Page 100 of The Good Boy

It’s almost midnight when Miles’s hand reaches for mine. I turn to look at him.

“Thank you,” I say. “For being exactly who you are. For being mine.”

“You and me on this sofa, holding hands, is more than I ever thought possible for me. But now I know that anything is possible.”

“We could even...” I glance at Rory and the sleeping animals. “Go to my bedroom? That is definitely a possibility.”

“One I think we should investigate at once,” Miles says. As we get up from the sofa, Rory looks up fromLove Island.

“Time to rub butts?” he asks.

“You go up,” I tell Miles. “I’ll be one second. I just need to say something to Rory.”

“Fine,” Rory says once Miles has gone up to my bedroom. “I’ll stop talking about butts.”

“That’s not it,” I say, sitting next to him. “I’m so happy, Rory, and I hate that you aren’t.”

“It’s okay, I’m happy you’re happy,” he says. “And you know, being turned into a human has let me do something I’d have found really hard to as a dog.”

“What’s that?” I ask him.

“Move on from the things that hurt and frightened me,” he says. “So maybe it won’t be so bad being human. Eventually.”

“But you still wish you were a dog?” I say, leaning my head on his shoulder. An alarm goes off on my watch, and I silence it.

“I really do wish I was a dog again,” Rory admits, looking at Mabel as she runs in her dreams.

“Well, whatever happens next,” I tell him, “you will always be beautiful you.”

We hug each other, and I kiss him on the forehead, and give him one last look before I climb the stairs to where I find Miles standing on the landing.

“Did you get lost?” I ask him.

“Didn’t want to go into your room without you,” he confesses. “Bit nervous, honestly. Aren’t you?”

“Not at all,” I tell him after I kiss him. “I’ve seen this night, and I can tell up front, we are magnificent.”

Chapter Thirty-Nine

I wake up to the delicious sensation of Miles’s finger slowly trailing down my spine. Rolling over I tumble into his arms, and look at his face, which is attached to his naked body, which is in my bed. Like for real.

“Hello,” I say softly. “That wasn’t all a dream, then?”

“Very much real,” Miles says, smiling. His arms snake around my waist, pulling me even closer against him. Everything is warm, sleepy, super sexy, and just about to be 100 percent blissful when a long squeak comes from outside the door.

“Oh.” I sit up.

“Just pretend you haven’t heard that,” Miles says, trying to pull me back.

“Squeak. Squeak. Squeak.” The squeak repeats approximately every one second.

“Itisa bit of a buzzkill,” I tell Miles, wriggling free of his arms. “A squeaky pigeon usually means something important, like unscheduled pooping or imminent starvation.”

Climbing out of bed, I pull on a long T-shirt and open my bedroom door.

“It’s a committee,” I tell Miles. “I think their main demand is breakfast.”

Matilda shoots past me, springing up onto the bed, like she wasn’t just in a major accident, where she sets about battering Miles with her cone, punishing him for his tardiness with her characteristic ruthlessness.

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