Page 22 of Fall for Me

“Shh!” I said, as if Eli could hear. Then Mia and I both broke out into giggles. It felt good.

“Did he see?” I asked as Lola licked my hand, on Mia’s seat.

I don’t know why it mattered. Eli would know I was gone once he got upstairs, anyway.

“Chelsea, you’re a grown woman,” Mia reminded me. “And we’re out of sight now. He didn’t see us.”

I sat back up in the seat, letting out a breath of relief as Mia turned on the radio.

“So how did you end up looking after this Mike’s dog, anyway? Didn’t you just meet him?”

Mia sighed. “You know how I’m between jobs right now?”

I knew. Mia’d been let go from her last job, working in the office of some insurance company. It was a job she loudly complained about, and yet didn’t put in any effort to go out and find something new. Her main focus, like mine up until a week ago, had been going out and partying. Forgetting about life rather than living it.

“Well, he works full time, and this puppy needs full-time attention. So he asked and… I said yes.”

I tried not to cringe. But Mia’s face was on the road, anyway.

One thing I never had a problem with was setting boundaries with the men I dated. Mom had always drilled into me and my sister that we never had to put up with bad behavior from men. She’d told us once, before she’d gotten pregnant with Cass and Eli, that she and Dad had separated.

“I was madly in love with your father,” she’d said. “But he was nervous about starting a family. He started acting like he wasn’t sure he wanted to commit.”

Mom told him she was leaving him. They’d split up for six months so he could see what life was like on a different path. “If we both decided we wanted to be together again after that,” she’d said, “we’d get back together. But only if he was all in.”

Dad had hated the idea. When he recounted it, he always said he never wanted to see what a different life was like. He was just nervous. A young man scared to become a father, as his own father hadn’t been the greatest. He’d begged her to reconsider right away, but she’d stayed firm, even kicking him out of the apartment they shared.

It was family lore at this point. Six months they stayed apart. They even dated other people—on Mom’s insistence. Dad kept trying to get back together sooner, but Mom held strong. We all knew the story after that: by the time the six months were over, Dad was back at her door with a giant box. Not a gift, he said, but a promise. It was a crib, which he’d proceeded to carry straight into their room and assemble before even saying a word. He then promised her not only did he want kids, he wanted to be a stay-at-home father.

They’d bought the Rolling Hills not long after that.

I knew how to stand my ground with men. My problem was, I never wanted to stay with them. My longest relationship, which ended only a month earlier, had been three months. And it was running on fumes for the last two. The thing with relationships was you were supposed to open yourself up. Make yourself vulnerable. But I didn’t know how to do that, and as a result, I never connected with any of the guys I dated. At least not more than physically.

Mia was going on about Mike, but then Lola barked and she sighed. “Chels, I don’t know the first thing about dogs.”

“Why does he even have one if he can’t look after it?”

“His brother bought her for his girlfriend, and then she broke up with him! Said something about him trying to buy her love, I don’t know. Anyway, she’s not puppy trained or anything and he can’t leave her at home all day while he’s at work. But I have no idea what to do with a flipping dog!”

I didn’t have any dogs in my life, but when I looked back at Lola once more, she seemed to smile at me, her eyes full of hope. She wagged her tail so hard her whole little body shook, and I felt a swell in my chest. “Let me sit with her.”

Mia frowned. “You want to sit in the back?”

“Yes, pull over.”

After I hopped out and crawled into the backseat, Mia took off again, talking now about Mike and how amazing he was. Even though I felt like he was taking advantage of her generosity with this dog in a big way, I smiled and nodded.

But I was only half listening. As soon as I’d gotten into the back, Lola had jumped onto my lap. She was big—not full-grown but still good-sized and heavy—and she now stood with her hind legs in the wheel well, her paws on my chest, and was aggressively licking my exposed cheek.

I laughed. Mia had paused in her anxious chatter, so I said, “She’s so cute!”

Mia nodded. “I guess.” She was clearly angsty about her boyfriend situation. I probably should have said some words of encouragement, but honestly, I didn’t have any.

The puppy licked me again, then yapped loudly in my face. She was more than cute. She was perfect. Such unadulterated, unconditional joy. I’d never really been one for love at first sight—or even dogs. I couldn’t sort out how else to explain this blooming in my heart at the way she was snuggling up to me.

After a few minutes, we pulled up to a red light. While Mia continued on about how great Mike was, how handsome and how good in bed, Lola went for my cheek once more. I turned my face sideways, laughing.

My eyes landed on a girl in the backseat of the car next to us. She was maybe four or five years old, with pigtails and a pink sweater. She was staring at me and Lola. I smiled at her, like I always did with young children. But she didn’t smile back. It was only then that I realized she wasn’t staring at the puppy, or my smile. She was staring at me, her eyes not bright, but wide.

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