Kissing Ted Callahan (and Other Guys)(31)

“Thanks for the ride, Riley,” he says, and then he’s gone.

I shove the secret admirer’s CD into my stereo. My phone rings, but it’s no secret admirer getting less secret. It’s just Reid.

“Yo,” I say, mainly to taunt him.

“Riley, I don’t care what you’re doing, you have to come over here now.”

“I was actually—”

“It doesn’t matter what! This is an emergency.”

“Are you dying?” I ask. Probably not if he’s on the phone with me, but I still feel like I should check.

“My soul is dying,” he says very seriously.

I’m not that worried about him because this is the second time this school year he’s said his soul was dying. But I still drive over to his house. I’m in the process of parking when I know what’s up because Reid is standing in front of his house holding a leash that is attached to the cutest black fluffy dog.

“Oh my god!” I leap out of the car as it’s still settling in place alongside the curb. “You got a dog!”

“No, Riley, I did not get a dog,” Reid says. “I was dogged.”

“That’s not a thing.” I jump back and forth in front of the dog so it’ll join in, and it does. Nothing in life is wrong when you are bouncing around with canine friends. “This is the best dog. You’re so lucky; my parents say we can’t have pets because ‘we’re both too busy to help.’”

“Riley, I don’t want this dog,” Reid says. “When I got home, Mom was there and acting all weird, and then the doorbell rings and it’s Jane’s boss from Paws for People with this dog.”

“The dog you pretended you were going to adopt so you could win Jane over,” I say, scratching the dog between its ears. “Oh my god, what are you going to name it? Is it a boy or a girl?”

“It’s a boy.” Reid shakes his head. “I had this whole plan of going back and saying I didn’t know my brother had allergies—”

“Michael’s allergic to dogs?” I ask. Reid’s older brother, who is crazy good-looking in a frat-boy manner and off in Chicago at Northwestern, hasn’t spent enough significant time around me for me to be knowledgeable about his allergies.

“No, Riley, that was just the plan to bail on the dog. But I forgot about the plan, since it seemed like I was getting somewhere with Jane—”

“It did,” I say. “It wasn’t you being crazy. It was—”

“Anyway,” Reid says, cutting me off. “So the last time we talked about the dog, I said I didn’t know if my mom would be okay with it or not because she’d probably rather I get a purebred dog from a breeder instead of a rescue.”

“She must have gotten all riled up,” I say, because Jane is on this one-girl mission to educate people at Edendale about the thirteen bajillion reasons it’s better to rescue a pet. She has brochures stuck to her locker and a handwritten sign that says, TAKE ONE, PLEASE!!

“Yes, she did, and thinking she was being nice to me, she called my mom and explained it all to her.”

“Wait, you made up an allergy for Michael, but you gave your mom’s real number?”

“She could have checked that! She couldn’t check if Michael was allergic. And I was going to make up his allergy. I didn’t even get a chance.”

I sit down on the ground so it’s easier to pet the dog. This dog has immediately become at least my third best friend in ranking. “Seriously, what are you going to name him? He needs the best, fluffiest name.”

I think about telling Reid about my list of kitten names but as awesome as this dog is, I’m not going to sacrifice one of my names.

“Riley, this is a disaster! Why aren’t you acting like it’s a disaster?”

“It’s not a disaster.” I know Reid wants me to share his devastation but I just can’t. “Jane was actually trying to do something nice for you, and so was your mom. You should feel special. And now you have a dog. A dog! You’re so lucky.”

Reid plunks down next to me on the ground. “I guess I’m going to name him Peabody. You know, like Rocky and Bullwinkle’s genius dog.”

I don’t know, because unlike Reid, I’m not a weirdo about old cartoons, but I don’t want to discourage him. “That’s a great name.” I pat his shoulder. “See? This is great.”

He doesn’t agree out loud, but I think maybe he does agree. Or at least somewhere deep down inside his weird Reid heart.

“You have to get him a cool collar,” I say. “That one’s supergeneric.”

“Yeah, I know,” he says with a sigh like he’s carrying the entire world’s problems on his shoulders.

“We could walk over to that pet store on Hillhurst,” I say, nodding in its general direction.

“Sure.” He perks up as we’re walking over. “Girls like dogs, right? Like maybe I’ll get attention from girls if I’m walking Peabody?”

“Maybe,” I say, “sure.”

“Are you going to the Andrew Mothereffing Jackson show at the Satellite on Thursday?” I ask.

“Maybe,” he says. “If I can find a girl to go with me—which I think I can.”