Jitter whines again and sinks back to the ground, puppy dog eyes out in full effect while he army-crawls closer to Sabrina.
“You’re a good boy,” she tells him. “But we don’t chase wildlife. Especially while we’re on a leash. Okay?”
He whimpers.
“Can you please pet my dog and tell him I’m okay?” She keeps trying to disentangle her feet and legs, and it seems to be a struggle.
“She’s okay, Jitter.” I scratch his back the same way she did, and instantly regret it.
I want my dog back.
I want friends I can say that to.
And I want to lift Sabrina out of the snow and carry her down off this trail.
“There.” She gets her legs untangled, reaches for one of her hiking poles as I’m turning to assist her, and in seconds, she’s back on her feet. “Oh, fuck.”
I lift a brow.
She growls to herself and bends over. Mutters some more, which prompts Jitter to whine more.
“You okay?” I ask her while I squat next to the dog and stroke his thick fur.
“Broken strap,” she mutters. She pulls off one of her snowshoes and holds it up for me to see. “It’ll slide right off my foot.”
This is a problem.
And I see an easy solution that I suspect I’m far happier about than she is. “Huh.”
She squeezes her eyes shut and sucks in a massive breath.
“Okay,” I say. “I’ll give you a piggyback ride.”
The suspicious look is back. “You will not.”
“I will. It’s getting dark. I need to get out of the cold. You probably do too. Fastest way down the path when you have a broken snowshoe. Not like we’re trading footwear so you can give me a piggyback ride.”
Those bright green eyes probe my face.
It’s like she’s asking if this is a trick. If I planted the fox so Jitter would run so I’d have to offer to carry her. If I’m planning to drop her. If I’ll enjoy having her arms and legs wrapped around me.
Only the last one is a resounding yes.
“Who’ll hold Jitter’s leash?”
“I can handle you both.”
She flashes a cocky grin like she can’t help herself. “Big talk, boss-man.”
“I’d rather you call me Super Vengeance Man.”
“I’ll consider it if you get me safely back to my car.”
Yes. “Climb on up, Duchess.”
“You wish,” she murmurs.
“Hawaii was fun.”
I get another eyeball of don’t push this, but after she’s pulled off her second snowshoe and hung them both on her backpack, I squat in front of her and she climbs onto me, wrapping her arms around my neck and her legs around my hips and holding on as if she thinks I’ll drop her.
“The only reason you’re not rolling in the snow being pelted with snowballs right now is because I want to get home,” she says as I stand.
“This the last snowfall of the year?”
“Not even close. Tell me if you get lightheaded.”
“Doing fine.” Better than fine.
And possibly terrible at the same time.
I want her to kiss me again.
And I know if she does, I’ll probably break and agree to not change her café, and then I’ll realize I don’t actually need to be here, and all of this will come to a screeching halt.
If I don’t belong in a lab, and I’m actually terrible at being Super Vengeance Man, and I don’t want to go back to Connecticut even if it would put me closer to Mimi, then who am I and where do I fit in this world?
It’s a heavy question.
And I still want to kiss Sabrina again. Peel back every layer of her clothes until she’s completely bare. Study her skin. Her curves. Her breasts and her pussy.
And pretend I belong.
“I had a dog,” I tell her while I follow Jitter down the path, Sabrina’s body pressed tightly to my back. “My ex took him in the divorce.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“Someone showed me your old Insta.”
I should be alarmed, but instead, all I feel is warm. “What else do you know?”
“That I would do terrible things to anyone who took Jitter from me. And I’m sorry. That must’ve hurt.”
“I didn’t cheat on her.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you did.”
“She gave me an ultimatum. Kick Zen out, or she was gone.”
“That was dumb of her.”
I actually laugh.
“How long have they been your personal assistant?” she asks.
I hesitate, but only briefly. I would’ve told Duchess in Hawaii. I can tell Sabrina now.
Worst case is she betrays me and I destroy her café.
That was supposed to be funny, but even in my head, it’s falling short.
“Zen showed up on my doorstep shortly after they turned sixteen. Said I was the last blood relative they were giving a chance to let them be who they were before they disappeared completely.”
“Oh, shit.”
“I barely remembered them from when I lived back east. Didn’t spend a lot of time with family once I left for high school—”
“Left for high school?”
“Boarding school.”
“That’s a real thing?”
“That is indeed a real thing.”
“Ew.”
I readjust my grip on her legs. “So Zen asked if I wanted housekeeping and cooking services in exchange for room and board while they finished high school, and it turns out it’s really hard to say no to a kid who looks like they fit in with the rest of the family about as well as I always thought I did.”
“They cook?”
“No. They’re awful.”
She laughs.
“Repeat that and you’ll disappear.”
“Do they clean?”
“Yes. Very well.”
She doesn’t ask anything else.
Doesn’t mean I don’t want to tell her though. “When I told Zen I’d send them to college, they informed me the only way they’d take my money was if they were allowed to pay me back.”
“By being your personal assistant?”
“Works out well for both of us. I forget to eat and shower when I’m in the middle of something, and they have an inherent distrust of the world at large. I give them a safe place. Honestly, they do the same for me.”
She falls silent, but she rests her head on my shoulder.
And I could walk like this for days.
Which is another reason I need to abandon my plans and leave.
Zen says they’ve never really fit in anywhere.
I’m not sure I have either.
It would be too easy to fall into the trap of thinking we could fit here.
I don’t know how far we’ve gone when Jitter stops and angles around a bush on the trail.
“Not today, Jitter,” Sabrina says.
Jitter whines and gives her the most pitiful look I’ve ever seen. Between the floppy jowls and the utter despair in his big brown eyes, there’s no question what we’re doing.
We’re letting Jitter lead.
“Hey,” Sabrina says while I turn off the path.
“Have to check it out,” I reply. “Someone could be hurt. Maybe Timmy fell down the well.”
“Timmy? Who’s Timmy?”
“You never watched Lassie reruns as a kid? Even I watched Lassie reruns as a kid.”
“What’s Lassie? Hey. Wait. Don’t—”
“Sorry, but when a dog tells me to go somewhere, and it looks urgent, I listen.”
I’m not sorry.
I’m delaying putting her down.
And Jitter is very insistent that we follow this skinny, snowy path through the pine trees and around larger boulders.
“There’s not a problem,” Sabrina says. “He just wants to go see something that we don’t need to see today. It’s getting dark. Seriously, we need to get back to the parking lot.”
“What does he want to see?”
“Jitter. Back on the trail.”
I tug the leash and retreat. “C’mon, Jitter. Before we both end up in the doghouse.”
He snorts, but he listens and heads back to the main trail.
“I feel you, buddy. I’ll bet it was something good.”
Sabrina sighs. “It’s just my grandparents’ old house and yard. You can kinda see it through the trees.”
I squint into the growing dimness and spot a single light twinkling beyond the trees. “They still live there?”
“No, the family put renters into it after Grandma died and Grandpa moved into a retirement community.”
“Must still love it if you and Jitter go visit often enough that he knows the way.”
“I—yes.”
There’s more to that story.
You can hear it in the hitch in her voice.