Anything for You (Blue Heron #5)(79)

“You read it for the articles?” Connor asked drily.

“There are articles?” Gerard said, flipping through.

Connor looked at the application. Reason for wanting a dog. To make my girlfriend’s brother like me. “Always wanted one,” he wrote instead.

It seemed akin to adopting a child, all the questions about his income, his hours, who’d supervise the dog when he wasn’t home. Was it wrong to put Colleen, when she’d have a kid? He put Lucas instead. Davey came back into the room with Keith.

“All set,” Connor said, handing the application to Bryce. “Ready to rock and roll.”

“Ready to rock and roll,” echoed Davey. He hadn’t yet made eye contact with Connor, but he wasn’t smashing his head against the wall, either.

They followed Bryce back to the dog kennels, which were nicer than his first apartment, really—each one had ceramic tile floors, a plush dog bed, chew toys, animal-themed artwork on the walls and a little door to a fenced-in area outside.

There were four or five of the usual suspects—the Chico types, pit bulls or pit mixes. One growled at Connor, and he felt the flash of remembered fear, Chico One’s jaws clamped on him, Colleen’s eyes wide, the sound fading as he almost lost consciousness.

“These are all nice,” Davey said. “These are like Chico.”

“Yeah,” Connor said. “Very nice.” Chico Three was nice. A real sweetheart. Not a biter, not at all.

“Got anything else?” Keith asked, and Connor hated to admit it, but he was grateful.

“Well, we have this beautiful lady here,” Bryce said, crooning over a speck of white fluff, about the size of the dust bunnies that roamed under Connor’s bed. There was no way in hell Connor was going to get a fluffy white dog.

“So cute!” Davey said. “Hi, what’s your name?”

“I’ve been calling her Lady Fluffy,” Bryce said.

There was also no way in hell he was getting a dog named Lady Fluffy who was, according to the sign on the cage, a Maltipoo.

“That’s a perfect name!” Davey said. “Hi, Lady Fluffy! Dad, isn’t Lady Fluffy so cute?”

“She’s gorgeous. Hey, sweetie!” The dog yapped in response.

“Dad, she’s licking you! She likes you! Maybe you should adopt her!”

“I can’t have dogs,” Keith said. “The landlord won’t let me.”

Damn. “Got any golden retrievers?” Connor murmured.

“Dude, no,” said Bryce. “When we do get one in, it goes so fast, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“Irish setter?”

“Nope.”

“Weimeraner?”

“Dude, we’re a shelter. We hardly ever get a purebreed.” Bryce gave him a disapproving look.

“Get Lady Fluffy, Connor!” Davey said.

“She’s definitely a contender,” he lied. “But let’s see all the others, too.”

The next dog was a bullmastiff mutt who lay like a dead lion, gas escaping in long, poisonous hisses. “We’re trying to figure out his diet,” Bryce said, his eyes watering. “Hey, boy! How you doing?” The dog didn’t move.

The last dog was a spaniel of some type. It seemed very, very old with a white face, milky eyes. “I didn’t know they had diapers for dogs,” Connor said.

“No, they do,” Bryce said. “Really convenient.”

Connor lowered his voice and tipped his head toward Davey. “I don’t want to get a dog who’ll, uh...”

“Go to the Rainbow Bridge anytime soon?”

“Exactly. Do you have any puppies?”

Bryce shook his head. “This is it.”

Davey was cuddling Lady Fluffy under his chin. If Connor brought that dog home, he’d probably step on it and kill it and not even know. He was not going to put the poor Malti-whatever at risk.

So it was the dead lion, the octogenarian or a pit bull.

* * *

“MEET LADY FLUFFY,” Connor said two hours later, taking the dog out of his jacket pocket. “My new best friend.”

“Oh, Hail Mary,” Colleen wheezed, then bolted for the bathroom. Her gales of laughter could be heard loud and clear.

“That is one great-looking dog,” Lucas said, fighting a smile. “Really manly. A poodle, is she?”

“Maltipoo. And shut up.”

“You gonna put a bow in her hair?” Lucas broke and started laughing.

“I repeat—shut up. Jessica’s brother picked her out for me.”

“God, you are whipped,” Lucas said.

“And you’re not?”

“Point taken.” He went over to the ladies’ room and knocked. “Mia, you okay in there?”

Colleen emerged from the bathroom, wiping her eyes. “She’s really cute, Con. When you said you were getting a dog, I just pictured you...with...with a...” The laughter started again.

“Get her out of here,” Connor told Lucas. “Leave, Dog-Face. Go push out that baby rhino.”

She stuck out her tongue, then said, “Rafe! You’re godfather.”

“I’ve already bought seventeen bisexual outfits in size newborn,” Rafe called back, peering out the kitchen window. “Is that the term? Bisexual?”