I also appreciated that she had thanked me for the coffee shop bit. It showed me she wasn’t irrationally angry with me. That was progress. As was the way she kept sneaking looks at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention.
“I need to take a video of Mia,” I said, pulling out my phone. “Her first walk.”
“She’s doing really well. Meandering a little, but she’s staying on track.”
“Probably because this is all concrete. The smells aren’t as good as a more natural setting.” I did feel guilty about raising a puppy in the city but that was why I’d chosen a small breed.
“It’s still all new. She’s curious, not afraid. That’s a good sign.”
“Okay, I’m going to mute us and add music to the video. This is a big moment.”
“Too late,” Mia said as without warning little Mia sat down on the sidewalk and gave me a mournful look, panting. “I think she’s done. Too much pressure.”
“Damn.” I put my phone down. “She looks worn out. Maybe I should carry her.”
“You’re going to spoil her.”
“You can’t spoil a baby.”
“Yes, you can. And she’s a dog, not a baby.”
“Shh. She’ll hear you.” I bent down and picked up Mia and held her close to me. “We shouldn’t bicker in front of the child, you know. It’s not healthy for her to be surrounded by hostility.”
Mia was fighting a smile. She rolled her eyes. “You’re being ridiculous.”
“I’m being a parent.” I was mostly kidding. But not really. I was head over ass in love with puppy Mia.
“You can’t raise her in a bubble.”
“I’m going to try.”
“I thought you wanted to socialize her and make sure she wasn’t neurotic.”
Human Mia had a good point. “It’s a balancing act. I’ll get the hang of it.” I was nothing if not confident. You had to be if you wanted to be successful out there on the field and in life.
My phone rang in my pocket. I pulled it out and saw it was my mother. “Sorry, I need to take this,” I said to Mia. “Yo, Ma, what’s up?”
“Don’t ‘yo, Ma,’ me,” she said, sounding anything but irritated. “Did you talk to your sister?”
“When? Like, ever? Or recently?”
“Oh, Jesus, JJ,” she said. “I meant this week. She needs to know if you’re bringing a guest to the engagement party.”
“I thought her engagement party was in September.” My little sister, Abilene, who was all of twenty-three, and had been dating the same guy since high school, was getting married the following summer. Which was awesome. Her boyfriend, Sam, was a great guy and treated her the way a man should treat his woman. He fit right into the family, and always had. But every single conversation revolved around the wedding right now, and it really wasn’t my kind of thing.
“It is. We’re booking a venue, sweetheart. We need numbers.”
Mia was looking at her own phone. I felt an immature irritation that she didn’t even seem to be eavesdropping. “I don’t normally bring a date to stuff like that, Ma.”
Mia’s finger paused in scrolling on her screen.
That was better. “But I might bring someone this time.”
Mia wrinkled her nose.
My mother reacted as anticipated. “What? Well, that’s exciting news. Who is she? Jim, JJ is bringing a date!” she called out to my father.
“Hold on, she’s with me. I’ll call you right back on FaceTime so you can meet her.”
Giving a start, Mia actually began inching away from me. She wasn’t looking in my direction, but her shoulders had tensed.
“Anna May, he’s bullshitting you,” I heard my dad say in the background.
The old man clearly had less faith in me. That made me grin because he was right.
I called my mother right back. She was sitting on the back deck of their house, her reading glasses on. She was probably poring through party menus. “Meet Mia,” I said, holding my puppy up for her to see. “She’s my date for the engagement party.”
My mother made a face. “What is wrong with you? You got my hopes up. I’ve met the dog. You’ve been sending me pictures every day. She’s adorable. But she’s not coming to your sister’s engagement party.”
“I am one hundred percent bringing the dog with me.”
She didn’t even hear me. The reading glasses must be doing their job because she had somehow spotted a glimpse of Mia in the background on my screen. “Who is that with you?” she asked, sharply.
Shit. That’s what I got for screwing with both Mia and my mother. “She’s my dog walker.”
Mia gave a snort of derision.
“Don’t be rude, let me say hello to her,” my mother said.
I turned the screen toward Mia. “Ma, this is Mia. Mia, this is Anna May Beckett, my mother.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Mia said, giving a smile that looked a little strained. She also gave a little wave.
“You too, sweetheart. But I’m confused. I thought the dog’s name was Mia.”
“It is,” I told her. “Human Mia inspired puppy Mia’s name. Because they’re both redheads.”
“I thought she was your dog walker. Didn’t you just meet her?”
“She’s also in housekeeping,” I said. “She cleans my room.”
Mia turned and gave me a look that could have peeled paint off of the wall.
My mother’s eyebrows shot up. “I don’t even want to know. But if you’re calling your girlfriend your dog walker and housekeeper, I sincerely hope she dumps your butt.”
Mia laughed. “I’m not his girlfriend, trust me.”
“Hey.” This had taken a turn I hadn’t anticipated. “Don’t sound so happy about that.”
My mother nodded in approval. “Good. And, Mia, sweetheart, I hope he pays you a lot to put up with him.”
Okay, this had backfired. “Ma, you’re supposed to sell your son, not sell him out.”
“Well, stop being an ass.”
“Exactly,” Mia said, giving me a smile that kind of scared me. “Stop being an ass.”
My mother picked up a notebook and made what was clearly an X. “No guest.”
“It’s three months until the party,” I protested. “I have to commit to that already?” I wasn’t even sure why the hell I cared. I never took dates to family events. It raised expectations. Nor would being marked as having no plus-one have ever bothered me in the past. “No, forget that. Mark me down for a guest.”
“But you don’t have a date,” my mother protested. “Why would I mark you for a guest?”
A thought occurred to me. “Wait a minute. I’m paying for this thing.”
“So?” My mother looked confused as to why that mattered.
It was a gift I was happy to give my sister. I hadn’t even given her a budget because Abilene was always very conservative with her spending and unnecessarily grateful when I gifted her with anything. But it did mean I should have a say in the whole guest or no guest.