Please enjoy the following sample of Spiced!, our next adventure in the Barbacks series.
PLEASE NOTE: This is an un-edited sample. Ignore any bugs you find crawling about. They’re pets and won’t eat much.
Chapter 1 | Adrian
The woman with the clipboard arrived at six-thirty. This was a problem for several reasons.
First, my shift didn’t start until eight. Second, I was still holding a pastry box and had flour on my shirt. Third and most importantly, she walked through the front door of Barbacks with the focused energy of a general who had studied the terrain and found it acceptable and was now prepared to occupy it.
The woman was maybe thirty. She had dark hair, somewhere between brown and black, pulled back into a tight ponytail so tight that made her eyes stretch back.
Oh, and she wore a sash that said “Bride Tribe” in rhinestones.
Behind her marched thirteen more women, also sashed and bedazzled, moving like some very loud, half-drunken human amoeba. They spread across the center section of the bar, claimed every available stool and two-thirds of the high tops, and began taking photos Benji, Jacks, the bar, the gay flags dangling from the ceiling, and, oddly, the ceiling itself.
I leaned against the doorframe of the back entrance and watched all of this happen.
Benji fled the bar and appeared at my elbow. He looked like a man who had suddenly and inexplicably found religion—or lost it—I wasn’t sure.
“The first pair of them arrived twenty minutes ago. You saw the rest just now,” he said quietly.
“It’s six-thirty.”
“I know.”
“Benji, there are—” I counted. “Fourteen women in our gay sports bar.”
“Fifteen if you count the bride, and I think we should count the bride because she’s wearing a veil and a sash and a button that says, ‘Last Ride, Make Me Beg.’ She has a crazed look in her eyes that scares me a little.”
The bride was twenty-five at most, already working on what appeared to be her second drink, possibly her sixth. She radiated the energy of a woman who had been told this was her last night of freedom and had taken that information far too seriously.
“Why are they here so early?” I asked.
Benji pressed his lips together in the expression he wore when a story was almost too good to tell. “I asked Ms. Clipboard that exact question. Very professionally, she informed me, and I’m quoting here, that they heard our food was ‘super sick’ and the bride wanted to eat before they continued bar hopping.”
“The bride,” came out a moan.
“Madison’s her name. Apparently eating here was her personal request.” He paused. “It was not on the schedule, and Ms. Clipboard was not pleased.”
I glanced toward Courtney who was standing very straight at the edge of the group, clipboard pressed to her chest, lips pursed to tight I wondered if they’d need a crowbar to part again.
“She doesn’t look happy,” I said.
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Benji snorted. “But Madison is the bride, and Courtney is the MOH. There is a hierarchy to these things that apparently even a laminated schedule can’t override. I think it’s kind of like a Brit trying to tell the Queen ‘no.” One simply doesn’t do such things.” Benji said the last bit in the worst British accent any Asian man has ever attempted. Then he added, “I respect it, honestly. True leadership is adjusting to the terrain.”
“How long does it take fifteen women to eat?” I asked, then added, “Never mind. I probably don’t want to know.”
Benji opened his mouth.
Then he closed it.
Jacks stopped on his way to the back, empty ice bucket in hand. “Hey, Adi, ready to shake your snake?”
I shook my head and tried not to chuckle. Jacks was adorable, like a giant, gullible, lovably muscled teddy bear, but bless his heart, he could be thick at times.
“Hey, Jacks. Always ready to dance,” I said, side-stepping snake talk. “Where’s Finn?”
“Office,” Jacks said, nodding his head toward the back.
“Does he know?” I asked.
Jacks shrugged. “He knew when they walked in. He went to the office approximately forty-five seconds later. Fucking coward.” He grinned with his last words.
I craned my neck to glance at the office door. It was closed and probably locked.
“He abandoned us, didn’t he?” I asked.
“He absolutely abandoned us,” Benji agreed. “Mark’s here, though.”
Mark sat in his corner booth with his laptop open and a glass of iced tea in one hand. He was staring at his screen while occasionally sneaking a peek at the assembled ladies. The grin that crawled across his lips spoke of profit margins and revenue models on a sports-less Saturday that was usually more of a break-even affair.
I set my pastry boxes on the bar and called through the kitchen pass-through. “Hey, Rod.”
Our resident chef’s head appeared, careful not to poke far enough through the pass-through to be seen by our boisterous guests. He homed in on the pastry boxes, squinted cautiously at the bachelorette party occupying the center of the bar, then looked back at me and released the longest sigh in the history of breathing.
“Guava’s yours,” I shrugged and nodded toward the boxes. “Rest is for everyone else.”
Rod did his best Inspector Gadget stretchy-arm maneuver through the pass, snatched the guava box, and vanished faster than the Road Runner being chased by poor ole Wile E.
Ms. Clipboard found me before I could escape to the back.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you the performer?”
I looked down at my flour-dusted shirt then looked back at her. “Yes, ma’am. That’s me.”
“Wonderful.” She scanned me head to toe, then made notes on her clipboard, grunting like a mechanic assessing a ticking noise. I got a good look at what was attached to the board while she wrote.
There were printed sheets and laminated tabs.
For a bachelorette party.
I was suddenly terrified of the evening to come.
“We have you scheduled for nine, nine-forty-five, and eleven, with the option for an additional set at midnight if the bride’s energy warrants.”
I sucked in a breath. “Who made this schedule?”
“I did. I’m Courtney, the MOH.” She said it the way policemen flashed badges. “I’ve been planning this for eight months. Barbacks was a last minute addition and appears to have captured the bride’s heart even more than her groom.”
“Courtney,” I said. “I work here, but I’m not booked for any event specifically. My sets are already scheduled and are for the whole bar.”
Her eyes narrowed as she began clicking the button on the end of her pen.
I held her gaze.
She clicked faster.
“Alright, fine. The whole bar will be watching,” she said pleasantly, then clicked her pen three more times. She made a note on her clipboard, spun on a heel, and returned to her group.
I went to find Benji who’d deserted me somewhere between clicks. He was making drinks for four of the sash contingent with the delight of a man who was exactly where he wanted to be. Jacks had still not returned from the back, the little chicken shit.
I waited until there was a gap, leaned in, and whispered, “Courtney has a schedule.”
“I know,” Benji nodded without looking back. “She showed it to me. It’s typed and laminated.”
“She has me down for four sets.”
“That’s what I saw.” He added something to a shaker. “On the bright side, they’re ordering consistently and tipping well. The bride told me this is the third bar they’ve hit, which means they have a timeline and will eventually leave.”
“When?”
“Courtney said ten-thirty at the latest.” He shook the drink. “She called it a ‘hard out.’ It’s on the schedule.”
“She told me there might be a midnight set. I don’t think they’ll ever leave. Courtney even amended her schedule to reflect that.”
“Courtney,” Benji said, with far too much admiration, “is a force of nature. I respect her completely. She may become my new bestie. We’ll see how the night goes.”
I shattered Rod’s sigh-record at that.
With one final glance at the women, I snuck away to change; but before I made it past the counter, the bride caught my eye. A grin split her face, and she wiggled her fingers in greeting. I gave her a respectful nod in return.
“Jesus, take the wheel,” I muttered.
The back room was quiet, which was the thing I usually loved about my pre-shift hour. While the bar settled into itself, the hum not yet at full volume and the whole evening still theoretical, I could prepare in peace. I changed into my work speedo, drank half my orange Fanta in one go (because the situation called for it), and stood at the mirror for a moment and assessed the evening before me.
Fifteen bachelorette party members.
Courtney with her laminated schedule.
A bride already on her second drink—probably her sixth—at six forty-five in the afternoon.
And a bar beginning to fill with regulars who would either love the intrusion or abandon us for one of the other joints down the street. It would be my job to keep the boys in their seats no matter what craziness our rhinestone-covered friends threw at us.
Fine.
I had danced in worse conditions.
I had once danced through a fire alarm test.
I’d performed ballet during a power outage that lasted four minutes.
One memorable night, some dude brought an emotional support parrot into the bar. The bird screamed vulgarities every thirty seconds throughout my set, but I never missed a beat. Trust me, nothing screamed professional performance like a parrot squawking, “sloppy pussy” every time I shook my butt.
When I returned to the bar, the bachelorette party had reorganized themselves into a configuration with the bride directly in front of the bar so she had a clear sightline to the performance area. Courtney was photographing said performance area from three different angles.
Yes, she’d brought three tripods and three cameras.
An hour and fifteen minutes later, most of their food was gone, their tables were cleared, and the women of the bachelorette party had crossed from pre-game into something considerably further along the spectrum.
They were also decidedly drunker.
Rod’s food had been declared ‘super sick’ by unanimous vote, and much to my chagrin, the bar hop plan was being discussed in the past tense. Madison sat leaned forward on a stool at the bar telling Benji her entire love story from the beginning. Benji was listening with his elbows on the bar and his full attention because Benji genuinely wanted to know. I was fairly certain I was witnessing the bonding between a gay and his new gal pal. Benji had literally shifted his loyalties from bride’s maid to bride while I was changing.
With barely a glance back, Benji handed me a fresh Fanta as I passed the well.
“She moved the garnish trays,” I said, scanning the bar top.
“I put them back,” Benji said.
“She must’ve moved them again,” I countered.
“I know. We’re in a negotiation. It’s sensitive.” He gave the bride a “give me a second” finger, then turned back toward me, “Also, Madison’s been watching your Instagram for two years and she’s very excited. You’ll probably have to sign her boobs before the night’s over. I have a permanent Sharpie standing by. You should personalize it so it’s special for the groom on their wedding night, but they’re not that big, so you’ll have to write in really tiny letters.”
I wanted to laugh or chuckle or whatever one did when told he had to sign women’s personal parts, but I was so numb at that point that nothing came out.
I looked at Madison.
Madison waved at me with both hands, her eyes like blinky full moons.
I waved back.
We were literally three feet apart with only a bar counter between us and we were waving.
This night just kept getting better.
“You’re a pro. Just keep saying that. You’ve got this,” Benji said.
“Right. Pro. Got it,” I said, accepting a shoulder pat from my sadistically grinning coworker and resisting the urge to toss some of my precious Fanta in his face.
The bar was filling around the bachelorette party by then, our usual Saturday crowd finding their spots and doing the brief recalibration that gay guys did when they discovered a large pack of women inhabiting their hallowed ground. Most adapted. A few of the regulars caught my eye across the room, offering expressions ranging from sympathy to utter amusement.
I was doing my final check of the bar surface when the front door opened, the motion catching my eye. I watched a man I’d never seen before stride in. He was wide across his shoulders, wore a dark henley, and had bushy brown hair that looked like it had very strong opinions of itself. The dude, probably in his late twenties, stood just inside the entrance for a moment, taking in the room with a single unhurried scan. He registered the bachelorette party occupying the center section, clocked me standing on the bar edge doing a pre-shift surface check, and found a stool at the far corner, well away from the rhinestones and laminated schedule.
Then he picked up the drink menu.
Jacks took his order and returned to his table a few minutes later with something amber in a short tumbler. The guy settled into his stool and draped one arm over the back of the empty stool beside him, looking every bit the owner of the bar rather than a new customer.
That’s when Courtney appeared at my elbow.
“Eight minutes,” she said.
“My set starts at eight-thirty, Courtney.”
“I’ve moved the timeline up slightly to account for energy optimization.” She checked her clipboard. “The girls are ready.”
“Energy optimization?” I blinked rapidly at Benji.
Benji stifled a grin and stared up at the ceiling.
“Fine,” I said.
I downed the last of my Fanta, tossed the can in the recycle bin, and rolled my shoulders.
The moment I stepped onto the counter, the bachelorette party produced a noise that was, conservatively, eighty percent of the room’s total sound output despite being less than fifteen percent of its occupancy, hitting a frequency that likely made dogs bark from across the Tampa Bay.
Madison clasped both hands under her chin like the love-struck puppy she was.
Courtney documented everything from every angle.
The other sashes squealed and waved their drinks in the air.
From the far end of the bar, the man in the dark henley watched. He looked like a guy who’d ordered a quiet drink on a Saturday evening and received something considerably more complex—and was, despite the curl forming at the corners of his mouth, not entirely unhappy about it.
I met his gaze for just a second before the music pulled me in. His grin widened as he raised his glass approximately an inch.
I didn’t smile back.
I was a professional.
But it was close.
Chapter 2 | Adrian
The eight-thirty set started.
Madison lost her mind, though not in a concerning way. No, she lost it in the way of a woman who had been promised the best night of her pre-married life and was milking it for all it was worth. Her sashed sisters screamed with her. The sound hit me in the chest before Jacks had even cued the first track.
The rest of the bar went completely still.
We had a regular named Dennis. He came every Saturday, sat in the same spot, ordered the same IPA, and expressed enthusiasm through the mild, appreciative nod of a man who considered visible emotion a personal expense he wasn’t willing to incur. Dennis turned on his stool, looked at the bachelorette party, and then turned back to his beer.
Then turned around again.
Then turned forward.
Then turned around a third time, slowly, like a man making sure he’d seen what he thought he’d seen.
I found the beat, moved into it, and the room split into two distinct experiences of the same evening.
The bachelorette party entered a condition I could only describe as unhinged joy. Madison had both hands clasped under her chin like she was receiving a religious vision. Courtney, who had spent the better part of the evening managing a laminated timeline, set her clipboard on the table, picked up her drink, and let go. It was honestly the most moving thing I’d witnessed all night.
The Ride or Die sash was filming.
The Mrs. Always Right sash was dancing in place like a woman who had taken one too many wine-and-paint classes and thought she had rhythm.
She did not have rhythm.
She was having the time of her life anyway.
The gay men watched all of this unfold with the collective expression of guys who were now watching a bonus show they hadn’t ordered and were still deciding whether or not they were okay with it.
Dennis’s neighbor leaned over and said something to him.
Dennis shrugged, his version of consent.
That was the moment the bar became one room.
Once Dennis allowed it, everyone else allowed it, because Dennis’s opinion carried weight among the Saturday regulars whether Dennis knew it or not. He was the Norm to our Cheers, the regular on whom many set their watches and ordered their refills. Within sixty seconds, the whole crowd had absorbed the bachelorette party into the general ecosystem of the evening. From there, the night found its stride.
The dollar bills started flowing with the second song.
The first twenty came from Madison. It was a crisp note that she’d clearly had ready in her hand since her arrival. I danced toward her end of the bar and did a thing with my hips that I knew would produce a reaction. The twenty made it into the money band that clung to my quad, a male version of a garter worn specifically to collect tips and keep groping fingers from traveling further north.
Madison squealed.
The bachelorettes squealed with her.
By this point, the gay men had started competing with the bachelorette party, because if there’s one thing that will motivate the Barbacks Saturday crowd into spending money, it’s the implication that someone else might be spending more.
By the third song, I had six different hands reaching for my money band simultaneously. Benji was watching from the well like a man witnessing a nature documentary in real time.
“You doing okay up there?” he called.
“Perfectly fine,” I said, spinning away from a particularly enthusiastic reach from the Second in Command sash.
“You’ve got a twenty dangling off your leg.”
“I’m aware.”
“And a ten about to slip free.”
“Also aware.”
“There’s a five on your—”
“Benji.”
He held up both hands and went back to his bottles.
Dennis, who by this point had fully committed to the evening, produced a bill from his wallet with the dignity of a man making an investment in tech stocks.
I stepped down between sets for water and an orange Fanta to find Benji already holding both.
“Madison wants to dance with you,” he said.
“I’m a performer,” I said. “Not a—”
“She’s the bride.”
“I know she’s the bride.”
“It’s her last night as a free woman.”
“She is gaining a husband, not entering a correctional facility.”
“She would like to dance with you,” Benji repeated. “The crowd wants it. I want it. Rod appeared at the pass-through three minutes ago. He looked at Madison, then at you, then back at Madison, then went back to the kitchen. You know what that means?”
I chugged my Fanta. “Rod wants it, too.”
“Yep. Rod wants it, too. He might even leave his lair just to watch.”
I glanced at Madison. She was looking at me with her full-moon eyes and both hands clasped again. She had, at some point, acquired a foam tiara that sat precariously atop her veil.
I finished my Fanta and rolled my neck.
“Tell Jacks to play something danceable,” I said. “Not his usual EDM crap, something with a real beat and words, preferably in Spanish so they’re sexy.”
Benji was already texting before I finished the sentence.
The crowd parted without being asked, then the automatic human instinct to create a circle around something that was about to happen took hold. The ring was wide with good floor space at the center.
Madison stepped forward.
She was probably ten drinks past her usual limit. Her veil fluttered in the draft from the A/C vent blasting down from the circle’s center. Her foam tiara was nearly falling off.
I sauntered forward, my leg band now less impressive, as I’d emptied it of cash before stepping into the ring.
I bowed like some Elizabethan noble.
The crowd hooted.
Sharper than her alcohol blood level suggested, Madison giggled then curtsied.
The crowd hooted louder.
We started slow with a simple two-step. It was nothing ambitious, the kind of thing you might do at a wedding with someone who’d never danced before. She was actually decent, far better than the Mrs. Always Right sash, and she knew it. She stood up a little straighter when she realized I was genuinely dancing with her rather than managing her.
“You’re good,” I said into her ear.
“My mom made me take lessons,” she said. “I hated it until literally this second.”
Her hands fixed themselves around the back of my neck, as I smiled and moved us around the circle.
The bridesmaids shrieked.
Madison blushed.
We did a little turn.
I twirled her about.
She giggled again and nearly stumbled.
Her girls screeched in alarm, then “awed” when I caught her and pulled her close.
Dennis’s neighbor, who had done shots with the Ride or Die sash and was now operating at an elevated emotional register, shouted something from the edge of the circle. I didn’t quite catch his exact words, but the spirit of it was: stop being polite and rock her world!
The crowd roared in agreement.
Madison’s wide eyes glittered in the bar light, as her head nodded eagerly.
“It’s my last night,” she said.
“You said that.”
“My fiancé knows I’m here.”
“Good for him.”
“He said to have fun.”
“Madison,” I said. “What exactly did he mean by fun.”
She grinned and winked.
Then the music shifted.
Jacks, who understood a room better than anyone I’d ever worked with, moved to something lower and slower and considerably more intentional, the kind of track that required the body to make decisions without the brain’s direction. What happened next will remain, in the canon of Barbacks Saturday nights, legendary.
I am a professional.
I want that noted.
What I did with Madison was tasteful in the way that things can be tasteful while also being completely unhinged. The distinction is real even if it is difficult to articulate.
The crowd had, collectively, been drinking for several hours and had opinions about what they wanted to see. They were not shy about expressing them.
Dennis cupped his hands around his mouth and said something that made Courtney spit her drink and knock her clipboard off the table.
The Ride or Die sash had resumed filming, which was probably fine֫—and possibly not fine—depending on how much the groom ended up seeing.
Benji was leaning on the bar with both elbows.
Rod’s head appeared at the pass-through. He watched for a full thirty seconds before going back into the kitchen. Then he came back and watched for another thirty seconds.
“You’re going to miss your kitchen,” I heard Jacks call over the music.
“I have a window,” Rod shouted back, and pointed at the pass-through.
Madison and I dirty danced through one whole track and halfway through the next one.
The bridesmaids lost their shit.
Dennis screamed out like he’d seen Jesus—or Elvis.
When the music finally wound down, the circle erupted louder than when the Lightning scored on game nights. Madison hugged me with both arms and said something into my shoulder that I couldn’t hear over the noise. Before I could pull back, she planted a kiss on my cheek and giggled one last time. I patted her back and said her fiancé was a lucky man. This earned a duck of her head and a blush that flared all the way into her ears.
The bachelorette party never left Barbacks to pursue other venues.
They closed out their tab at midnight.
Courtney’s original hard out had been ten-thirty, but the revised schedule had been revised twice more during the evening. At some point, it had simply ceased to be a relevant document. They left in the warm, unsteady, deeply satisfied way of people who had received more than they’d planned for. Madison hugged everyone individually, including Jacks, Mark, Benji, and Rod, who submitted to this with varying degrees of stoicism.
Courtney shook my hand at the door. “I’m adding Barbacks to the official schedule next time,” she said.
“I’ll be here,” I said.
“I’ll laminate it,” she said.
The bar emptied in the half hour after midnight, the usual end-of-Saturday drift. By one-fifteen, the room had gone quiet, Jacks was running the closing check, and Benji was doing the last of the well inventory. I sat at the bar with my arms on the counter and rested my head on them, letting the glorious quiet wash over me.
Finn appeared at my side.
He looked at me.
He looked at the bar.
He looked at Benji, who was biting the inside of his cheek.
He looked at Jacks, who had found something interesting to examine on the other side of the bar.
“So, how was the night?” Finn asked.
“Fine,” I mumbled into my arms.
“I heard some of it from the office.”
“Define some,” I said.
“I heard Dennis.”
I lifted my head. “What exactly did Dennis say? I couldn’t hear him over the hyena squeals.”
“The important question,” Finn said, with careful precision, “is not what Dennis said. The important question is what the groom is going to say when he sees the video the woman in the Ride or Die sash posted forty minutes ago.”
I let my head drop back onto my arms and groaned.
Benji made the sound he made when something was so funny that he was physically struggling to contain it.
“It’s a tasteful video,” Jacks offered, somewhere to my left.
“It is not tasteful,” Benji said. “It’s hot.”
“It’s tasteful-adjacent,” Jacks said.
“It is adjacent to tasteful in the same way that—”
“I’m a professional,” I said, into the bar counter. “No lines were crossed.”
“Nobody is questioning your professionalism,” Finn said.
“You’re all questioning my professionalism,” again lifting my head to meet Finn’s gaze.
“We are admiring your professionalism,” Benji said. “The crowd formed a circle, Adrian. Organically. Nobody organized it. The circle simply emerged.”
“The circle was not my idea,” I said.
“The circle was absolutely your idea,” Benji countered.
“Benji.”
“You climbed off the bar and the circle happened. That’s causation,” Benji crossed his arms as though his point was irrefutable. He was grinning with his whole face, the uninhibited, maniacal Joker-to-my-Batman grin that meant he had no intention of letting this go tonight or possibly ever.
Finn set a cold orange Fanta on the bar in front of me, which I took as an “atta boy” from my boss. I looked at the Fanta, then looked at him. Of all the people in this room, Finn was the last one I expected kindness from at one-fifteen in the morning after the evening I’d had.
“The video has fourteen thousand views already,” he said. “Mark texted me.”
“Mark is awake at one in the morning?”
“Mark saw the video. His mental cash register won’t let him sleep,” Finn chuckled.
I picked up the Fanta and popped the tab.
“He already sent me a revenue projection, complete with future earnings from future bachelorette parties we might host. He’s creating a whole business model around off-night entertainment options. I think your little dancing moment inspired him.”
I drank half the can in one go and set it down. Then I glanced between the three of them: Finn with his phone showing me Mark’s text, Jacks examining the ceiling with suspicious focus, and Benji still grinning like some cannibal who’d just found a lost hiker in the jungle.
“The bride was very nice,” I said.
“She was lovely,” Benji agreed.
“Her friends were lovely,” Jacks added.
“They should be classified as accomplices, not friends.” I shot him a glare.
“Dennis had a good time,” Benji said, ignoring my complaint.
“Dennis tipped forty dollars on twenty dollars’ worth of drinks,” Jacks said. “And that’s not counting whatever he shoved in your leg band.
I finished the Fanta. “He has more money than sense.”
“Customer service demands its due. Good thing you have a lot to grope . . . I mean grip,” Benji said. Jacks, unhelpful ox that he was, blinked a few times before it registered, and he joined in the laughter.
“Benj, you know I’m not that kind of dancer. That’s why I use the leg band.”
“I know. Still, Little Adrian is impressive. That’s what the sashes were saying,” Benji added. “I mean, if you’re into Puerto Rican monster snakes.”
Jacks literally hit the floor. Tears were streaming down his face.
“Guys!” Finn warned, though we all knew Benji was harmless and his words were in good jest.
“Fine, Dad,” Benji said.
“Thanks, guys. Great support. You’re the best, really.” I blew out a long sigh. “I think it’s time I put my anaconda to bed.”
Jacks stammered nonsense from the floor.
Unhelpful as ever, Finn shook his head and turned to walk back to his office. I was pretty sure he laughed as the door closed.
Chapter 3 | Brendan
My morning started with an iguana on the loose.
Yeah, you heard that right.
And I’m not speaking metaphorically.
This was four feet of prehistoric attitude named Chairman Meow. The good Chairman had slipped free of his carrier while his fourteen-year-old owner was attempting to show me a TikTok video about iguana wellness. Meow was now somewhere in exam room two expressing his opinions about the situation.
“He does this,” the boy said, craning his head to search for his escapee.
“Often?” I asked.
“Only when he’s bored.”
“He’s at the vet. How could he be bored?”
“No offense, but he finds it under-stimulating,” the boy said, sounding more like a pet psychologist than a middle schooler.
I glanced at the empty carrier, then I looked at the boy. His name was Oliver.
I knelt and peered into the corner of the room where Chairman Meow had wedged himself behind the supply cabinet. He was a creature who had found his spot and was prepared to defend it.
“Mister Chairman,” Oliver said with a bit too much respect for my liking. “Come on.”
Chairman Meow glared at Oliver.
Then the creature looked at me.
Then his gaze drifted toward the ceiling.
He did not “come on.”
We spent the next ten minutes retrieving the stubborn iguana. Oliver provided encouragement. I provided my patient, non-threatening approach that worked on roughly ninety percent of lizards. Chairman Meow provided resistance and little more.
Diane, my office manager, appeared in the doorway at minute seven with a piece of cucumber she’d procured from somewhere I chose not to ask about. The cucumber was what finally resolved the situation.
“Why do you have a cucumber?” I asked.
“I have a lot of things,” Diane said.
“In your scrub pocket?”
“Doctor Davis.” She rolled her eyes and handed me the chart. “Room three is ready.”
Room three was a rabbit named Copernicus whose family had named him after the astronomer and wanted me to know why at some length. The mother explained it, while the father provided historical context. Their twelve-year-old daughter corrected both of them with the bloodless precision of a child who had done the reading and was not going to pretend otherwise. Copernicus sat on the table and chewed air with serene detachment.
His teeth were slightly overgrown, even for a bunny.
“More hay,” the daughter told me before I could say it.
“More hay,” I confirmed with a nod.
She looked at her parents and cocked one supercilious eyebrow.
I finished Copernicus’s exam, made my recommendations to the adult family members (though I suspected the daughter would do better than either of her parents), and went back to the hallway where Diane was waiting, one foot tapping against the linoleum to some beat only she could hear.
“Room four,” she said.
“What’s in room four?”
“Présidenté.”
I froze.
Présidenté was a capybara, ninety-two pounds of short-haired and squatty snouted rodent owned by a Mrs. Okafor who had previously employed a vet in Caracas and whose home apparently contained a small solarium.
None of this was standard.
All of it was well documented.
“Is he in the room?” I asked.
Diane’s expression shifted slightly.
“Define in,” she said.
I opened the door to room four.
Présidenté had conducted a thorough investigation of the room and was now wedged behind the exam table that had been moved approximately eight inches. Mrs. Okafor stood near the wall in a linen blazer with her hands folded.
“He explores when he’s anxious,” she said.
“How long has he been out?” I asked.
“Since the waiting room,” Diane said, from behind me.
My brain finally kicked in. “He got out in the waiting room?”
“Briefly.” Diane pulled the door mostly closed. “Marcus handled it.”
“Marcus is a front desk coordinator not a rodent wrangler.”
“Marcus was very brave,” she grinned. “Besides, you know we all do everything around here.”
I turned back to Présidenté. He looked back at me with small, beady eyes. When I crouched down, he came out from behind the table. I examined him on the floor, which was not standard protocol, be he was Présidenté and the world bent to his will. Diane documented this without comment beyond the amused smirk she wore whenever cataloguing material to tease me with later.
“Mild vitamin D deficiency. Needs more sun,” I muttered, knowing Diane would nail the notes.
“He has a solarium,” Mrs. Okafor said.
“The he needs a larger one with better lighting,” I said.
“Thank you, doctor,” She produced a business card from her blazer. “My vet in Caracas will send his notes.”
Getting Présidenté back into his carrier required Diane, me, another piece of cucumber, and Marcus, who appeared in the doorway with his hands clasped and a smart-ass smirk to match Diane’s.
“Can I assist?” Marcus asked, knowing full well we needed his help.
“We’re fine,” Diane said, from behind Présidenté.
“It appears—”
“Marcus,” she said.
He retreated but maintained his position inside the now closed door.
Présidenté made a sound at me when he was settled. I chose to interpret it positively. Mrs. Okafor told him to say, “thank you,” and he made the sound again, which she explained was his confirmation.
Next up was a parrot named Cracker who had once, ironically, belonged to a sailor and retained the man’s vocabulary to prove it.
Following Cracker was a dachshund with a back issue and an owner who also walked with a slight lean.
Owners and pets mirroring each other never failed to amuse me.
Then there was a goldfish in a travel container whose owner, a woman named Sandra, wanted a second opinion on a diagnosis she’d received from a vet in Clearwater. She had printed out fourteen pages of research to support her position.
On a goldfish.
“He’s very intelligent,” Sandra told me.
“The fish?” I asked.
“His name is Squishy.”
I looked at Squishy. He came to the edge of the container and stared back at me.
“He knows things,” she said.
“I’m sure he does,” I said, wondering if I should call for a psych eval on the owner.
I excused myself to grab a chart from my office desk. It was somewhere between Cracker’s second inappropriate word and Sandra’s fourth printed page about Squishy that Marcus appeared in my office doorway and said, in a considered tone that was unlike our affable front desk man, “Your brother is here.”
I looked up, my brows bunching. “Alan’s here?”
“He brought sandwiches,” Marcus said with a shrug.
Alan appeared behind Marcus holding a paper bag. He was twenty-eight, five inches shorter than me, and looked like he’d woken up that morning and decided today was a good day to involve himself in someone else’s business. He was also my best friend, which was the main reason I hadn’t changed the locks.
“I was in the area,” he said.
“You work on Harbour Island,” I said.
“It’s very close.”
“It’s twenty minutes.”
“Only with traffic. Besides, I had a break.” He set the bag on my desk and slumped into the chair across from it with the settled confidence of someone intending to stay. “Oh, and Marcus texted me.”
“Marcus texted you?” I asked flatly then shot Marcus a glare. Ever the chicken among hawks, he adjusted a pen on the corner of my desk to a precise ninety-degree angle, shot through the doorway, and disappeared.
“He said you had a granola bar for breakfast. He was concerned.” Alan opened the bag and produced two sandwiches. “He’s a good person, your Marcus.”
“Marcus is supposed to manage the front desk not my diet.”
“Marcus manages the front desk and apparently also you, which is a lot to ask for one salary. You should give the guy a raise.” He pushed a sandwich across the desk. “Now, stop grousing and eat. Tell me about your weekend.”
“I’m not grousing. I’m reviewing charts.”
“The charts will be there after you finish your sandwich.” He unwrapped his own and took a bite. “Did you do anything? Go anywhere? Exist outside this building for any portion of the forty-eight hours between Friday evening and this morning?”
I picked up the sandwich. “I went somewhere Saturday.”
Alan went very still, staring, unmoving, the same way I would with a frightened animal on their first visit to my exam room.
“I went to a bar,” I said. “In Ybor. Peter mentioned it at a work thing a while back.”
“Peter, the vet surgeon Peter?”
“Yes.”
“The same weird Peter who says approximately twelve words a week? That Peter recommended a bar? Where actual people go? To socialize and talk and drink?”
I cocked my head in the “fuck off” way brothers do. “Peter’s not that bad. Apparently, he’s dating one of the guys who works there. They might be married now. I’m not sure.”
Alan nearly dropped his sandwich. “Dear God. Peter is dating an actual human. What’s this world come to?”
“Alan, come on.”
“Fine. I’ll play nice. It’s still shocking. That guy is more introverted than anyone I’ve ever known.” He shrugged with his bushy brows. “So, what was it like, this bar you went to?”
I thought about warm walls and a crowd that knew each other and a room that understood what it was. I thought about a ridiculously sexy, muscled, sweaty man with rich colored skin and floppy black hair moving on a bar counter like some Greek statue made in Puerto Rico then brought to life and given a speedo.
And I smiled.
“Good,” I said. “It was good. Definitely worth the trip.”
Alan’s brows bunched, forming one massive caterpillar. He stared so long, mid-chew, that I wondered if he’d flipped a breaker in that thick head of his.
“You gonna going back?” he asked, slowly resuming his chew.
“Maybe,” I said. “Though I’ve never loved bars.”
“Maybe, huh,” he repeated, in the tone of someone writing something down internally.
“It was a good bar, has this sports theme that doesn’t feel like a gay bar. They don’t allow smoking inside, so I didn’t leave wanting to burn my clothes. Plus, the guys who work there are really nice.” I said. “Peter has good taste.”
“Just nice?” his lips curled.
“Fine. They’re hot. Seriously, like ridiculously hot.”
“There he is! My bro! I knew he was still in there somewhere.” Alan took another bite, his grin turning toothy and disgustingly tuna salad covered. “So, let’s recap. Doctor No-Personality-Peter recommended a bar and you went and it was good and maybe you’ll go back.”
“That’s the whole story,” I said.
Alan nodded slowly and said nothing, which was more unsettling than if he’d said something, because Alan’s silences meant he had arrived at a conclusion he was choosing to keep to himself. Alan keeping things to himself was a temporary condition at best. I had long ago diagnosed him with a chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth. It might’ve been the most accurate diagnosis I’d ever made.
“Marcus said a capybara got out,” Alan said, suddenly shifting subjects.
“In the waiting room.”
“How big.”
“Ninety pounds.”
Alan whistled. “Marcus was there for that? Isn’t he normally the one running from the room, screaming like a—”
“He was brave,” I said, cutting off whatever insult he was about to hurl.
He crumpled his wrapper, did a basketball free throw shot into in the trash, and stood. “Eat dinner tonight, a real one, maybe even use a table.”
“I always eat dinner.”
“Eating vending machine chips at your desk doesn’t count. Don’t make me report to mom. She’ll send the family mafia.”
“You’ll be banned from this office if you do.”
He snorted. “Love ya bro. Text me.”
Then he vanished through the doorway. I listened to him stop at Marcus’s desk on the way out and say something that made Marcus laugh, which Marcus almost never did during office hours. Then I heard the front door open and close.
I ate the rest of my sandwich and went back to my charts.
***
The afternoon ran in the same direction the morning had established—one small, furry or feathered universe after another, each patient presenting its own world of concerns. Animals and their people moved through my exam rooms with their own needs and their ways of explaining those needs. I stood in the middle of it all doing the thing I had decided at eleven years old was the thing, healing and helping and hoping I could make each patient’s tail wag a little more.
At ten minutes to six, as Diane was shutting down her workstation, and Marcus was aligning everything on the front desk to his satisfaction, the front door opened.
“We’re just closing,” I heard Marcus say, in the pleasant but firm tone he used for walk-ins after five-thirty.
“I know, I’m sorry, he just—I just got him today, and I think something’s wrong, and I didn’t know where else to go.” The voice was warm, and slightly breathless, the voice of someone who had been moving fast and thinking faster. It carried a delicious accent I guessed was from somewhere in South America, possibly an island, but I couldn’t be sure.
I put down my pen and sat back, waiting for Marcus to ask the inevitable.
Something about that voice was familiar in the way things were familiar when you’d heard them in a different context and your brain was doing the cross-referencing work before you’d consciously asked it to.
“Let me check with the doctor,” Marcus, appearing in my doorway a moment later with a defeated look. He knew I wouldn’t say, “no” to a new patient, especially a puppy, and that would extend both of our workdays. “Got a walk-in with a new puppy. I’m pretty sure he’s a first-time owner. He seems—” Marcus considered his word choice. “Anxious, the owner, I mean. The puppy seems fine.”
“You okay hanging out a bit longer?”
“I could use the overtime.” Marcus nodded. “Make this last all night if you need to, doc.”
I chuckled. “No chance of that unless the owner’s super-hot.”
Marcus grinned. “I’ll settle in, maybe order a pizza, ‘cause this one’s on fire.”
I sighed and nodded. “Alright, put Mr. Hottie and his pup in Exam Two. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I heard Marcus chatting with the owner, quiet “thank yous” that followed, footsteps in the hallway, and then the click of the exam room door.
I picked up a fresh chart and walked to room two.
A man stood in the middle of the room holding a small beagle mix puppy against his chest with both hands. It was the careful grip of someone who had been holding this creature for approximately six hours and had already developed potent feelings about keeping it safe. The guy was maybe mid-twenties, with dark, almost black hair that hung nearly to his rounded shoulders, which I could see clearly thanks to the flimsy tank top he wore.
The puppy was eight weeks at most and was conducting a thorough examination of the man’s chin with its tongue. The man was submitting to said tongue bath with the resigned warmth of someone who had already accepted that this was simply his life now.
He looked up when I came in.
I blinked at him.
It was the guy from the bar.
The dancer.
We now stood in different light, in a different room. He had flour smeared across his tank top, but it was the same face, same beautiful skin, same sexy jawline and eyes and . . . damn.
It was actually him.
He recognized me at approximately the same moment I recognized him. I could see the check running, the placement clicking, and then something shifted in his expression.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
The puppy licked his chin again.
The guy adjusted his grip without looking down.
“You’re the vet?” he said.
“I am,” I said.
“From Barbacks.”
“Well, I’m not from Barbacks, per se, but I did go there, you know, last night, I mean yesterday, to have a drink. It’s a bar. Drinks are the thing, right? I mean—”
The guy grinned and his whole face transformed into a brand of sunlight I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed. I felt my knees revolt and had to wiggle them back into compliance.
“Right. Drinks at a bar. That’s good.” He looked at the puppy, earning a dozen more sloppy licks right across the face.. “I got a puppy.”
“I see that. He’s cute.”
“Today.”
“Okay.”
“Like,” He shifted the puppy to a slightly different position against his chest. “Four hours ago.”
“Let me guess,” I said, knowing it wasn’t a guess. “First dog?”
“First anything,” he said. “I have a succulent. She’s a very good succulent. I’m good with her.” He looked at the puppy. “This is different.”
“Your houseplant is female?”
“Her name is Abbie. She’s very sweet. At least, I think she is.” He nodded seriously. “She doesn’t lick my face or pee on my shirt, though.”
“A puppy is quite different from a plant, even one as . . . sweet . . . as Abbie,” I said, smothering a chuckle. “And what are your names?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I’m Adrian. I haven’t named this little guy yet.”
“Nice to meet you Adrian. I’m Doctor Davis, Brendan Davis.”
“Brendan,” he said, as though memorizing a foreign word. “I mean Doc. Sorry. I’m new to all this.”
I grinned at watching a hunky guy fumbling for words. That was usually my problem when confronted with a hottie.
“So, Adrian, what made you decide to come in? It’s good to get new dogs checked out, but Marcus said you were concerned about something.”
“He sneezed,” the man said. “Like, a lot. On the way over. I kind of panicked. Is that—is sneezing bad? He’s so little, and his sneeze was so big.”
“Can I take a look at him?”
“Yes. Please. That’s why—yes.” He stepped forward and held the puppy out toward me, then apparently reconsidered whether he was ready to let go and pulled him slightly back, then held him out again. “Sorry. Here.”
The puppy looked up at me with the expression all puppies had at this age, which was one of complete trust combined with zero understanding. He immediately attempted to eat my stethoscope.
“He does that,” Adrian said.
“Most puppies do,” I replied.
“I’ve had him four hours, and I know that already,” said a man who had four hours of extremely concentrated experience and wanted credit for it.
I set the puppy on the exam table and began my assessment. Eight weeks, healthy weight, good coat, clear eyes. Adrian stood on the other side of the table and watched with focused intensity.
“Any ideas for a name?” I asked.
A brief pause.
“Mofongo,” the man said. “I’m not sure yet, but that’s on the list.”
I looked up, unable to hide my confusion.
“It’s a Puerto Rican dish,” he said, sounding like someone who had already made this decision and was not reconsidering it. “Green plantains, fried and mashed up with garlic and chicharrón. My abuela makes it. It’s—” He stopped. “He just looked like a Mofongo when I saw him.”
I looked at the puppy.
The puppy looked back at me and sneezed directly into my face.
“That’s him,” the man said. “That’s the sneeze. Is that bad?”
I straightened and grabbed a paper towel. “He’s completely fine. He’s adjusting to new environment. It’s all new smells and a little dust from wherever you picked him up. Puppies sneeze.”
Adrian exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath since a car ride twenty minutes earlier. “Okay, good. He’s okay then?”
“He’s perfect,” I said. “Healthy weight, clear eyes, good energy.”
Mofongo was currently attempting to fall off the edge of the table with cheerful purposefulness. I moved him back to the center.
“You’ll want to get him fully vaccinated. He’ll also need a round of deworming and flea prevention. I’d recommend a wellness visit every three weeks for the first few months.”
“Every three weeks?” Adrian repeated.
“It goes fast,” I said. “He’ll be six months old before you know it.”
“Six months.” He watched Mofongo attempt the table edge again. “He’s going to be bigger.”
I smiled and nodded. “Oh, yes.”
“How much bigger?”
“Beagle mixes typically get to about twenty-five or thirty pounds. He won’t be a massive beast, but he’ll be a lot bigger than what you see now.”
Adrian looked at Mofongo.
Mofongo looked at him.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay. That’s fine. I can do that.”
“He’s going to be great,” I said.
Adrian looked at me.
“First dogs are terrifying,” I said. “But only for the first week—then they’re just your dog.”
Something in Adrian’s expression shifted, a small settling of someone receiving exactly the confirmation they needed. “Yeah?”
“I have a ferret,” I said. “In that first week, I took his temperature four times because I was convinced something was wrong.”
“Was something wrong?”
“He was fine. I was the problem.” Without thinking, I reached over and put my hand on Adrian’s arm. “Owners usually are. Pets adapt and learn, but owners are stubborn.”
Adrian grinned, then his eyes drifted down to where my hand was still on his warm, smooth skin.
I jerked back.
His smile widened.
Mofongo had given up on the table edge and was now sitting in the center of the metal slab with all the dignity a puppy could muster, looking between us with the attentive expression of a dog following a tennis match.
“He’s listening,” Adrian said.
“He’s eight weeks old,” I said.
“He’s smart,” Adrian said, with complete certainty. “You can tell already.”
Mofongo sneezed again, lost his balance, recovered, and sat back up with his dignity still somewhat intact.
“He’s very smart,” I said.
Adrian reached over and picked him up. Mofongo immediately went for his chin again. Adrian submitted and was quickly slathered in puppy slobber.
“Same time next week?” Adrian said, looking at me over the top of Mofongo’s head.
“Three weeks,” I said. “For his first vaccines.”
“Three weeks,” he said in the same way he’d said “okay” earlier, like he was putting it somewhere specific. “Good.”
I walked them out to Marcus, who took one look at Mofongo and lost approximately forty percent of his professional composure, which for Marcus was seismic.
“Can I—” His hand was almost petting Mofongo’s ear, but he stopped and pulled back. “He’s very healthy looking.”
“His name is Mofongo,” Adrian said.
Marcus smiled. “That’s a good name.”
“Thank you,” Adrian said, like he’d been waiting for someone to say so. “My grandmother is going to love that someone agrees with her.”
Adrian settled his bill with Marcus, tucked Mofongo back against his chest, and looked at me once more from the doorway.
“Thanks, doc,” he said.
“Brendan,” I said.
“Brendan,” he said, flashing another brilliant smile before stepping through the glass front door. Mofongo’s small face watched me from over his shoulder until they vanished from into the parking lot.
Marcus and I stood at the front desk in silence for a moment.
“Thanks for staying late. See you tomorrow?”
“Same bat-time, same bat-channel,” Marcus said with a mock salute.
I walked back to my office and sat, mentally preparing to resume notating charts. Before I could even pick up my pen, Diane appeared in the doorway. She had her bag slung over her shoulder and her keys in her hand.
“Good night, Doctor Davis,” she said.
“Good night, Diane.”
“Go home sometime before midnight. You’re only young once.”
“Yes, mom.”
She flicked me the bird and left.
God, I loved my team.
***
Puck was at the door before I had it open. He climbed onto my arm, settled on my shoulder, and dook’d with intent.
“Rough day,” I said, carrying him to the kitchen. “Good ending though.”
He made a quiet sound.
Gerald was on the windowsill in his correct spot. I checked his soil. He looked good, exactly as he always looked.
“There was a puppy,” I said to Puck. “It was eight weeks old, a beagle mix.” Puck chittered. “His name is Mofongo.”
Gerald said nothing, which was his standard position.
“The owner was—” I stopped.
Puck blinked at me.
“He’s coming back in three weeks,” I said.
Puck dook’d once.
I fed him, watered Gerald, and ate leftovers for dinner standing up at the island, because Alan wasn’t there to have anything snarky to say about it.
Puck stood at the edge of the counter, watching and judging as all ferrets did.
“What? Fine. Yes, he was hot.”
Dook.
“No, I didn’t get his number. I’m a professional. I mean, technically, I have his number. It’s in the system. But it would be unethical for me to use a number given by a patient for personal reasons.”
Dook. Dook.
I set my fork down and squinted at my stubborn pet.
“I’ll see him for the next checkup in three weeks. There’s no need to go crazy.”
Puck shuffled forward, then sat on his haunches a few inches from my plate. He glanced at my plate, then up at me and dooked three times in rapid succession.
I blew out a sigh. “Fine, I’ll go back to the bar.”
I swear Puck raised an eye brow and grinned.
Chapter 4 | Adrian
There’s so much nobody tells you about getting a puppy, like how you will stand in a vet’s parking lot for six minutes after your appointment, holding eight pounds of squirming beagle against your chest, replaying the moment when a very attractive man put his hand on your arm and then removed it like he’d touched a hot pan. Your pup will sneeze on you three times throughout said hand-touching-and-removal, and you won’t notice a single sneeze.
Mofongo sneezed a fourth time.
I looked down.
He looked up at me with his enormous ears and his painted-on white nose stripe with the absolute certainty of a creature who had known me for four hours and had already decided to adopt me as his daddy.
“So,” I said. “That’s the vet. He’s your doctor now.”
He blinked.
“His name is Brendan. He has good hands. He touched my arm and then stopped, which I’ve been thinking about ever since. That’s kind of embarrassing, isn’t it? I need you to keep that between us, okay?”
Mofongo sneezed again. This time puppy spittle coated my shirt. He promptly licked it off.
“Okay, ew,” I said. “But I guess that’s fair. Or was that your way of agreeing to keep my secret? You’re going to have to be patient with me. I don’t speak Beagle yet.”
Mofongo licked my shirt again. I took that as affirmation and not him cleaning the flour off the fabric, which, in hindsight, was a very human way to see his non-affection-related slobber.
Getting my baby beast into the car took four minutes because he had opinions about the passenger seat, the seatbelt, and—I say this burgeoning dog dad love—the pine tree air freshener hanging from the mirror, which he attacked with the determination of a guardian who had identified a clear and present danger and intended to neutralize it personally.
“Papi, that’s decorative.”
He growled. The sound was small was ridiculous, entirely committed, and the most adorable thing I might’ve ever heard.
“You’ve been alive for eight weeks. Are you seriously trying to protect me from pine?”
He growled again.
“You know what,” I said, “you’re right. I never liked it either.”
I took it down and tossed it in the glove compartment. Mofongo watched this with satisfaction, then sneezed, lost his balance, scrambled back upright, and looked at me as though nothing had happened.
I stifled a laugh to avoid damaging his childlike ego, snatched up my phone, and dialed Benji. As the phone rang, I made my way across the massive parking lot to the spaces in front of PetSmart, having suddenly realized that I owned nothing puppy related—no food, no bowl, no crate, no bed. Abbie, my Ficus, only required a pot, water, and occasional conversation.
Mofongo had already neutralized an air freshener and peed on the concept of boundaries.
“I got a puppy,” I said when Benji picked up.
There was silence.
“His name is Mofongo.”
The sound Benji Kwon made was somewhere between a laugh and a spiritual event. I waited it out.
“Shopping list, now,” I said. “Please.”
“Crate, bed, puppy food—not adult food—yes, there’s a difference, two bowls, a collar, a personalized tag with your phone number for when he escapes, a leash, four toys maximum—and because I know you, treats, dental chews, and pee pads.” A pause. “Oh, and wipes.”
“Why wipes?”
“You’ll understand soon,” he said. “Also, which vet did you take him to? The hot one in South Tampa? He’s delicious, from what I’ve heard.”
“Goodbye, Benji.”
“Was he cute? Come on. You have the voice you get when—”
I hung up.
Benji didn’t need to know about the hand-on-arm thing or the way the vet made my insides jumble.
Brendan, I scolded myself. His name is Brendan, not “the vet.”
Mofongo’s whine brought me back to the present. I scooped him up and climbed out of my car. Inside PetSmart, Mofongo produced a gravitational effect on every human within thirty feet. By the food aisle, I had collected four people with opinions about kibble, two children conducting simultaneous petting operations, and one man named Harold who was seventy-something and had owned beagles for four decades.
“That one’s too rich,” Harold said, pointing at my first food selection.
I put back the salmon. Harold nodded like I’d passed some test.
Mofongo spent the rest of our trek down the food aisle trying to climb out of my arms to race toward a rawhide bone display he had decided was his by divine right.
“Those aren’t for you yet,” I told him.
He wiggled and nipped.
“Papi, look at me. You’re the size of a cantaloupe. Your ears are literally bigger than your brain.”
He made a sound that landed somewhere between a bark and a deeply personal grievance, then tilted his head. One enormous ear flopped forward with the motion, as he stared with such concentrated effort that I laughed out loud right there in the aisle.
“He’s trying to understand,” Harold said.
“He looks like he’s taking a dump.”
“Forty years of beagles,” Harold chuckled. “They’re always listening . . . and pooping. You’re not wrong about that.”
Harold walked every aisle with us and was right about everything. At the register, I set Mofongo on the floor, where he promptly sneezed on Harold’s shoes. Harold laughed from the belly, patted me on the shoulder, and said, “You’re going to do great.”
I knew he meant me, not the dog.
I desperately needed to hear it.
***
We got home at eight-fifteen.
I set Mofongo down in the center of the living room and stepped back. He looked at the couch, then at the kitchen, then at the sad form of Abbie by the window. Abbie did not look back because Abbie was a Ficus—a very dead Ficus.
Then he looked at me.
“Esto es tu casa,” I told him. This is your home.
He considered this for three seconds, walked to the corner of the room, and peed.
“Ay.”
He looked at me over his shoulder while he did it, utterly unapologetic.
“Mofongo. Inside is not for that.”
He finished his business, gave the corner a satisfied sniff, and trotted back to the center of the room like a soldier returning from a victorious battle.
“We have one rule,” I said. “That lives outside.”
He sat down and tilted his head.
“I’m serious.”
He sneezed, walked to my foot, and sat on it.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried not to laugh. The last thing the pup needed was encouragement.
“Fine,” I said. “We’ll work on it.”
I got the wipes.
I understood the wipes completely now.
***
I called Abuela at nine. She answered before the first ring finished.
“Mijo.”
I didn’t bother with pleasantries. We’d never been much for small talk.
“I got a puppy. His name is Mofongo.”
The laugh that flew out of her started somewhere deep, arrived as joy, then morphed into something close to a cry. I sat on the kitchen floor with my head against the cabinet and grinned at the ceiling.
“Mofongo,” she said, finally pulling herself together. “You named that poor baby after mashed plantains.”
“Abuela, when you see his face you will understand. He peed on the floor and looked me in the eye while he did it.”
“Like a man who knows what he wants,” she said approvingly.
“That’s one way to see it.”
“Saturday, you bring him before your shift. I will make the real mofongo. We will introduce them.”
“You can’t feed a puppy—”
“I know how to feed a baby,” she said, and the discussion was over the way discussions were always over when she used that tone.
“The vet says we go back in three weeks,” I said, immediately regretting the transition because there was no casual way to drop that sentence, yet I had done it anyway.
She breathed.
Just breathed.
But Abuela’s breathing had a vocabulary, and this breath said approximately four hundred words, all in Spanish—and grandmother—which was its own language.
“Fine, his name is Brendan,” I said, because it was easier than letting her work the silence like some CIA interrogator.
“Bren-dan,” she said, letting the syllables roll on her tongue.
“It’s a vet appointment, not a date, Abuela. For vaccines.”
“Fine,” she said, warm and unbothered. “Saturday. Don’t be late.”
I ended the call and sat on the floor a little longer. Mofongo’s snores floated up from where he lay curled in my lap, absurd for something that small.
“She already knows,” I told him.
His breathing caught and he adjusted himself without opening his eyes.
“I said his name one time and she knows.”
Mofongo’s eyes wiggled beneath his lids.
“Three weeks is not that long,” I said.
He resumed snoring with what I chose to interpret as agreement.
***
Mofongo woke me up at eleven-fifteen.
His crooning started small—one test sound launched into the dark.
I lay still and listened.
He escalated.
I surrendered.
We went outside, which in theory I had understood. In practice, this involved me standing in the courtyard in pajamas while Mofongo approached the grass like a scientist establishing baseline data.
Sniff here.
Circle back.
Sniff again.
The courtyard had information, and he intended to have all of it before he committed.
“Anytime, Papi.”
He looked up at me.
“I’m not rushing you. It’s only midnight.”
He sneezed at a patch of grass like it had personally offended him then finally handled his business and looked up at me, waiting for his review.
“Muy bien,” I told him. “Perfecto. Good boy.”
His whole back half wagged—not just his tail, his entire back half, like the happiness couldn’t fit in his tail alone and needed more real estate. I crouched down, and he launched himself at my face. I caught him and laughed in the dark because what else was I going to do?
***
My alarm went off at three-thirty.
I did the math.
The math was bad.
Mofongo was still asleep, snoring with the righteousness of a dog who had peed outside correctly and been told he was perfect. He didn’t need math or an alarm or complications.
“Easy for you,” I told him.
He snored with feeling.
I showered, made coffee, and stood at the counter looking at him through the crate door longer than my schedule allowed then drove to the panadería through empty orange-lit streets. This was Tampa before it decided what it was. I always loved this hour.
Doña Carmen was already there. She was always there. I had long since stopped trying to understand how.
She looked up when I came through the door. “You look terrible.”
“I got a puppy.”
She put down her spatula.
“His name is Mofongo.”
She stared at me for three full seconds, then started laughing. I tied my apron and ignored her, because four AM and Doña Carmen laughing was a better morning than most things I could name.
The first dough had over-proofed. I worked it back carefully, patient and quiet.
“Demasiado tiempo,” I told it. Too much time. “We’ve had this conversation.”
“You’re talking to the bread again,” Doña Carmen said through a smirk.
“The bread listens.”
“The bread is bread.”
“Six years of deep relations with dough say otherwise,” I said.
She made the sound she made when I was right but wasn’t going to say so.
I worked through the first hour in a rhythm that had organized my mornings for six years—dough and heat and the particular satisfaction of making the same things well, over and over, until the repetition became its own kind of clarity.
Mofongo drifted through my mind’s eye.
Then I saw my abuela on Saturday.
Then Benji’s inevitable interrogation.
Finally, without conscious thought, I saw Brendan’s hand on my arm.
I slid the pan sobao into the oven and wiped my brow with a towel.
“What are you smiling at?” Doña Carmen asked.
“Nothing.”
“You’re smiling at the oven, Adrian.”
“The oven is performing well.”
She looked at me long, clear, and with her “I-know-exactly-what-is-happening-here” smirk then turned back to her work.
“The vet was kind,” I said for absolutely no reason.
She continued rolling dough without looking up.
“We go back in three weeks.”
“Three weeks isn’t so long,” she said.
As though confirming what everyone kept saying, the timer went off.
The pan sobao came out warm and with the rich smell of something made right. Doña Carmen broke off a piece—the end, always, fifty years of that rule—and ate it with her eyes closed.
“So good,” she said.
Outside, the sky was growing lighter at the edges.
Three miles away, Mofongo was still asleep with a stuffed animal under his ear.
I had a puppy named after mashed plantains and garlic, a vet’s number in my phone, and three weeks that were, apparently, not so long.
I pulled the next tray and got back to work.
Chapter 5 | Brendan
Puck stole my left shoe on Thursday evening, which I considered a reasonable metaphor for how the week was going. I found it twenty minutes later. How he got it into the space behind the washer will forever be a mystery.
Shoe retrieved, I sat on the kitchen floor scratched his mischievous, knobby head and decided that I was going back to Barbacks on Saturday.
It was a good bar. Peter had recommended it. The whiskey was good.
These were the reasons.
Puck realized I was lacing up the recovered shoe and began fidgeting.
“We need to talk about boundaries.”
He dook’d and skittered away.
I looked toward Gerald from the floor. He was three rooms away and therefore not visible, but I looked in his direction anyway.
“Don’t,” I said.
Gerald said nothing, because Gerald was a succulent and had already made his position clear by existing quietly on the windowsill without stealing anything from anyone, which was a pointed contrast to my furry housemate.
***
On Friday, Puck stole the right shoe.
I found it in the bathroom.
I didn’t ask questions.
***
Saturday arrived without asking whether I was ready.
That was rude.
By seven PM, I was seated in the same booth I’d sat in the first time I visited Barbacks. I wore the same dark henley, which was clean and was the correct choice and had nothing to do with anything else, certainly not the compliment a certain dancer may have given it the first time I was there.
Jacks set a whiskey in front of me without being asked.
“You came back,” he said.
“It’s a good bar,” I said.
“Yep.” He nodded once and moved off.
I sat with my tumbler of amber goodness and watched the room filling around me.
I was on my second whiskey when the music shifted and Adrian stepped onto the bar.
I looked at my glass.
Then at the bar.
Then at my glass again.
All right, I thought. There it is. There he is.
Adrian moved like someone who had chosen dance as his love language years earlier and had never once looked back. Most go-go performers I’d seen writhed and wiggled with little rhyme or reason. Adrian flowed with the music, his body married to the beat and harmonies. His movements were hypnotic, like watching water gliding across pebbles and then down in a torrent until the waterfall filled the pool below. Beautiful didn’t come close to describing it.
Maybe, just maybe, the second whiskey was thinking for me.
I would never admit that, though.
As Adrian’s dance continued, the room reorganized itself around his performance the way rooms did when someone was doing the exact thing they were built for. I watched—my attention complete— because that was just how I watched things that interested me. Whether or not I was ready to admit it, Adrian interested me very much.
Four minutes into the set, Jacks appeared at my elbow.
“Message for you, Brendan.”
I startled at his voice, sure, but more from him remembering my name. “Sorry? What?”
Jacks looked like a man who had been handed a task he hadn’t applied for. “I have a message from Adrian. He says, and I’m quoting, ‘Tell the vet my dog is going to be fine and that he likes his name.'”
I couldn’t hold back a snort.
Jacks cocked his head, which reminded me of Mofongo minus the elephant ears, which made me snort again.
I glanced toward the bar, where Adrian was very much not looking at me, which meant he very much was.
“Tell him I appreciate the update,” I said. “Purely from a medical standpoint, of course.”
Jacks’s brow knitted for a beat, then he wound his way through the crowd, back across the bar, and delivered the message during a turn in Adrian’s set. The sexy dancer leaned down and bared far more of his ass to the crowd than he likely intended. They roared at the display.
Before the music resumed, Jacks returned to my booth.
“He says, ‘Tell the vet that Mofongo learned to sit on command this week and is thriving.'”
“Tell him that’s excellent progress for eight weeks, especially since he’s only had the dog a few days. Oh, and tell him I call BS.”
Jacks grinned. “BS. Got it. I can definitely call BS on Adrian.”
He went.
A moment later, he came back.
“He says, ‘Tell the vet that Mofongo has also learned to open the kitchen cabinet and steal bread, which is either very smart or very Puerto Rican, he hasn’t decided.'”
I thought about Puck behind the washing machine with my shoe and chuckled.
“Tell him, ‘Puck’s been stealing things since I brought him home and we’ve never resolved it. Tell him I said welcome to the club.’”
Jacks went.
Ten minutes later he reappeared.
What surprised me most about this ridiculous teenage note-passing exercise was how unbothered Jacks seemed each time he returned. He had the energy of an Australian Shepherd who’d been given a job and was simply happy to do it.
“He says, ‘Tell the vet that Puck, Gerald, and Mofongo should meet. They have things to discuss, probably a heist to plan.'”
“Tell him that Puck doesn’t discuss things. Puck schemes and steals and hides the evidence. Gerald contemplates. They are not remotely the same, and I won’t have them compared.”
“You want me to say all that?” Jacks blinked massive, owlish eyes at me. “Gerald’s a plant, right?”
“Succulent, to be precise.”
“You want me to explain the difference between a ferret and a succulent to Adrian? While he’s performing?”
“Word for word,” I said pleasantly, raising my tumbler in salute.
I watched as my message was delivered. From the bar, Adrian’s face did something I filed under genuine delight before I could stop myself.
Jacks came back looking like a man calculating how far back his wrong turn had been.
“He says, ‘Tell the vet that Puck and Mofongo are basically the same animal, and the vet knows it.'”
The grin wouldn’t leave my lips. “Tell him that Puck has never stolen bread. He steals socks and shoes and once my car keys, which is a completely different value system. Mofongo is eight weeks old and innocent. Puck is a career criminal. The comparison is offensive to both of them.”
“He’s going to want me to come back again after that,” Jacks said, resignation threading his usually buoyant tone.
“Probably.”
Jacks sighed at the ceiling, then turned and wove his way through the crowd.
Adrian laughed at something during that delivery. His head tilted back as he did so. The room caught it and warmed without knowing why.
Then Jacks returned with a third whiskey and a basket of something battered and fried.
“He says, ‘Tell the vet that stealing shoes is definitely worse than stealing bread because at least bread is consumable and its theft has a logical endpoint. Reference Jean Valjean, a bread thief who became a hero. A wanton shoe thief operates without purpose or mercy. These are also reflections on their respective owners.'”
I considered this, then I allowed a moment of awe at Jacks’s memory. I was fairly certain he was reciting our messages, word-for-word, without notes or a second hearing. It was truly impressive, especially for a Golden Retriever. They weren’t always the smartest breed.
Adrian also had a fair point about the shoes. The part about the owners was a stretch, but I wasn’t going to say that through Jacks.
“Tell him I’ll raise the logical endpoint argument with Puck at our next house meeting. And tell him his hypothesis about the owners is circumstantial at best, and I’d like to see the supporting data.”
Jacks opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
Then vanished into the crowd.