“I didn’t get it all off, did I? Maybe we need a mat outside, too.”
Karen Meyer would be pleased. She hated what he’d done with the place.
Or what he hadn’t.
He scratched Bunsen’s ears with a sour smile, then hung up his vest beside the retriever’s leash, dropped his bag on the second-hand Craigslist couch that he’d somehow managed to cram into his car on pickup several years ago, scanned the floors for vomit—nothing fresh—and changed from his jeans into running clothes. Bunsen abandoned his shoes to seize Ethan’s discarded work socks, carrying them like a prize while he tore around the living room, eager for exercise beyond the confines of the condo’s back patio.
His mother hated that patio even more than she hated his lack of a welcome mat.
She’d planted succulents in the dirt behind his unit one afternoon, and Bunsen had dug them up. He hadn’t let the retriever kill her plants to annoy her—not explicitly. He was just busy, and giving his dig-happy dog access to the patio while he was at SVLAC was easier than hiring a walker.
“But your condo is so—starter home. You need better furniture and art. You need friends, too. Real friends, not the dog. You could share a much nicer place in Palo Alto, and invite your brother’s colleagues on the Peninsula over for dinner once you’re settled. You just need to make the effort.”
When he wasn’t vomiting on the floor, Bunsen was better company than any of Chase Meyer Jr.’s friends.
And maybe even when he was.
“Come on. Frisbee and a run through Stulsaft Park?” He jammed in his earbuds.
Bunsen’s tail thwacked against the couch, the wall, and his knees.
“Give me the sock, first.”
The retriever paused in an agony of choice between the sock and the leash.
“There might be squirrels in the park.”
Bunsen dropped the sock and leaped for the door, towing Ethan outside and down the street. He kept pace with the galloping dog, the pounding of his strides against the sidewalk timed to the chords of Green Day. They raced traffic to the nearest crosswalk and sped across the boulevard to the edge of the park, where Bunsen halted to sniff at a bollard. He left his scent, staring at Ethan without shame as he tottered on three legs, then loped toward the illicit snack hunting ground under a swing set.
“What did you even find here yesterday? You’ll eat coyote scat with no problem, but vomit up—what, a Lunchable?” He tugged the retriever away, setting off along Stulsaft Park’s central hiking trail. “We’ll go for an hour, but I have to work when we get back. Get everything out of your system.”
Holding their pace, they jogged past barbecue pits with picnic tables and branching trails before heading for the off-leash paths and open grassy fields south of the creek. Five minutes on the trail became fifteen, then twenty. Ethan’s breath came harder, tiredness dragging at his legs, his face and shirt wet with effort, and Bunsen’s tongue lolled. But it was good, this single-minded focus ofstride,stride,stride, the steady motion like a metronome under his ribs, moving with physical purpose and a blank mind while the rock band wailed in his ears, approaching the field now, Bunsen beginning to pull despite his panting, eager to chase the local black squirrels and frisbees.
The phone strapped to his arm vibrated.
Incoming Call:Chase Meyer Jr.
“Damn.”
Wiping sweat from his eyes and mouth, he slowed to a walk. The phone continued to chime over his music while he unclipped Bunsen’s leash. He ordered the dog to sit, to wait, then threw the retriever’s frisbee in a flat, smooth spin across the field. “Release!”
Bunsen exploded from his sit and streaked after the disc.
Incoming Call:Chase Meyer Jr.
He answered on the fourth ring. “Chase.”
“Congratulations are due.”
“Uh.” He hadn’t said anything about “Hunger” to his brother, had he? Or about humiliating Erin Monaghan in the auditorium today. “Why?”
“She said yes.”
“Who?”
“Don’t tell me you forgot her name.Bella.”
Right:Bella.
