Heart and Soul by Jackie May (reading list .TXT) 📗

him, and we lock eyes. I need him to see that this is no joke. “Jay, I’m tired of being the me that’s all me. I want to start being the me that’s part you.”

He kisses me again. “Okay, but I would have been just fine with a maple donut.”

“And you said I was easy.”

I follow him inside, and the demon spawn waste no time in validating my grudge by showing that the feeling is mutual. For Jay’s smiles and outstretched hand, the dogs have nothing but playful paws and wagging tails, but the first sight of me sends them all into tantrums of rage. And not just the big dogs, either. Tiny rat dogs no bigger than a football are leaping at their cages with bared teeth. I would laugh in their tiny faces if Jay didn’t look so concerned.

“I see what you mean,” he mutters.

I have to shout just to be heard over all the yapping and cage rattling. “What, you thought I was just being a diva? It’s genetics, Jay. Dogs instinctively hate”—I’m about to say foxes, but the kennel lady is standing there, befuddled—“something about me,” I finish.

“I don’t understand,” the lady says. “I’ve never seen them like this. Do you have a steak in your pocket?” She laughs, moving from cage to cage, soothing her “pretties” with soft words and caresses.

I am the steak, I say to myself. “Maybe I should go.”

“You’re just new to them, is all,” Jay says. “After a day or so, they’ll warm up to you.”

“Funny, that’s what everybody keeps telling me about Nick Gorgeous.”

“Look, you made your point, babe. After this, it’s obvious you’d do anything for me. I’m telling you, it’s enough. Let’s go.”

I’m this close to gratefully accepting his lifeline when a great booming bark silences all the other dogs. It came from another aisle, where the big cages are kept.

The lady is delighted. “Well, look who wants some attention! Couldn’t wait your turn, huh? It’s just killing you to wait another second, isn’t it? Here we are, then.”

I take a step back, because that thing’s not a dog, it’s a horse. A black curly-haired poodle horse mix. A hordle. Or a poorse.

“A labradoodle,” Jay guesses correctly. He puts his palms against the cage, and the massive beast matches him, putting paws on the cage and standing on its hind legs. They’re practically the same height. “Eighty pounds or so?”

“Not quite,” the lady answers. “He looks more, because he’s so puffy. Needs a haircut, don’t you, boy?”

In response, the horse leaps away, runs around in four tight circles, then jumps back at the cage. His black mop of curls is so full I can only tell it’s his face by the long pink tongue wagging. Jay tries to contain his smile, but it’s no use. Anybody can see that he’s already done for.

“Oh, I knew he wouldn’t be here long,” the lady says. “Part Labrador, part poodle. Smart, loyal, and, most of all, playful. Like a big kid. What’s not to like?”

“Does he come with a saddle?” I ask. At the sound of my voice, the black bear looks at me. It drops to all fours, and with a yelp backs into a corner, whimpering. It’s so absurd—this massive beast frightened by me—that we all just stare at him for a second.

Jay laughs. “Really, boy? Big guy like you, a scaredy-cat? C’mere.” He crouches, holding a hand out through the cage. The black muppet’s tail wags like crazy. He goes eagerly to Jay, but with a wary eye kept on me.

The lady is flustered. “Maybe not frightened so much as…well, Labradoodles can be very sensitive.” She glances at me. “Perhaps he can sense that you’re…”

“That I’m what?”

“Well…not the biggest dog lover.”

“What, you’re saying I hurt his feelings?”

“Labradoodles thrive on pleasing their owners. Perhaps he senses too great a challenge in pleasing you.”

“Geez! Are you sure you’re not the one whose feelings are hurt?”

She gives me a patient smile. “Just try a gentler tone with him, that’s all. Think of him as a child. It is with Labradoodles as it is with most children: a little goes a long way.”

“So does a good smack upside the head, if we’re talking about my nephew.”

She looks appalled. Jay smiles at me, knowing that now I’m just being a brat. For his sake, I grit my teeth and attempt a thin smile at the curly black muppet. Immediately he brightens, wagging his tail and raising his bushy brows. As a test, I turn my smile into a frown, and he hides behind Jay, moping.

Jay laughs, not at the dog, but at me. “Shayne, you’re such a huge faker.”

“Wait, what?”

“Two days.” He holds up two fingers. “I give it two days before he wins you over. And I should know.”

“Oh, because I’m easy?”

“So easy.”

“Seeing as how he’s the only one here who doesn’t want to take a bite out of my face, I’d say he’s already done a pretty good job of winning me over.”

Jay cocks a brow at the lady. “That’s her way of saying, We’ll take him.”

So yeah, that’s how I first met Muppet.

He runs circles in the parking lot before Jay finally wrangles him into the truck. At home, he runs circles in the front yard until Russo wrestles with him. He runs circles all through the house, smashing into walls and knocking over lamps with his tail, until I come in, and then he scampers over to Jay like a worried toddler who wants Mommy to pick him up.

“He’s enormous,” Russo says as they start to wrestle again. “He’s beautiful. Aren’t you, boy? Huh? Yes, you are. Yes, you are.” And on and on with that baby talk that grown-ass men reserve especially for their dogs.

When I head for the kitchen, Russo suddenly jumps to his feet, grabs Jay by the shoulder, and pushes him out the back door. “C’mon, partner, let’s take him out back. Watch him run.” It’s an obvious and clumsy escape, which I don’t understand