“Puddles!” Jack called into the twilight. He heard a whine ahead and sped up, muscles burning, glad for his afternoon runs. Leaves crunched up ahead to his left and Jack zagged. “Puddles?”
Dark was closing in on the woods and Jack narrowed his eyes, hoping to avoid running smack into a tree. When he heard Puddles’ soft bark from up ahead he threw himself forward again.
“I’m here!” he shouted, and was answered with another bark. Then, the sound of crackling branches split the quiet and a whine and thud stopped Jack’s heart. He barreled forward to see what had happened, and heard the sound again as his legs broke through what he’d thought was underbrush, and found no solid ground on the other side.
His legs windmilled and his hands caught at the air for a second that seemed like forever. Then he landed hard and rolled down an embankment, stones and branches pummeling him on the way down.
Jack came to a sudden stop with a head-rattling lurch and a gut-churning snap. For a single heavenly moment, there was no pain, just the relief of stillness. Then the world righted itself, and with clarity came agony.
“Oh, fuck,” Jack gasped. “Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
He bit his lip and lifted his swimming head just enough to peer down at his right leg, where the pain ripped into him with steely teeth. Nausea flooded him as he saw the unnatural angle of his leg and he wrenched his gaze away.
For three breaths, Jack did nothing but try not to puke. Then a wet, trembling nose nudged his hand, and he opened his eyes to Puddles’ warm brown gaze.
“Thank god.” Jack sucked in a breath and lifted a shaky hand to the dog’s side. “You okay, bud?”
Puddles sat down beside him and rested his chin on Jack’s shoulder, a loyal sentinel.
For some reason, it brought tears to Jack’s eyes.
* * *
“I’m fine, Charlie. Jesus, back off.” Jack growled at his older brother, who was hovering over him, one large, rough hand nervously stroking his beard, the other catching on the over-starched hospital sheets as he tucked them around Jack.
After hours of pain, insurance forms, and answering the same questions for every nurse and doctor that came along, Jack’s habitual brusqueness had morphed into exhausted annoyance.
“Yeah. When I got the phone call to meet you at the hospital after you’d been found crumpled at the bottom of a hill with your bones sticking out I definitely thought, ‘He’s totally fine,’” Charlie said flatly.
They looked alike—the same reddish-blond hair and hazel eyes; the same large, solid builds, though Charlie was bigger, muscles honed from his constant physical labor—and despite his brother’s droll reply, Jack could see a familiar fear in his expression, and in the way he stood close, as if he wanted to be able to touch Jack and check that he was all right.
Charlie had looked after him his whole life, worried about him his whole life. It would be useless to expect him to stop now. Not that Jack really wanted him to.
“Sorry.” Jack fisted his hands at his sides and closed his eyes.
Charlie eased his bulk down onto the side of the bed.
“I know I’ve been saying I wanted to see you more,” Charlie said, making his voice lighter. “But this isn’t exactly what I meant.”
Jack snorted and punched his brother a glancing blow to the shoulder. He hadn’t actually meant for it to be glancing, but it seemed his strength had left him.
On the table next to his bed something familiar had appeared: his sketchbook and three pens. His gut clenched.
“Where did those come from?”
“I brought them from your place. Boring in here.”
“I don’t want ‘em.”
Charlie’s sincere and puzzled expression deepened.
“What? You’ve never gone a day without drawing in your life. I thought especially in here you’d want—”
“Well, I don’t,” Jack bit off. He closed his eyes. He hadn’t told his brother that he hadn’t drawn in eight months. Not since Davis...
Clearly confused, Charlie picked up the sketchbook and pens, huge hand dwarfing them.
Jack swallowed down his rage and fear and disappointment. He felt like every shitty moment of the last eight months had somehow been leading up to this: concussion, broken leg, cracked ribs, lying in a cramped hospital bed, with absolutely nothing to look forward to.
Darkness swallowed him as he realized that now the one thing he’d taken pleasure in since his life went to shit—walking with the animals—was off the table for the foreseeable future.
“Fuck.” Jack sighed, and he felt it in his whole body. Charlie leaned closer. “What’m I gonna do?”
* * *
The app was called PetShare and one of the nurses had recommended it after a failed attempt to have Charlie smuggle the dogs into Jack’s hospital room had led the nurse to enquire about Jack’s situation. She’d taken his phone from his hand, downloaded it for him, then returned the phone and said sternly, “No dogs in a hospital. Obviously.”
Now, home and settled on the couch with a pillow and blanket after basically being tucked in by Charlie and promising he’d call if he needed anything, Jack fumbled out his phone and made a profile.
Username? He hated usernames.
JackOfAllDogs, he typed. Then, with a guilty glance at the cats, he changed it to JackOfAllPets. Then he decided that looked too much like Jack off and changed it to JMatheson.
At the app’s prompting he uploaded a photo of Bernard for his profile picture. Then on to the questions. He hated answering questions. When he got to the final box, which asked him to explain what he was looking for, he grumbled to himself as he thumbed too-small keys, wishing he could draw instead of type. He’d always been better with images than with words anyway. Somehow, people always took his words the wrong way.
That’s why it had felt so fortuitous when he’d met Davis, who seemed to pluck the words he intended from his drawings and put them on the page. A perfect partnership. Or so he’d thought.
He banished all thoughts of Davis from his mind and mashed the Submit Profile button, then shoved his phone back into his pocket.
PetShare matched pet owners with animal enthusiasts who didn’t have pets of their own. Some of the users were people like Jack who needed help with animal care. Others were just willing to let animal lovers spend time with their pets. But with four dogs (and a cat) who needed twice-daily walks, Jack wasn’t optimistic about his chances of being matched with someone, no matter how enthusiastic they were. He imagined he might need three or four interested parties to meet his animals’ needs.