Page 39 of The Love Haters

“Can’t? Or won’t?”

“Both, actually. The first time he took it, he threw up all over the place. Every time I’ve tried again since—in case that was a fluke—he refuses.”

“He refuses?”

“If I try to hide a pill in a treat, he spits out the pill. And if I bury it in a pile of dog food, I’ll find the whole plate licked clean with an untouched, pristine pill sitting right in the middle. They have pill shooters for dogs—but he won’t let me near him with it.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty hard to make a Great Dane do anything he doesn’t want to do.”

“So he just panics until the thunder stops? You can’t do anything for him?”

“I do lots of things for him. They don’t help, but I do them anyway. I hum. I pet him. I’ve got a snug vest to put him in that’s supposed to be comforting. Mostly, I just spend hours trying to explain that the thunder can’t hurt us. But he never believes me.”

“He’s lucky to have you,” I said.

“I’m lucky to havehim,” Hutch said.

“Maybe you both can call it even.”

FIVE MILLION HOURSlater, as Hutch finished pulling out the last of the splinters—and was dabbing antiseptic all over the scrapes—The Gals finished their swim and came over to tease him, gathering in a semicircle around my upturned butt like they were contemplating a piece of art.

“This is quite a first date,” Nadine said.

“It’s not a date,” Benita corrected. “It’s a medical emergency.”

“Aren’t they so adorable together?” Ginger asked The Gals.

Coos and murmurs all around.

“That’s more talking than I’ve seen Hutch do in all the time I’ve known him,” Benita said then.

“What were you two chatting about?” Nadine wanted to know.

I turned back to look at Hutch, and I realized he was done. He’d turned his attention to putting away the supplies.

I felt like I needed to stand up for him. “He was apologizing for George Bailey,” I said, just as Rue showed up nearby—now in a post-swim cover-up with a wide straw hat.

“Will she live?” Rue asked.

Undecided.

“Probably,” Hutch answered.

“Good,” Rue said. “Because she still needs her swim lesson.”

Shit. Busted.

“Was she… here for the swim lesson?” Hutch asked.

I wanted to sayNo, but of course the answer was yes. And Rue knew that.

This is the trouble with lying, I guess.

“She doesn’t know how to swim,” Rue told Hutch then. “Can you imagine? On vacation in the keys and hasn’t owned a bathing suit since middle school.”

Oh, god. I’d overshared.

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