Page 17 of Nave
Maybe both.
But I was sure I’d never forget the way she looked at me now. And how it tugged at something deep inside me.
CHAPTER SIX
Lolly
I remember everything.
My heart felt like it squeezed at those words.
Out of, you know, relief.
That he remembered.
That he would, hopefully, honor his offer.
There was no other logical reason.
“I know you’re, uh, busy right now. But I was wondering if we could meet up.” Soon. Tomorrow.I’m desperate.
“I’m not busy,” Nave said, climbing off his chair. “Want to go talk out back? Can barely hear yourself think in here.”
“Sure,” I agreed, gaze slipping briefly to the donut box, wondering if there were any in there. “But it really could wait until you don’t have… company.”
“The club has company,” he clarified, snagging one of the boxes of donuts, “not me. Come on.”
With that, he led me through a small crowd and out the back door.
There were more people outside, hanging around and in the pool, making out on the chaise loungers, laughing in the hot tub.
Nave led me past all of that and toward the side yard where two picnic tables were set under a tree. He set down the box of donuts and opened the lid in a silent invitation.
Did I reach for one of the chocolate-frosted ones like a lifeline? Yes, yes, I did. What can I say? After years of being denied sugar in any form other than fruit, I was desperate to get a taste of it whenever I could. Especially if it was free.
“Do you mind?” I asked, putting Edith’s bag down on the opposite picnic table, then undoing the zipper. Her little brown head popped right out, sniffing the air.
“Ben let you have a dog?”
Even the sound of his name had my stomach flipping over and clenching.
“Letis a kind of fluid concept,” I admitted as Nave reached out toward Edith. She’d hated Ben. And he’d hated her in turn. But she gave Nave a sniff and a tentative lick that he took as an invitation to pick her up.
“How’d you get her then?”
“He got her for me after three months of a depression so deep that I barely ate or bathed. The latter was, clearly, a problem.”
“He always smelled like bleach.”
“He bathed in it,” I told him.
“That tracks. The marble frosted are better than the chocolate,” Nave said, nodding toward one. I knew he was just trying to make me feel able to have another. And, well, I wasn’t going to pass on that. “So he got you a dog.”
“He knew after dragging me into the bathroom and shoving me into the bath to clean me that I was lonely. And since letting me have actual human friends was out of the question, he got Edith. Under some very, very strict conditions.”
“Lots of baths, I’m assuming.”
“Once a week. But her feet had to be cleaned and dried each time she came into the house. She had to be brushed twicedaily—even though she is virtually shed-free—and the house vacuumed an extra two times a day. It added another two hours of chores to my day. But…”
