Page 76 of Gunner

I hung up the phone. “Fuck.”

Zeus startled and raised his head from his bowl, his loud woof his way of asking if I was okay. His body had gone tense, sensing the shift in my mood. I offered him a reassuring smile. “It’s okay, boy. Eat.”

“What’s the matter?” Gunner asked.

“Work. I have to change and get to the station.”

I was out of the kitchen by the time I finished the sentence. I’d have liked more time in the shower to thoroughly wash Gunner off me, but the five minutes I took would have to be sufficient. Once dressed, I grabbed my keys and messenger bag and went downstairs.

Zeus had finished his meal and was lying next to Gunner’s chair, having his head rubbed. Seeing them together stopped me in my tracks. Why was Gunner taking all this time to get acquainted with my dog?

“Take the burritos with you,” Gunner said without looking up. How long had he known I was standing there?

“I don’t think I can eat.”

“Eventually, you’ll get hungry. Just take it.”

“Fine. I need to take Zeus across to Asher’s.” Didn’t he get the hint that he had to go? I couldn’t leave him in my house with me not there.

“Or you can let him come with me today.”

“Yeah, that’s not a good idea.”

“Come on, Ben. What am I going to do? Eat him?”

“Don’t even joke about that.”

He rubbed Zeus’s dark snout. “Will you tell your paranoid human we get along just fine and you’d rather spend the day with me than cooped up in the house with someone who doesn’t pay you any mind?”

Dammit, when he put it like that, the offer was tempting, and Zeus did seem comfortable with him.

“You swear on your life that I can trust you with him?” I asked.

“You trust me with you, don’t you?”

“This is different. I have no misconception about you and what we’re doing, but Zeus is all I have. I need to know he’ll be okay with you.”

“I give you my word. You and I may have unfinished business, but this dog and I are about to become best friends, aren’t we, buddy?”

Zeus woofed—in his affectionate voice and pressed his snout against Gunner’s hand. The hussy seemed to have forgotten he was mine.

“All right, then. The door locks from the inside. I’ll text you what you need to know about his routine and preferences.”

“Just go already, but if I do a good job…” The way he stared at me and licked his lips didn’t leave anything to the imagination about what he wanted.

21

GUNNER

The thought of losing either is unbearable, yet that's bound to happen if I don't come clean with both.

“What the—”

“Don’t say anything.” I opened the back door of the car and ushered Zeus inside. Having dropped off the “borrowed” car in a parking lot earlier, I had no wheels to take Zeus with me from Ben’s house, so I’d called the safest person I could think of to pick us up.

Saint was the one who wasn’t supposed to ask questions, but seeing me walking out of the police chief’s house, with a dog no less, would have even forced a monk to break his vow of silence.

“Nah, man, I really gotta know. Why the fuck are you stealing the police chief’s dog?”

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