And Then There Was You Read online

  Trained. Well trained. He had no collar, no tags, but clearly he had once been someone’s pet. Riley went around the van and climbed into the driver’s seat. Turning the key in the ignition, he checked the time. The elementary school was letting out in a couple of minutes. There wasn’t time to get to the shelter first.

  They raced back across town, the dog staring out the window with his tail thumping contentedly on the center console. The typical crunch of cars was already present when Riley arrived at the school, so he pulled up to the curb a block away to park.

  He couldn’t take the dog without a leash. He didn’t know anything about how this dog would react to the crowds and chaos of an elementary school pick-up, so having him off-leash was just asking for trouble.

  Without any other orders in the back, there was nothing for the dog to get into while Riley was gone. “Stay,” Riley said, hoping the dog understood the command. “Stay. I’ll be right back, okay?”

  The dog glanced at him, and Riley got the sense that this mutt understood what he was saying perfectly well. That made him smarter than Hubble, who failed obedience class three times running before the instructor passed him out of pity. Hubble tried his hardest, to be fair. He just didn’t grasp any difference between the basic commands, so he selected whichever definition took his fancy and ran with it.

  Riley peeked over his shoulder as he walked away from the van. So far the dog was staying in the passenger seat to calmly watch the world go by. How old was he? Neither a puppy nor a senior, just somewhere in the long stretch between them.

  Once Riley was past the fenced athletic field, he cut over the lawn in front of the school. Kids were everywhere, shouting and running and showing off projects and papers to their parents. A few people had dogs with them, making Riley glad that he left the stray behind. Some dogs were dog-aggressive.

  Some dogs were kid-aggressive, too. Crap. Well, Jesse and Gigi weren’t toddlers anymore. They knew to be wary of strange dogs, and Riley would give them a reminder. He scanned the sea of bobbing little heads for his niece and nephew.

  “Uncle Riley!” Gigi tackled him from behind in a hug. She was the spitting image of Rivers and Riley as children, the same honey-brown eyes, honey-brown hair, wide forehead and broad-shouldered build. Ari’s genes were nowhere to be located on the surface, but her rollicking sense of humor was a lot like his.

  Riley patted her back. “Hey, sweetie. How was your day . . . is that a bruise?” There was a bluish mark on her upper arm, an inch under the scalloped sleeve of her T-shirt.

  “I punched him during music,” Gigi said proudly. “I punched him in his stupid face ‘cause he jammed me with his rain stick on purpose! Right there.” She poked her bruise so hard that Riley winced. “Three times when I told him to stop and I told the music teacher, too! Except now I got a note that Mom has to sign, and Mrs. Stahmers is going to call her.” The pride turned to defiance. “I don’t care!”

  Gigi could only be talking about Jackie Enzmen, the nightmare of first grade who spent his time terrorizing his classmates. Never the boys, Jackie never targeted boys, but he was awful to the girls. All five of the golden-haired Enzmen kids were troublemakers, from Jay-Jay at the high school expelled for keying cars, Jessica at the junior high suspended for breaking into lockers, and the three youngest boys at the elementary school in and out of the principal’s office for stealing, bullying, and fighting. None of the five seemed to possess a stealth mode. They did their crimes right out in the open for all to see, and then got caught and punished only to do something else just as brazen. They were carbon copies of their parents, who were well-known to Weathership’s small police force for their lengthy record of bungled misdemeanors. Petty crimes, stupidly committed, as Rivers summed it up.

  Riley predicted that there would be a lot of conversations around the dinner table about Jackie, since he and Gigi were in the same grade. At least there were no Enzmen kids in the third grade for Jesse to contend with. And as far as Riley was concerned, if Gigi told Jackie repeatedly to stop, and then told an adult and still nothing was done, then Riley could hardly blame her for punching that little brat. He didn’t doubt her story; she was honest to a fault. It was good that she was learning how to defend herself. “Maybe now he’ll leave you alone,” he said.

  “Uncle Riley!” Jesse appeared at his elbow with a wide grin. Now he had gotten Ari’s genes, the dark hair and deep brown eyes and narrow frame, the ability to tan when the rest of them burned to a crisp. And that was Ari’s smile all over again, reflected in his son. Ari and Rivers had fit together like perfectly matched puzzle pieces. Riley was once secretly jealous of their harmony, which he never attained with any of his previous boyfriends, or even come close to attaining.

  The three of them started across the lawn together, the kids competing to tell him about their day with Riley unable to get a word in edgewise. Jesse groaned when he saw the van in the distance. “Not the bakery van! Everyone asks me why I didn’t bring cookies or cake whenever they see it. It’s so humiliating.”

  Riley swallowed down on a laugh. “What wouldn’t be humiliating to you?”

  “It should say . . .” Jesse paused to think about it. “Pet store. That would be cool. Or landscape consultant, like Katie’s dad has on his bumper sticker. That’s just boring. Nobody would say anything about that. You need to get a new job and paint something else on the van.”

  Riley nodded. “I used to work in a clothing store. That was a long time ago, but I could do that again. How about underwear salesman on the van? Big block letters, so people can see it a mile away.”

  Gigi howled with laughter. “Underwear salesman!”

  Jesse was laughing from sheer horror. He was very self-conscious for an eight-year-old. “No!”

  “Oh, come on,” Riley said with feigned seriousness. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about. Everybody needs underwear, even your teacher and principal. In fact, it’s a great idea! I’ll paint pairs of underwear all over the van. That’s a lot less humiliating than dancing cupcakes.”

  “No! I’ll live with the cupcakes!” Jesse squawked.

  “Okay then, but let me know if you change your mind.” Riley squinted at the van, but the sun was glaring off the windshield. He hoped the dog was still chilling in there.

  Stopping the kids on the sidewalk, he bent down to look them squarely in the eye. “Before we get in the van, I need to warn you that we have a guest already inside.”

  Intrigued, Jesse said, “Who is it?”

  “I had to deliver an order of cupcakes to the high school before I came to get you guys, and I found a stray dog while I was there. Do you two remember how we act with dogs we don’t know?”

  “Calm and quiet, and we ask before we pet them,” Gigi recited.

  “Exactly right. A lot of dogs like kids just fine, but some don’t. And we don’t know this dog, so soft voices and hands to yourselves when you two get in.”

  “Whose dog is it?” Jesse asked.

  “I have no idea, Jesse. He was looking for food around the dumpsters and he doesn’t have any ID on him, so we need to drive him over to the shelter.”

  “But why? Why does he need to go there?”

  “Because it isn’t safe for a dog to live on the streets. He could get hit by a car. And maybe he has a microchip with his owners’ information on it. They’ll be so happy that someone found their dog and turned him in so he can go home. So let’s walk over to the van, keeping it down.”

  The kids practically tip-toed to the van. The stray was still sitting in the passenger seat and happy as a clam. Riley rolled open the side door and the kids climbed in, whispering, “Hi, dog!” “Hi, doggie!”

  The dog wagged his tail. Riley closed the door and skirted the hood to get in.

  “Uncle Riley, he’s dirty and he smells,” Gigi hissed once Riley was seated. “He needs a bath.”

  “I would have saved him some of my lunch if I knew he was going to be here,” Jesse said, searching through his
backpack for food.

  They were sweet kids. “That’s okay. I gave him part of your mom’s ham sandwich,” Riley said.

  He didn’t think there was an aggressive bone in this dog’s body. Inviting the kids up one at a time to the front, they patted him before putting on their seatbelts. Then Riley picked another twig off the dog and rolled down his window to toss it outside.

  Turning the key in the ignition, he pulled out into the road and waited in the line of cars to go left. Gigi was singing to the dog in a hushed voice when he peered through the mirror; Jesse looked concerned. “What’s wrong, Jesse?”

  “What if he doesn’t have a microchip?” Jesse asked. “What if he’s nobody’s dog? Then what happens to him?”

  “Then he’ll be put up for adoption.”

  “But what if nobody adopts him?”

  Then he’ll be put down. Riley didn’t want to say that, even though it seemed likely. “Maybe he will be.”

  “But we could adopt him. I can take him on walks.”

  “Dogs are kind of expensive, J-”

  “I can share my dinner with him! We’ll each have half!”

  “It’s more than food, honey. Dogs needs toys and vet visits and all sorts of things.”

  “I’ve got money! I’ve got fifteen dollars and seventy-three cents in my safe. That can pay for his stuff. I’ll give it to you when we get home.”

  Yikes. Riley should have gone to the shelter and called up Rivers to get the kids. “Look,” he said, coasting up to the stop sign and then turning. “A dog is a big responsibility. A huge responsibility.”

  A sign caught his eye. He was so used to this drive that he’d stopped seeing the finer details of the blocks along the way. There was a veterinary clinic at the corner. “Just hold on,” he said, pulling over to the curb to read the sign as Jesse continued to argue.

  It was Wednesday. The clinic closed early on Wednesdays, according to the sign, but it would be open from eight to five on Thursday. The vet’s name was Theodore Sullivan, and below it was the clinic’s phone number.

  Riley liked that name. Doctor Theodore Sullivan. It made him think of a white-haired, no-nonsense vet, caring for the generations of Weathership’s furry and feathered populace. The clinic looked nice from the outside, trimmed bushes and a swept walkway, clean windows and a dark but tidy waiting area through the big glass doors.

  The dog whimpered and shifted his weight on the seat. Riley thought that the dog was in pain, but it was just an excited reaction to a squirrel running around the trunk of a tree. The squirrel disappeared into the scarlet and yellow leaves and the dog calmed down.

  Riley turned in his seat to face the kids. Jesse had tears in his eyes.

  “Listen to me,” Riley said. “Are you listening, Jesse?”

  Jesse nodded. So did Gigi.

  “We can also have the vet check for a microchip, but the clinic is closed right now. Why don’t we take the dog home with us for tonight, we’ll feed him and give him a bath, and I’ll bring him back in the morning?”

  “And if there’s no microchip?” Jesse asked with a sniff.

  “Then your mom and I will talk about what to do. This isn’t only my decision. It’s a family decision. But what I need you to remember is that he might very well have a microchip, or there could be lost signs up for him. That means there’s some other family out there, maybe a family with a boy just your age, and they miss their dog terribly. It’s not right for us to keep someone else’s dog. Will you remember that?”

  “Yes, Uncle Riley,” the kids chorused.

  “Okay then,” Riley said, and turned for home. He could swear the dog was grinning.

  Chapter Two

  Theo

  Theo woke up with his mind inexplicably on roses.

  Then he saw the date on his cell phone, and he knew why.

  In the first thirty years plus change of his life, he had not had two thoughts to rub together when it came to the subject of weddings. Weddings belonged to another world far apart from his, a topic rendered dull from its distance and irrelevance. To willingly invite so much stress into one’s life over a single day’s events was beyond his kenning. During one vacation while mentally fried from veterinary school, he watched four entire seasons of Battle of the Brides back to back for no reason other than it was so over the top and foreign to him that it allowed his brain to shut off entirely.

  The screaming. The squabbling. The agonizing. The fixation upon the most trivial of details, one episode’s bride having a meltdown at the rehearsal when the bunting on a side table was a shade off from the wedding colors. Literally one shade. The difference was so minimal that Theo couldn’t see it, nor could the baffled groom or anyone else save the hysterically weeping bride. Why would anyone care about any of this?

  And then Vaughn proposed out of the blue one candlelit evening, and Theo cared.

  It was a day to celebrate their union. He wanted it to be perfect. Perhaps he wanted it all the more because of his parents’ disapproval, had they known their son was getting married. A marriage was reserved for one man and one woman, so how dare Theo trespass on their terrain? How dare he make a mockery of it by standing before the reverend with another man?

  But Theo wasn’t mocking anything. He argued about it with them in his head, which was the only place arguments had happened with them since he was sixteen years old. His wedding and marriage didn’t cheapen their wedding or their marriage; he just wanted those same things for himself.

  Like the roses. They weren’t the most inspired of flower options for a wedding, but he loved them all the same. The centerpieces he designed had held mauve roses, purplish snapdragons, and white orchids, simple and sweet yet elegant, and a full month had gone into his decision. A great deal of his time went into all the rest of it, too, working with Giorgio Alfonse who was one of the most coveted wedding planners along the Pacific. The caterers, the menu, the venue, the music, the guest list, the invitations, the seating chart, the cake . . . Theo had had so much fun with it. He trotted his wedding book back and forth to appointments with the planner and various professionals, feeling happy every time he opened it up even with a mental image of his parents staring bloody murder over his shoulder to the pages.

  Yes, it was stressful, but he threw himself into that stress with joy. The only time it overwhelmed him was the day Giorgio pressed a little too hard about why the entire guest list was from Vaughn’s side. No mother? No father? No cousin? You must have SOMEONE, Theo! You must! Everyone has someone!

  No. He didn’t.

  He didn’t have the wedding book anymore. After they broke up, he left it on the bookshelves in Vaughn’s study. That left the calendar as his biggest trigger, and the calendar was pretty much unavoidable.

  Today was the first anniversary of the wedding that never took place. Instead of rolling over in bed to Vaughn, there was emptiness. Well, except for the tubby tabby cat curled up and sleeping with half of her body on Theo’s pillow and half of her body on the other pillow. She was named for the target patterned stripes on her sides.

  Target was the queen of the inconvenient location. If you opened a book, she promptly sat her fluffy fanny down upon it. If you were preparing food in the kitchen, it was a great time for her to have a bath on the linoleum in front of the fridge or oven. If he was sitting on the can, she squeezed through the crack in the door and climbed into the puddle of his pants around his ankles for petting time. If he closed the door all the way, she yowled pathetically outside and gave him a look of betrayal when he finally opened it to let her in. The worst was when he was working on his laptop, and she helped him out by smacking her paw upon the keys.

  She was adorable, though, and very friendly. It was nice to come home at the end of the day and have her run across the living room to him.

  His phone buzzed in his hand as he stared sleepily at the date. It was a text from Derrick. They had met through Vaughn and kindled something that was more than an acquaintanceship yet less than a
friendship. At times Theo got the feeling that Derrick didn’t care very much for Vaughn. Yet Lane was good friends with him, and since Derrick and Lane were together, Derrick just made the best of it. It wasn’t like, in their busy lives, they got together much socially anyway.

  The sort-of-and-sort-of-not friendship wasn’t sexual. Derrick was a surgeon, a lot older and content in his marriage; he and Theo had similarly quiet and retiring personalities so nothing took spark between them. Their conversations were prone to petering out while waiting for the other to speak. But they liked one another, and talked on the side over dinners while their garrulous partners dominated the conversation.

  Just thinking of you today. Call if you need to talk. So Derrick remembered.

  Theo didn’t know what to write back. In the last year, they had spoken a handful of times, but their phone calls had that same issue of petering out.

  He set his cell aside without responding and buried his face in the pillow with a groan. If Theo had been smart, he would have taken the day off. Plastering a fake smile to his lips and going through the social pleasantries seemed like a monumental task right now. Just yesterday he’d thought that working through the anniversary would be good for him. Take his mind off it. Now he knew his mistake. This was a day to be alone, to rattle about his bungalow with the television on for noise and Target trailing after him to beg for treats.

  Too late for that. He showered and dressed and made the gross discovery that the cat had jumped up on the kitchen table sometime in the night to vomit on it. The table that she specifically wasn’t allowed to climb on. Instead of feeling annoyed with her, he had a sense of camaraderie. She was every bit as disgusted with this day as he was. Vaughn betrayed her, too. She was his pet before she was Theo’s.

  He drove into work, straining to think about anything else but his mind stubbornly wandering back in the very direction he didn’t want it to go. Was Vaughn even aware of the significance of the date? The wedding had always been more of Theo’s responsibility than Vaughn’s, but the date was such a basic fact that he should remember it.