Page 101 of The Good Boy

“Ow! Matilda, sorry!” Miles unpicks her from his face and holds her at arm’s length. “Sorry, sorry. I should have known this was all a bit weird for you.”

Mabel sits on the landing, looking up at me with big anxious eyes, and then down toward the bottom of the stairs.

The squeaks are now coming from the living room. Mabel taps my bare foot with her paw.

“Can’t Rory do it, just this once?” Miles says, climbing out of bed with Matilda tucked under his arm, like a very angry throw cushion.

“Maybe not,” I say as Miles joins me at the door. “Not if everything has gone according to plan, that is.”

“What are you talking about?” I head down the stairs, Miles and Mabel following me.

“Rory?” When I turn into the living room, a figure is sitting on the sofa, entirely covered by the faux-fur throw. A pigeon squeaks. I’m getting some quite serious déjà vu.

“You okay, boy?” I edge a bit closer, and whip the throw off like it’s a Band-Aid.

Rory pounces at me, squeaking Diego madly as he dances around me, jumping up with little leaping twists.

His wagging tail takes out everything in its wake.

“Rory!” I fall onto the sofa and my dog leaps into my arms, covering my face in licks and kisses. “Rory, you’re a dog again! Congrats, boy! You’re such a good boy! You aretheOG good boy!”

“Is that the power of our lovemaking?” Miles asks me, laughing with delight.

“Oh my god.” I laugh too. “I love you, you dork, but no. I wandered if maybe I might be able to grant Rory a wish now. Didn’t want to mention it, in case it didn’t work out. But look! It did!”

“This is brilliant, what else can we wish for?” Miles asks, joining us on the sofa with Mabel and Matilda.

“That is for the next ten years or so,” I tell him. “We’ll just have to make our own happiness between now and then.”

“Do you know what?” Miles says. “I don’t think that’s going to be a problem.”

Miles puts one arm around me, one around Mabel, and I hug Rory as tight as I can. I always knew Rory was a good boy, but I never guessed just how much his goodness could change everything.

So, I told you a story that might be pretty hard to believe. And that’s okay, you don’t have to. I can hardly believe it myself and I know it’s true. It happened to me, after all.

So, treat it like a fairy tale, or a fable. Take it with a pinch of salt. That’s okay.

Maybe it’s only when something truly impossible happens to you that you will really start to believe thatanythingis possible.

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