Page 97 of Nothing But It All
“Our dog?”
“Our dog.”
I roll my eyes. “He judges me.”
“How?”
“He looks at me like I’m in his way.”
“Okay. What else?”
I laugh, not sure what’s happening but finding it entertaining nonetheless. “He tries to intimidate me. He sits on me. Barks at me when I look at him. Chews on my shoes—while I’m wearing them.It’s rude, to be honest.”
Jack sighs. “Snaps, Lauren isn’t like the guys at the shop. She doesn’t find your alpha-dog routine amusing.”
Snaps stares at my husband like he’s unimpressed with his reaction. He’s also obviously smitten with Jack.
The little thing is adorable. Even I can’t deny that. When his little nub of a tail wags back and forth, I can’t help but smile.
“Look,I’ll try,” I say. “I’ll give the little shit a shot. But he’s going to put in some effort too.”
Snaps looks at me and barks.
“You’re not helping things with that,” Jack says, tapping him on the head.
I hold out a hand. Snaps is suspicious but leans toward it anyway. After giving me a thorough sniff, he licks the tips of my fingers.
Jack sets the dog between us. I’m wholly unsurprised when the dog presses his back paws against me and lays his head on my husband.Now that I won’t tolerate.
“He’s not sleeping between us,” I say. “Hard limit. I only just got you back ...”
The last sentence comes out as a whisper. My heart is still tender, fragile, from everything that’s happened between us.
The look he gives me fills me with a warmth, a love, that soothes me.
“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, placing Snaps at the end of the bed. Then he draws me closer and snuggles me into his side. “I left the front door unlocked in case the kids come home in the morning.”
Snaps barks, pawing at my feet before plopping down next to Jack with a huff.
“Can you imagine leaving our doors unlocked at home? Even in Maple, where nothing bad ever happens, I would still be scared to go to bed without locking the place down.”
Jack gets situated. “We didn’t lock our doors when I was little. I mean, I do remember Mom doing a final sweep of the house some nights. She’d check the doors and windows, and then the pilot light on the stove, because it was gas and she had a fear of a gas leak while we slept.”
“Well, between her fear of a nighttime gas leak and mine of a nighttime fire, we would be besties.”
He laughs. “She would’ve liked you. I imagine she would’ve thumped me in the head for behaving the way I have.” The levity falls from his face. “I continued the same cycle with you that my father did with her. And the thing is, I knew better. I watched my mom grow lonely and saw the hit it took on her confidence. And then I did that to you.”
I take his hand in mine. He laces our fingers together.
“I probably disappointed her, wherever she is in the universe,” Jack says. “She’s probably thinking that she didn’t raise me this way.”
“Actually, I think your mom is watching you and is proud of the man you’ve become.”
“You think?”
“Yeah. Imagine if Michael was you,” I say. “Would you be proud of him?”
Jack nods slowly. “Yeah. I’d be disappointed in myself because he would’ve learned all of that from me.”
