Page 9 of Steam

He grew up with mutts and loved them all—but once he hit law school, he was hardly ever home enough to take care of one.

He promised himself at the end of last year, though, that he would finally do it after he moved to the new place.

Barrett found a bulldog rescue in Georgia, got on a waiting list, and had gotten a call from them two weeks ago to say there was a litter of puppies that had been rescued from a mill with dangerous conditions. The woman at the foundation said the puppies were likely crossbred with something else—definitely not going to be pure bullies—and therefore she was having a hard time homing them.

Barrett hadn’t hesitated. He wanted one.

So they signed him up, said the puppy needed to be spayed before they turned her over, and said they would let Barret know when he could come to pick up his new puppy.

Barrett started ordering puppy supplies the same day.

He knew it was vaguely goofy, but he was just that excited that she was going to be his. He didn’t have kids—not even a niece or nephew to spoil—so he allowed himself to have that one thing. He could spoil a dog. And it wasn’t like he was going to dress her up in sweaters, or something. Just a few tasteful accessories.

He kept his buying relatively restrained: a personalized dog bowl, a running water fountain so that she would always have something fresh to drink, a memory foam bed, and his biggest splurge, a beautiful leather collar stamped with her name.

Princess, he had decided, was a sickeningly cute and perfect name for a bulldog. Just think of those fat jowls next to a pretty pink collar, he thought.

Not that bulldogs had much of a neck to begin with when they grew up. After a little research, Barrett realized he’d need a big collar so that she could be comfortable when she grew into it.

So he put in his order with the custom leatherworker he found online and Barrett waited.

And waited.

And almost two weeks after his order, it still hadn’t come. Barrett called the leather shop and they said their records showed that it had been delivered.

Barrett wasn’t a rude person—especially not to people in customer service. He understood it wasn’t their fault when a package got lost. But he was an attorney and he did tend to be assertive. He got his way when it mattered. And for Princess, Barrett decided, it mattered.

By the end of the conversation, the man at the shop was apologizing and assuring Barrett that they’d get another collar to him by the time Princess actually arrived.

So no, when he’d been presented with the schlubby looking stranger with a ripped t-shirt and messy hair, Barrett wasn’t upset that someone had discovered some strange hobby of his, as Josh so rudely implied.

He was upset because he had managed to convince a small business owner to send him a duplicate collar for free when they hadn’t done anything wrong in the first place.

It had been his flaky, careless neighbor the whole time.

* * *

God, the guy with the collar was a prick.

Josh had been trying to do the right thing. He’d at least contacted someone as soon as he saw that he’d gotten the wrong package.

But the guy in the suit had looked him up and down—as people in suits often did—and sized him up as some sort of nobody. He hadn’t even thanked Josh for returning his weirdo pink collar to him.

“How did this happen?” the man had demanded.

“Grabbed it by mistake,” Josh said, hitching a shoulder.

“You grabbed it and then you didn’t open it for two weeks?”

“Yep. Pretty much.”

“What kind of human being gets a package and doesn’t even open it?” the man asked—and Josh didn’t like the tone that was edging into his voice.

“I’ve got shit going on, man.”

The man rolled his eyes. “Right. And you’re the only one.”

Why was he getting so riled up about the goddamn package? Unless he was embarrassed that Josh had opened it…

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