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I’m aware of the entire room watching me try and fail to corral my dog, and yet all it takes from Adam is one deep command—“Mouse, sit.”—and the dog actually listens. Only then does Adam reward him with a few pets.
“Is that part of the training class?” I laugh. “Learning how to alter our voices so they sound more commanding?”
It’s meant to be a joke, but Adam looks up at me with an odd expression.
“Oh, I was kidding…”
He smiles. “I know. Here.”
He tosses me something and I have to think fast to catch it before it falls to my feet. I hold it out and then realize it’s two somethings: black kneepads like the kind I used to wear whenever I roller-skated as a kid.
“Oh ha-ha, looks like everyone’s a comedian,” I say, genuinely amused.
He’s wearing an adorably crooked smile when I glance back up.
“I saw them in a shop earlier and thought of you.”
Whoa.
I freeze, slightly taken aback by his admission. I guess he sees the shock on my face, because he shakes his head. “Y’know, only because of your skinned knees. Obviously you don’t have to wear them.”
The whole exchange is made a thousand times more awkward because we are still the center of the universe, AKA this small puppy training class. I don’t have to look at the women sitting beside me to feel the death glares they’re sending my way. Adam walked into class and talked to me first, and he gave me a gift, and he said he was thinking about me.
I’m almost tempted to put on the damn kneepads just to prove a point.
“Well thanks,” I say, holding them up. “Maybe I’ll go rollerblading with Mouse.”
“I’ll call the National Guard.”
As soon as Adam walk away, Mouse leaps into the air, and snatches one of the kneepads out of my hand.
“No!” I rebuke. “Bad dog!”
He drops it instantly, coating my shoes in a nice bit of slobber.
“I guess some dogs need this class more than others,” says the woman beside me. Her friend laughs, and Adam pretends he doesn’t hear them. For that, I’m grateful.
After a nod in my direction, he walks to the center of the gymnasium and offers a small wave to everyone. “I guess it’s as good a time as any to get started. We have one more attendee joining us in a bit, but we’ll go on without her.”
Oh good, another person to compete with for Adam’s attention.
The thought is there, blaring in my brain before I can stop it. Since when am I competing for his attention? If anything, I want to do the opposite. I’ve made such a complete fool of myself the last few times I’ve been around him, there’s no hope for anything but a nice, weird friendship to settle into place between us, and even that is probably asking a bit much. Still, he invited me to the training class, and he extended an olive branch in the form of kneepads, right?
“Sorry! I’m here! I’m here!”
Spiders crawl down my spine as a familiar voice drifts into the gym, and I glance up just in time to see my coworker Lori bobbing into the room, all but dragging an ancient-looking Pomeranian behind her.
Adam waves away her apologies. “No, you’re just in time. Have a seat—” He remembers that all of the chairs have already been claimed and corrects himself, “Or stand, it doesn’t matter. We’ll be moving around here in a second anyway.”
Lori sees me, narrows her eyes, and continues speed walking to the opposite end of the half-circle. I rarely see her outside of work, and the fact that she’s here means I won’t be enjoying this training class nearly as much as I’d hoped. Though, there is one bonus: Lori in civilian clothes. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing her sport some truly heinous work clothes, but tonight she’s gracing us with a hot pink Juicy Couture tracksuit à la early 2000s. Her dog, the decrepit white fluffball, is wearing a matching hot pink fur collar.
“Isn’t your dog a little old to be in here?” someone asks, trying to edge out the competition.
“Yeah, isn’t this a puppy class?” pipes in another.
Unfortunately, Adam quiets the rebellion before it really starts to spread. “In my experience, the whole can’t-teach-old-dogs-new-tricks story is just an old wives’ tale. I think everyone should be welcome here.”
How very polite of him. Especially since he’s mostly addressing old wives.
I glance over to find Lori beaming up at him like he’s the second coming of Christ. She’s probably imagining what he would look like in a matching pink tracksuit of his own, a perfect little velour family in the making.
After, Adam passes out a waiver form we all have to fill out before he jumps into training. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, but he really does know his stuff. We’re all given a bag of dog treats and a training tool Adam calls a clicker. It’s a small instrument he instructs us to wear around our wrist, and any time our dogs perform a desired behavior, we click the clicker and reward him with a treat. It’s a very easy concept.
