Page 5 of The Good Boy

“What do you mean, why am I naked? I am always naked!” he shouts back, voice deep and gruff. He sounds confused. Scared, even, like he’s more afraid of me than I am of him. But he is not a spider, he is a six-foot-plus man with no pants on.

I take a breath behind my frying pan. Try not to panic. That’s first. Second, talk in a calm, low voice. That’s the advice the dog trainer gave me when Rory first came home from the rescue center,terrified of almost everything. It’s maybe not entirely transferable to this situation but it’s all I’ve got right now, and if it comes to it I can beat the crap out of him with my frying pan.

“Look,” I say carefully, “I don’t know how you’ve got into my house, mate, or why you are sleeping in my dog’s bed, but...” A terrible thought occurs to me. My stomach plummets. WhereisRory? Diego the squeaky pigeon is still in his bed and Rory never goes anywhere without his best toy, Diego, especially not when he’s upset.

“Where’s my dog?” I ask him, not quite so calmly. “What have you done with my dog?”

“Iamyour dog,” he says unhappily. “Why are you being so weird, Genie? This is very confusing. I don’t like it and I haven’t had breakfast yet, by the way, and it’s nearly walk time.”

The weird thing is, if my dog could talk then he would definitely say exactly that. Maybe this guy thinks he’s a dog. Maybe he’s having a psychotic breakdown. That’s okay, it happens. Sometimes people’s brains get overloaded with trauma and everything goes haywire. I learned that when... never mind. Rory will be okay. He has to be okay. I just need to help this poor man and then I’ll find him, and we will both be okay.

“The thing is, you are not my dog, mate,” I say gently from behind the safety of the frying pan.

“Why? What did I do wrong?” he says, sounding really upset. “Is it about your pointy shoe that I buried in the garden? Because the thing is, I didn’t mean to chew it, it just sort of fell into my mouth...”

How does he know about my missing shoe?

“Look, I understand why you are freaking out,” I say. “I amtoo, a bit, but we will figure it out, okay? Only not with you in the all-together. There’s a throw on the sofa. Why don’t you cover yourself with that so I can put down this frying pan and we can talk? Is that okay?”

“S’pose,” he says. “You should stop leaving your shoes just lying around, though.”

I hear the sound of bare feet move from tiles to carpet, the sound of the springs squeaking in my secondhand sofa, and, hesitantly, I proceed toward the living room.

Peering over the rim of the pan I see the back of a blond head following my instructions. I lower the pan a little bit more to see muscular shoulders and arms and then raise it quickly again.

“Are you decent?” I ask after some moments of rustling.

“I think so,” he says. Slowly I lower the pan. He has draped the throw entirely over his whole body, head and all, and is sitting on my sofa like a very awkward faux-fur ghost. Maybe he feels better that way—safer. Rory often burrows under the cushions and throw when he’s worried. We’ve been working on his anxiety ever since I gave him his forever home. God, I hope he’s okay.

“Feel better?” I ask the shape.

“Can I have Diego, please?” he asks. “I’d feel better if I had Diego.”

How does this man know about Diego? There’s a nagging thought at the back of my mind that I keep batting away because I’d rather not be sectioned on my birthday. I am Eugenie Wilson, the sensible and grounded one in the family. It’s more important now than ever to keep it that way.

“How about we start with names. I’m Genie. What’s your name?”

“I know who you are,” he says, like I’m an idiot. “Are you okay, Genie? Would some chocolate help? Chocolate usually helps and we could watchDirty Dancing.”

“And you are?” I persist. There’s a deep feeling of nausea in my gut, like I had a dirty burger on the way home last night, only I didn’t.

“I’m Rory!” he insists. “I was called Rory by my first person, but... I don’t like to think about him.”

“The thing is,” I tell the shape, “Rory is my dog. You are not a dog. You are a man who broke into my house and I don’t know where my dog is... How do you know his name? Have you been stalking me?”

“I would never stalk you! You aren’t a squirrel, and anyway, I protect you! Because I am your dog!” he all but howls. “I don’t understand this. I don’t like it and I haven’t had breakfast and I need a pee. And a poop. You told me when I came to live here never to poop on the sofa again. You were very insistent! So can you just have a biscuit or something so we can get back to normal?”

There’s a long moment in which my brain spins and spins but keeps coming back with an error message. It wouldn’t be, it couldn’t be. I take a breath. This is weird but I know that whoever is on my sofa won’t hurt me. I just know it.

“Okay,” I say, putting down the frying pan. “I am going to come over there and pull the blanket off just your head, okay, so we can talk face-to-face. Will that be okay?”

“Yeah,” he says.

“I’m coming over now,” I say, edging closer to him. “I’m going to lower the blanket a little bit now, okay? I’m not going to hurt you.”

“I know,” he says. “I trust you, Genie.”

This. Is. Weird.

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