Page 99 of Loving You

“What’s on my schedule today?”

“All restoration work. No appointments.”

It’s as if it were meant to be.

I nod before I can change my mind.

“All right, let’s do it.”

“Yay! Road trip,” she cheers and then shoves the last of her eggs into her mouth. She sets her dish in the sink and takes off up the stairs, leaving me at the table with nothing but a smile on my face.

Why is it that every day I’m with her, she surprises me more and more?

I grab my phone to let the breeders know I’ll be there in a few hours.

Then I glance back to the stairs.

I only get a limited number of mornings like this before our arrangement is over.

Why does the thought of that make my chest ache?

“How areyou supposed to pick just one?” Quinn whispers to me.

The gal who’s selling the puppies led us to a pen in her backyard and said there are five puppies left. Two boys and three girls.

My instinct says to pick a boy, but this girl at my feet seems to be smitten with me.

Quinn crouches down to pick her up and hands her to me. Then she grabs another.

“What if you get two?” Her eyes go wide as if it’s the best idea in the world.

“No, no, no, I can’t handle two puppies.”

“But then we would each have one. I’ve never had a puppy before.”

“Really?” I ask, leaning away from the girl in my arms as she licks my face profusely. “Never?”

“I travel too much.”

Yeah, I guess I could have figured that out.

I lower myself to sit crisscross, and so does Quinn. The puppies play all around us, and damn, she’s right, it’s going to be hard to pick just one.

“Why did you start traveling?” I ask, taking any reason to distract myself right now. How do I pick just one of these furballs?

Quinn doesn’t respond right away, so I glance up. She’s studying me.

“Why are you asking me this now?”

I shrug. I have no idea.

Ever since last night and our agreement to break up, I feellighter. Like … I don't know. Like I can get to know her now on my terms and not under some false pretense.

“Let’s just say it’s something I should have asked you a long time ago.”

She smirks. “Well, my parents got me started young. Legally, I had to go where they went, and then after so many years, traveling felt more normal than not traveling. I could attend college online at a lot of places, so that worked out well. I really haven’t known anything different since I was a teenager.”

I get it. My family knew the small-town life, and that’s what they passed down to me. Same for Quinn but with traveling.

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