Believe me or don’t,” huffed Aaron. “Wanna test it out?”

I didn’t, but soon, I was going to have no choice. So much for attempting to be considerate. At least he hadn’t brought up if he’d called my boss. It didn’t seem like he had. He didn’t bring up what had happened last night at all.

Pausing, I waited for it. Only, like my call telling me I’d ended my career, it didn’t come.

Aaron finally made his way back down the hallway and away from me, exactly where I’d thought we were both going to start our day—already thrown for another loop.

As I bent down in the living room to straighten the drop cloth over the floor, my phone beeped with my daily affirmation notification.

I am in the right place.

I wanted to snort.Sure thing, app.At this point, I was sure it was using an algorithm to mock me.

But I looked around the unfinished house one more time. If nothing was going to happen, I had no time to lose.

The hours trickled by. I kept my music turned down low as I finished cutting the boards for the bookshelves meant to fit into the back wall, making them look seamless, as if they’d always been there. I hadn’t gotten to start them last night. I sanded the frayed edges and yelped with delight when they fit into place right where I needed them to.

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