I spat into the sink and went back to scrubbing.
He thinks he’s so fucking slick. He thinks nobody sees him. But I do. And Olivia will never know what hit her, not if I don’t warn her—
A thump in the distance, and I stopped brushing, my ears straining for noise. A pair of female voices, and I rinsed out my mouth, zooming back through the house to the front windows.
Across the yard in the dark, I caught sight of Presley’s truck and Olivia leaning in the window. A jingle of laughter. Olivia stepped back—something was in her arms, but I couldn’t tell what—and Presley turned the truck around, offering a wave before heading back down the drive.
Olivia looked down at whatever was in her arms, and I thought I heard her talking as she wobbled toward the barn.
“What in the hell …”
My brows nocked together, my eyes narrowed and locked on her as I wandered barefoot out of my front door to follow.
She shifted her burden to one arm to grasp the cast iron handle to the big side door. It took all her weight to slide it open, her body angled about forty-five degrees to the ground with the effort. She disappeared into the slice of darkness.
The closer I got, the better I could hear her talking to something like she was its mama. Goats bleated. A pig snorted at the intrusion. Ginger nickered softly. And Olivia went on talking.
“… and you’re gonna live here now with me. You were all alone, but you won’t be anymore, will you? No, see? We’ll have each other, won’t that be nice?” A baby goat bayed. “Stop that, Brenda! Don’t—ahhh!”
Chaos erupted, and I broke out in a run, throwing the barn door all the way open and scanning for her.
Olivia Brent froze on the spot, her eyes big as ping-pong balls and her mouth opening in a little O of surprise. One leg was thrown over the fence to the goat pen, the other propped on a beam. One hand rested on the top of the fence, and in her other arm squirmed two squinting puppies. A goat on the inside of the pen tugged at the edge of her tank until she jolted back with a squeal.
I was across the barn before she teetered and lost her hold on the fence, scooping her up by the waist. The goat and I had a brief moment of tug-of-war before the sound of tearing fabric signaled her freedom.
Gingerly, I turned us, paying close mind to the tangle of her legs and the fence. Puppies wriggled against my chest, which was partially bare, but what I felt most was Olivia’s breath tickling the hollow of my throat. She smelled like whiskey and springtime and trouble, and when I set her on her feet, I stayed close to her without thinking, wanting to breathe her in for a second longer.
Her little face turned up to mine, her eyes black in the moonless night. “I … what are you doing? Why are you up so late?” The words ran together a little, but she maintained her composure for as drunk as I suspected she was.
“How about a, Thanks, Jake—I woulda broken my neck in the goat pen if you hadn’t saved me.”
Laughing, she shoved me in the chest. “You’re the worst, do you know that?” When she looked down my chest, she rolled her eyes, groaning. “God, don’t you ever have your shirt on?”
“For your information, I was brushing my teeth when you came home making all that noise.”
“Mmm,” she hummed in pleasure. “That’s why you smell all minty.”
I ignored the note, unsure what to make of it and certain I didn’t want to find out. “What are you doing out here at midnight? And what are those?”
“Oh!” she said, seeming to remember the wriggly blonde puppies in her arms. “Oh my God, Jake. Listen to this—Presley was driving me home from Joe’s because I might have maybe had a little too much to drink, and we were just outside of town when we came up on this cardboard box on the side of the road that somebody wrote PUPPIES on. Can you believe somebody would do that? This world is so fucked up.”
I started to laugh at her untethered use of the word fuck but cleared my throat. “Okay, but what are they doing here?”
“Well, they were so cute, and Presley wanted one and was gonna take the rest to town to—” A hiccup. “ ’Scuse me. To town tomorrow to see if anyone wanted them or she’d drive them to the animal shelter. And I was sitting there with that box in my lap and was looking at those little babies with no mama to take care of them, and I … well, I …” Her voice wavered, and tears welled in her eyes so high, they touched her pupils. “They’re all alone. And so am I. And so are you. So I brought us puppies. This one’s yours.”
She shoved a puppy into my chest.
“No, wait. This one’s yours.”
She shoved the other puppy into my chest, clutching the first one to hers.
I looked down at the furry, squiggly thing, taking it with no small amount of reluctance. “I don’t want a dog.”
“Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?” she said to the puppy in her arms in a schmoopy voice. “Jake, aren’t they just so sweet? I could just eat him up.”
“That one’s a girl.”
She glanced for confirmation. “Well, I guess I’ll have to pick a new name. Kevin isn’t exactly neutral, is it?” When she looked up, her nose was a little red, but her eyes were clear. Until she got a good look at me and her face melted into that doe-eyed expression girls got when they looked at a baby.
“Awww, Jake! You’re holding a puppy.” She giggled, but her eyes were shiny again like she was going to cry. “And your shirt’s all unbuttoned. And you don’t have shoes on! I can’t handle it.” She brightened up with an idea. “Let me take a picture of you.” She was already fumbling for her phone.
“Pass.” I dumped the puppy back in her arms with its sibling. “I don’t want a dog, and I don’t want to be all over your stupid social media.”
She made a dramatic grump face and said in a doofy mocking male voice, “I don’t wanna be on the interwebs with the TikTokers and InstantGrammars. You are such a fuddy-duddy. And you can’t say no to the puppy.”
The puppy was back in my arms. “Trust me, I can.”
I tried to give it back, but she pushed it in my direction, her face twisting in a sad sort of frustration.
“Listen, you asshole—you need this puppy, and she needs you. You won’t let me be your friend, so please, take the dog. She doesn’t have anybody else to take care of her, and you don’t have anyone to take care of you. We don’t have Pop anymore, Jake. And I don’t have you and you don’t have me because you’re such a stupid jerk and you never have a shirt on when you know it makes me all …” She crossed her eyes and circled her ear with her pointer finger. “So take the goddamn dog! And I’ll take mine. And then we won’t be alone anymore.”
A slice of white-hot pain cut through me at the despair in her words. At the knowledge on their heels. At the look on her sad, angry face and those shiny tears still in her eyes. How she’d gone through so many forms of tears in such a short period of time astounded me. But that was Olivia. She felt everything. And she always tried to find a way to be happy despite her circumstance. Which, at the moment, was pretty shitty.
And all I’d done was make it worse, simply because I was scared of losing anything else that meant something to me. I’d lost enough.