Chapter 3
Jason
♪ Middle of Nowhere | Hot Hot Heat
The plane taxied toward our gate to the clink of seat belts coming undone. The air stopped coming through the tiny vents above us, and I got instantly hot. I peeled off my sweatshirt and plucked at the front of my black T-shirt.
Kathy leaned in and bounced her eyebrows. “You smell nice,” she said in her thick Australian accent. Then she felt up my arm. “Ooh! Linea, cop a feel of his arm on your side, he’s so muscly.”
Linea reached across me to hit her friend with a rolled-up magazine. “The man gives up his first-class seat for that military bloke and to thank him you put your mitts all over him. You should be— Oh! He is muscly!”
I chuckled. I’d been the meat in a Kathy-and-Linea sandwich for the last four hours on my flight from New Zealand to Australia. Being jammed into a center seat had been well worth the sacrifice. These two strangers were fucking hilarious. I’d been highly entertained the whole trip. Better than a complimentary bourbon and a warm washcloth.
When we began to deplane, I stood in the aisle to pull down the ladies’ carry-ons.
“Jason,” Kathy said, in front of me, waiting for her bag. “I have a daughter who’s single. She’s a nurse. She’d love those blue eyes. Ya interested?”
“If she’s half as gorgeous as you, she’s out of my league.” I extended the handle on her luggage and handed it to her with a wink.
She grinned up at me. “Cheeky bastard. Good luck with everything.” She turned and started walking. “Thanks for the autograph. I’m gettin’ on Twitter to keep tabs on you,” she said over her shoulder, following Linea out of the plane.
I smiled after her as I grabbed my backpack from the overhead and stepped back into my empty row to dig out my phone. It had been dead when I boarded. I disconnected it from its portable charger and powered it on for the first time in two weeks. It burst into a vibrating symphony of chimes and pings.
Back to the real world.
Fifteen days of backpacking. I dreaded the crap I’d have to sift through after being out of contact for so long. I’d probably have a hundred messages from my agent, Ernie, alone.
I punched in my pin and started with my voicemails as I shouldered my bag. My mailbox was full. I was four messages in and waiting for a break in the line in the aisle to get off the plane when an unfamiliar female voice came through the phone.
“Uh, hi. I’ve got Tucker here? He was running around loose in the middle of the street on Topanga Canyon Boulevard? My name’s Sloan. My number is 818-555-7629. Let me know when you want to come get him.”
Shit.
I swung my backpack in front of me to dig for a pen. I wrote the number down on my hand and dialed it, doing the math quickly in my head. It was 11:00 a.m. in Melbourne. Six p.m. in Los Angeles.
Come on, come on, come on.
“Hello?” a woman said after three rings.
“Hi, is this Sloan? My name’s Jason. I think you have my dog. Did someone come get him?”
There was silence on the other end for a moment, and I thought maybe I’d lost the call. I shuffled out of my row into the aisle and pressed for the exit in the crush of other passengers, hoping I’d get a better signal outside the plane. “Hello?” I said again.
“Yeah, I heard you.” Her voice sounded edgy. “I still have him.”
I flexed my jaw. Goddamn it. Fucking Monique.
I stopped in the stuffy Jetway and moved to the wall, holding the phone with my shoulder. I hovered the pen over my hand. “Give me your address. I’ll send someone to pick him up.”
“No.”
Huh? “What?”
“No,” she said again.
“What do you mean, no? No, you won’t let me pick him up?”
“You know, you have a lot of nerve. It’s been almost two weeks, and now you decide you want your dog?”
Two weeks? Tucker had been lost for two fucking weeks?
“I’ve been out of town. I didn’t have cell service. I had no idea he was missing. I have no problem paying for a reward. Please, just give me your address and I’ll—”
“No. He’s not your dog anymore. If he’d been at the shelter, his hold would be up and he’d either have been adopted or euthanized. I put up signs, ran his microchip, put him online, I left you a dozen voicemails. I did my due diligence. You abandoned him. So as far as I’m concerned, he’s my dog now.”
She hung up on me.
I stared at my phone in shock. I hit Send on the number again and it went straight to voicemail.
Cursing, I called Monique.
“You lost Tucker?” I growled, not bothering to lower my voice for the passengers still deplaning.
“Well, hello to you too, Jason.”
The click of her heels came through the line. I could almost see her, holding her fucking skinny latte with those huge sunglasses she always wore, shopping bags on her arms while she wasn’t looking for my dog.
“Tucker’s been lost for two weeks? Why didn’t you look for him? Or put through an emergency call to me? What the fuck, Monique? You’re supposed to be taking care of him!”
“I work, Jason. And I did look. Sort of.”
Then I heard a whoosh that sounded like a subway car. “Wait.” Disbelief coursed through my veins. “Where are you?”
A pregnant pause.
“New York,” she said quietly.
“How long have you been in New York?”
Silence again.
“Two weeks.”
I clutched the phone with white knuckles. “We are done. Fucking done,” I hissed.
“Jason, when Givenchy calls, you don’t tell them that you can’t be in their Vogue shoot because you have to look for your fuck buddy’s dog. I’m sorry, okay? Don’t—”
I hung up. I’d heard enough. She might as well have lost my child and then run off to do a damn photo shoot. It was that unforgivable.
I tried Sloan’s number again. Voicemail.
At a loss for what else to do, I stood by the gate going through the rest of my messages as rain pounded on the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the tarmac.
This Sloan woman hadn’t been kidding. She really had tried to reach me. Every day for over a week she’d left me a voicemail about Tucker. I got more and more pissed off as the messages detailed Monique’s complete and utter disregard for my dog.
He’d been in the middle of the street.
He’d had a bladder infection from not being let out.
This lady had posted all over, places Monique could have easily seen the signs had she bothered to stick around to look.
He’d dived into this woman’s sunroof. What the hell was that about?
I rubbed my temples. Tucker hated kennels. Monique had been good enough with him, at least in front of me, and I hadn’t had any reservations about it at the time. She told me she’d take him on her runs.
Stupid, stupid.
I should have flown him to Minnesota and left him with my family. I fucked up. It would have been a two-thousand-mile side trip, but at least Tucker would have been safe.
I raked my hand down my face and scratched my beard, tiredly. Fuck, now what was I going to do? This lady stole my damn dog.
When I finished my voicemails, I thumbed through my text messages and saw one from the 818 number I’d written down on my hand. I clicked it and a picture of Tucker popped up. It was great not knowing you.
The photo showed a woman with her arm wrapped around Tucker’s chest. I couldn’t see her face. The top of Tucker’s head covered her mouth. She wore black sunglasses and her hair was tucked under a hat. Her arm was covered in tattoos from shoulder to elbow. I tilted my head and studied them, zooming in on my phone. I made out the name Brandon on her arm. Then the screen shifted to an incoming call notification. The 818 number. I scrambled to answer it. “Hello?”
“If you love your dog, prove it.”
“What?”
“I’m not feeling the greatest about keeping your dog if you really do love him. So if you do, prove it.”
I blinked. “Okay. And how would you suggest I do that?”
“He’s your dog, isn’t he? Proof that you love him should be readily available.”
My mind raced.
“All right, hold on,” I said, getting an idea. I scrolled through the photos on my phone and selected several: Tucker and me at the beach, Tucker and me on a bike ride. Then I took a screenshot of my wallpaper, Tucker, sitting behind all my icons. I sent the photos through. “There. Check your messages.”
Her phone made a shuffling noise. She went quiet for what I knew was longer than it took to see them all.
“Look,” I said into the silence, hoping she could hear me, “he’s my best friend. He came with me when I moved to LA from Minnesota. I left him with someone I thought I could trust. I love my dog. I want my dog back. Please.”
She was quiet for so long that again I thought the call had been dropped.
“Okay,” she whispered.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Great—thank you. And I’ll reimburse you for your time and the vet bills—”
“And my ticket.”
“Your ticket?”
“I got a ticket for parking in the middle of Topanga Canyon Boulevard when I stopped to get him into the car.”
I moved the phone away from my mouth and breathed a sigh of frustration. Not at Sloan, at Monique and her ineptitude.
“Okay, yeah, no problem. Look, I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for him. If you can just give me a few hours to find a kennel to take him I’ll—”
“A kennel? Why?”
“I’m in Australia for two more weeks for work.”
“Well, who was watching him while you were gone?”
“Somebody who will never watch him again,” I said dryly. I collected my backpack and went to follow the signs toward customs.
“Well, I can keep him until you come back. I work from home. It’s no problem.”
I thought about her offer for a moment. My mind went to the picture she’d sent of her and Tucker and the voicemails about trips to the vet and walks he was going on. She seemed to really care about him. I mean, shit, she’d been ready to keep him. And she’d already had him for two weeks. He knew her. It would be better than a kennel. And there really was no one else. Besides Monique and Ernie, who wasn’t a dog person, I didn’t know anyone else in LA well enough to ask.
“You wouldn’t mind?” I asked, stepping onto a moving walkway.
“No. I love him.”
Something sad in her voice made me smile into the phone. Not that I was reveling in her unhappiness—I wasn’t insensitive to the fact that just a half an hour earlier she’d thought Tucker was hers, and now she had to give him up. But it was nice to hear that the person watching him actually gave a shit about him.
“That would be great. I hate the idea of putting him in a kennel.”
“He’d be miserable,” she agreed, sounding a little miserable herself.
“Hey, can I call you back?” I’d been on a plane for four hours. I needed to find a restroom.
When I called Sloan back on my way toward baggage claim, we both seemed to have benefited from the break. Her voice sounded almost shy now. I thought for a second maybe she recognized me from my photos. Or maybe she just felt bad for being so pissed at me. Either way I was glad. If she was going to watch Tucker for me, we should at least be friendly.
We talked dog-sitting fees for a few minutes. Then I moved on to other logistics.
“Text me your address so I can send you a crate,” I said.
“A crate? Why?”
“He sleeps in his crate at night. If he doesn’t have it, he tends to destroy the house, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”
“He hasn’t destroyed anything except for the belt of my robe on the first day. And he sleeps with me, in my bed.”
I laughed. “I find it highly unlikely that he’s not chewing your furniture to a pulp. It’s his favorite pastime.”
Chair legs, the armrest of my couch, doorjambs—Tucker demolished all.
I found baggage claim and waited with the crowd from my flight as the carousel started going around, empty.
“He hasn’t chewed a single thing since the belt,” she said. “He’s a perfect angel.”
“Really?” I said incredulously.
She snorted. “I wouldn’t try and keep a dog who was destroying my house.”
“Good point. Well, I’m glad he’s being a gentleman,” I said, checking the time and watching as the first luggage came down the ramp. I had rehearsal in two hours.
“I still have scratches from him jumping on me through the sunroof. Did you teach him that, by the way?”
“Uh, no. Did he really do that?”
“You think I’d make that up? Hold on.” There was a pause. “Okay, go look. I just sent you my ticket.”
A picture message came through my phone. It was a ticket from the LAPD with a flip-flop magnet over the recipient’s information. The officer had detailed the entire event, sunroof and all.
I shook my head. “Unbelievable. He’s never done anything like that before.” He must have been out of his damn mind. “He’s a little high energy.”
“He just needs exercise.”
He’d probably gone stir-crazy with Monique. “Are you sure you don’t want the crate?”
“I definitely don’t want it. He sleeps with me while he’s here. That’s a hard rule for me. And I’m not giving you my address either. You could be a creeper.”
I snorted. “I’m not a creeper.”
“Yeah, well, that’s exactly what a creeper would say.”
There was a smile in there.
“How old are you?” I asked, suddenly curious.
She scoffed. “Well, that’s unnecessary.”
“What? Me asking your age? It’s the first thing I’d ask a dog-sitter in an interview,” I reasoned, though that wasn’t really what drove my interest. I liked her messages. They’d been kind of funny.
“Well, that would be illegal. You can’t ask someone their age on a job interview.”
I smiled. “What can I ask?”
“Let’s see, you can ask what my background is.”
“Are you in HR? You seem awfully knowledgeable about properly conducted interviews.”
“See, that’s a question you could ask.”
Witty.
“And I thought I already had the job,” she pointed out.
“You do. What? I can’t know a little about who my best friend is sleeping with?”
I heard her snort and I grinned.
“Your best friend is sleeping with a young lady smart enough to know better than to tell a stranger where she lives and how old she is. Are you going to ask me if I’m home alone next?”
“Are you?”
“Wow. You’re definitely a creeper.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“I’ll bet,” she said. A pause. “I live alone.”
“Okay. Any other pets?”
“Nope. Such a thorough interview. I have a feeling these questions weren’t asked the last time you selected a dog-sitter,” she said wryly.
I grinned. “I’m trying to learn from my many mistakes.”
“I don’t have any other pets. But I grew up with German shepherds. You have to exercise working dogs. They become destructive if you don’t make them tired. Tucker’s a birding dog. He’s bred for high activity.”
I knew this, of course, but it impressed me that she did. “And so you’re keeping him busy?”
The sound of running water and the clink of dishes came through the phone. Then I heard her talking to Tucker quietly in the background and my smile broadened. She asked him if he was a good boy and if he wanted a puppy snack. He barked.
“Walking him five miles a day,” she said. “My tan looks great.”
“I’d love to see that. Send me a picture.”
It was a joke—kind of. I did want to see what she looked like. I was curious.
“And now you’ve got a lawsuit on your hands. Sexually harassing an employee.” She tsked. “You must be a nightmare for your human resources department.”
“Nah, I’m only a pain in my own ass.”
“Oh yeah? What do you do?”
So she didn’t recognize me. That wasn’t unusual—it was also something I was working very hard to change. My luggage came around the carousel. My guitar case sat a few bags behind it. “I’m a musician.”
“Oh, one of those Hollywood types. In the biz, on tour or away filming a soundtrack for an indie movie overseas.”
She wasn’t far off. Jesus, was I really that cliché?
“Something like that. I am touring with a group. And there is a movie involved. But it’s not an indie film.”
The movie was kind of a big one, actually, but I didn’t like to throw that around. Even though that seemed to be the LA thing to do, name-dropping made me feel like an asshole.
I lifted my luggage and guitar off the moving belt. Now both hands were occupied, and I had to hold my phone to my ear with my shoulder. I needed to get through customs and catch an Uber to my hotel, which meant I should probably hang up. But instead I wandered over to the bench just inside the entrance to baggage claim and sat down, setting my guitar case on the seat next to me.
“Hmm…” she said, sounding bored now. “Everyone’s in the business here.”
She didn’t press me for more about the movie. She seemed uninterested. I was a little surprised. All Monique had cared about when I first met her was who I was and who I knew. Come to think of it, I’m not sure that ever really changed. It was refreshing to talk to someone who didn’t give a shit what I could do for their career. Frankly, I was a little sick of talking about it.
I switched the subject. “And what do you do?”
“Nothing interesting,” she said vaguely.
“How do you know I won’t think it’s interesting? You work from home and you have the time to walk five miles a day and rescue stray dogs. I’d like to know what gives you such a flexible schedule. You know, to gauge whether or not your lifestyle is conducive to dog-sitting.”
She made a noise that I imagined went with an eye roll. “I’m an artist.”
“And how is that uninteresting?”
“It just is. What I paint is uninteresting.”
“Then why paint it? Can’t you paint what you want?” I put my ankle over my knee and leaned back on the bench.
The running water shut off in the background, and she went quiet for a moment.
“What’s your website?” I asked, feeling pretty sure she wasn’t going to give it to me, but figuring I should give it a shot.
“I don’t have a website. And if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you.”
I smiled. “You’re consistent. I like that in a dog-sitter.” Then I looked at my watch. “I need to get going here.”
“Okay. Well, have a good trip, I guess.”
“Sloan? Thank you. I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you rescued Tucker and took such good care of him. And I really appreciate you watching him until I get back.”
She was quiet for a moment. “Thank you for saying thank you,” she said finally.
My lips twisted into a sideways smile. “We’ll be in touch.”