AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I laughed. “I think I’ve had enough clichés for the moment.” I stared at the photo edit I’d done on the Neapolitan Mastiff. “Okay, I’m posting it. But I might delete it later, because this guy could turn out to be an axe murderer…” I said as I opened up Insta, uploaded the pic, then added all my hashtags #dogs #dogsofinstagram #dogsincars #cutestdog #neapolitanmastiff #instadogs #dogstagram #dogfaced and on and on.
“Or,” Jace said as she stood up, “he might turn out to be a really nice guy with a cool dog. You meet, hit it off, and live happily ever after.”
We looked at each other for a solid minute and then burst out laughing because, yeah, like that could ever happen.
Once I was done, I scarfed down my lunch, then made a quick dash to the bakery because I was in need of something with chocolate in it. Or sugar. Preferably both.
To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t all that devastated about finding Paul and Orlando doing…well, whatever the hell they were doing because beyond the obvious of a dick in someone’s ass, I couldn’t figure out what was up with the hoods and the ropes and…seriously, I am all for kink for fun and pleasure, and like a bit of dominance in my life, but whatever they were doing was none of the above. I knew Orlando was kinky as fuck, but Paul had never given me any indication that he was interested in playing, much to my chagrin. So I was more surprised than anything. And while it sucked to be without a relationship because I loved being part of a couple, I couldn’t say it hurt to be out of that relationship. It had been on its last legs for months, so I was considering this to have been compassionate euthanasia. I’d light a candle when I got home and move on.
The line for the Castellanos’ bakery was shorter than it had been this morning, but that was because the selection was pretty grim. Fortunately, I have made an effort to charm the owners, and they put aside some of the broken pastries and cookies for me. They also give me a bag of homemade dog biscuits to bring back to the clinic. It’s not altruistic. Let’s get real. The dog biscuits are in little bags that have the name of the bakery on them so the dog owners know where to get more. And though I get a discount on my treats, they’re still making some money on things they’d otherwise be unable to sell. It’s win-win for all of us. The owners are smart cookies, which is part of the reason I like them.
While I waited in line, I flipped over to Insta to see if my post had gotten any love yet, and yup, there were already about ten likes and a couple of comments. Before I could look at them, it was my turn at the counter, so I turned my phone off, slipped it into the back pocket of my scrubs, and smiled at Mrs. Castellano. The bakery had been in her husband’s family for almost fifty years, and she and Yannis had run it for more years than I’d been alive. Yannis still insisted on stretching the filo dough for their pastries by hand the way his grandfather had taught him, and it was fascinating to watch him create huge, sheer panels of dough, then drape them over a floured table one by one.
They’d recently begun offering tours and classes through Airbnb and were a stop on the self-guided tours the tourists could take in those ridiculous small, yellow go-carts. It sucked that the tourists knew about this place, but, hey, it kept them in business and me in delicious baked goods, so I wasn’t complaining. Too much.
“Lucian! When are we going to do the pastries for your wedding?”
It was Mrs. Castellano’s regular greeting for me, and I know she’d been sizing Paul up as my potential groom since I brought him here the morning after our first date. He practically lived right around the corner and had had no idea this place existed. Ungh. Was I going to worry about running into him or Orlando here now? Nope. I refused to give up my favorite bakery in the world, not going to happen. They were just going to have to suck it up if they wanted to get delicious pastries.
“Not for a while, Mrs. C. Sorry.”
I guess the truth was written on my face because Mrs. Castellanos tilted her head as she sized me up and then immediately began to fill one of their pink pastry boxes with all my favorite treats. And not even the ones that were broken. She was giving me the ones from the display case. Delicious samsades and loukoumades, delicate diples, along with a decadent slice of galaktoboureko and a couple of squares of baklava, along with a couple of chocolate chip cookies after Mrs. C glanced up at me. I guess I must have had in need of chocolate stamped on my forehead.
“You’re going to make me fat, and then no man will want me,” I said.
“All men want someone with a little meat on their bones. You boys are all so skinny, there’s nothing to hold on to.” She rested the box on the counter. “You know how I knew this last one wasn’t for you? He only took nibbles of our food because he was too concerned about his weight and how he looked rather than letting himself enjoy the sweetness of life. If you find one that eats without worrying about how he looks to other people, that’s one to keep.”
I laughed, but I couldn’t deny there was something to what she was saying. Paul was always more concerned about being attractive than anything else. The first time I brought him here, he had turned his nose up at everything because ungh, so much sugar and fat. I’d devoured an entire piece of baklava while he only tasted a tiny crumb from the top that was completely devoid of butter, honey, or nuts. One of the nieces had been waiting on us, and she rolled her eyes and shook her head in disgust. Paul couldn’t understand that he’d insulted the family.
“You know that doctor I want you to meet? He was here this morning. If you’d only come in…”
I shrugged. “I was running late,” I said, but, in truth, I wasn’t upset I’d missed him since I was swearing off men for the time being, and Mrs. Castellano had been trying to fix me up with this doctor customer for the past six months. She kept me up-to-date on all the gay men who lived in the neighborhood and which ones she thought would be a good match for me, and I’m sure she told the men about the young vet tech as well. She’d been a little more insistent about this doctor and told me more than once he was absolutely perfect for me, but while I’m poly, Paul told me he wasn’t — note to self, cheating is definitely not the same thing as poly — so my dance card was full, and Mrs. C’s doctor had been out of luck.
“Well, maybe now you’ll listen to me, eh?” she asked as she retrieved the bag of dog biscuits from the back, then rang me up. I tapped my phone to their reader to pay and was on my way back to the clinic, still chuckling about how invested Mrs. C. was in my love life.
I checked out my Insta post on the way back to the clinic, debating again if I should delete it. I usually asked permission to take a picture, or if the shot was too good to miss, I’d take it and then ask the owners if it would be okay to post it online. I very rarely got turned down, but it happened, and the way the driver had looked at me in his rearview mirror…I shivered. Something in his expression had me second-guessing my decision to post the pic. Even though I’d been careful to crop out the license plate, you could still tell it was a Honda, and the dog was certainly distinctive.
But the post was well on its way to being one of my most popular. In just an hour, it had gotten liked by nearly two hundred people, and there were dozens of comments. Not to mention, I’d picked up a score of new followers. If I deleted it now…well, I guess it was probably moot. I’d had a few posts go viral over the past year that I’d been concentrating on cute dog faces, and it was a heady feeling watching my numbers go up, as well as seeing a photo I’d taken show up on Facebook and Twitter and TikTok or become a meme. This one had the potential to do it again, and I really didn’t want to stop it from happening. I figured I’d check it again after work and decide then. There was still a chance, if the attention flattened out, that I’d delete it. I hoped I didn’t have to because the boost to my follower count would be wonderful.
The truth was, as much as I loved my job, it was hard seeing the sick and injured animals that came through our doors and the heartbroken people who had to leave without them. It was even harder for me when whatever had happened was preventable or, worse, caused deliberately by negligence or abuse. There were plenty of nights I went home and cried myself to sleep because some beautiful creature had reached the end of its life in my arms.
What I really wanted to do was become the Dr. Oz of pet care. Instagram was only part of the plan, and I’d already attracted the attention of a couple of potential sponsors. My now ex-best friend was supposed to have been helping me develop a YouTube channel and Patreon account, which were the next steps in my master plan. Gain a following and sponsorships on Insta, develop an audience for pet care videos on YouTube that highlighted how photogenic I was, and gain backing on Patreon for my one-on-one advice. All of this was designed to get the attention of the Pet Channel and a chance at my own pet care show. With the right luck, some Hollywood A-lister would see my social media stuff and decide I was their pet guru and I could jump to the head of the class, but I wasn’t counting on that. I knew instant fame was an illusion that masked the years of hard work spent developing your platform. And I also knew it could all be derailed in a second if I posted a photo that resulted in a takedown order or lawsuit.
It was too late to think about that, though. As soon as I was through the doors of the clinic, the sobbing family in the lobby told me it was crisis time. And it was. From that moment, to the time I clocked out at six, it was nonstop, and I barely had a chance to get a drink of water, let alone glance at my phone or eat any of the luscious pastries Mrs. C. had packed for me.
At the end of my shift, I scarfed down a cookie, guzzled a bottle of water, and dragged my ass out of the building to retrieve my bike. Here was the short end of the stick when it came to riding a motorcycle: having to do it when I was dead tired. Riding a bike took more concentration and required you to do about ten times more things per minute than driving a car. I loved my Kawasaki, but man, there were some days I’d give anything for four wheels and a roof.
I got home okay and decided to stop at the beach. A walk would help me decompress, and then I’d grab BBQ on the way to my house if Gorilla had any left. They were easily the best BBQ on the Peninsula and sold out pretty quickly once they turned on the OPEN sign.
The walk did me good. It was a beautiful August day. An incoming heat wave was holding the marine layer offshore, so the fog was a gray line on the horizon, and the sky was a brilliant blue. The heat hadn’t started to build up, the air was a perfect temperature, and because it was a weekday evening, the beach wasn’t jam-packed. It was just me, a few families, and a slew of surfers. Mavericks was about fifteen miles down the coast, so Linda Mar Beach always had a good crowd of surfers, and the beachfront Taco Bell not only did a booming business, it was easily one of the most picturesque stores in the chain.
There were also quite a few dogs at the beach, including one that was surfing, so I had to take some pictures. I asked permission to post each one and ended up talking to the surfer whose Shiba Inu liked hanging ten, or sixteen as the case might be, and ended up with him agreeing to let me write up a blog post about how he’d taught the dog to surf. We exchanged info, and then I headed home and managed to score the last serving of burnt ends from Gorilla. The day was looking up.
Of course, when I got home, it was just me in my tiny studio without even the promise of texting Paul to distract me from thinking about work. There was something to be said for being in a couple, even when it wasn’t a great relationship.
But, nope, I wasn’t going to go down that road, thank you very much. Instead, I put on my headphones and blasted “I Will Survive” while I ate my dinner and scrolled through the beach pics. So many cute puppies it was impossible to wallow in my post-breakup grief while looking at their adorable faces and my girl Gloria was singing the best heartbreak anthem ever.
The surfing Shiba was especially amazing, and I sent the surfer a text asking if he’d mind letting me know the next time he had his dog out so I could come by with my Nikon and a telephoto lens and get some shots of the dog riding the waves. Then I began to edit the other pics and organize my social media posts for the next few days. Only after I was done with all that did I let myself check Insta to see how the Neapolitan Mastiff pic was doing.
