Asher, without making eye contact, murmured, “Sounds like someone else I know.”
I leaned into him, shoving him in the shoulder.Was Asher really softening me as a person?
“Can I meet Nova?” I asked the receptionist, who had already moved along to the next few kennels, noting something on her clipboard.
“Of course you can,” she said cheerfully. Seasoned and confident, she retrieved her keys without even a second glance at them while she opened the kennel door for us. Her low ponytail swayed as she continued her rounds, leaving us to meet Nova in private.
I stepped inside the kennel, sitting on the floor near the fear-filled dog. Asher stayed in the entryway, leaning casually against the steel frame with his arms crossed, watching us meet one another quietly.
“Hey, little lady. I’m Lennon. That weirdo over there is Asher. He says I can pick any dog here to bring home, and I think I’d like to choose you—if you’ll have me,” I whispered softly.
I waited, still and patient, for what felt like an hour, letting Nova decide to approach me on her own terms. Asher had excused himself to the washroom, insisting I take as much time as I needed.
Just when I thought she might never move, her front paws crept slowly toward me. My stomach fluttered as a subtle gratification ran through me. That tiny movement was enough to have kept me sitting there all fucking night if that’s what it took.
I glanced around the corner, making sure no one was listening—specifically Asher. When I was certain we were alone, I looked back at Nova and decided to speak my thoughts aloud.
“Oh, Nova,” I whispered, my voice barely there. “I know this world has been unkind to you. If anyone understands that, it would be me. I don’t know what happened to you, and you…you don’t know what happened to me, but I think I could give you all I have left for this world—to help heal you, at least a little. It isn’t much, but when I’m too tired to carry on, Asher would bea damn good replacement. So if you’ll have me, I’d love nothing more than to adopt you and bring you home with me.”
Nova held my gaze, her eyes searching me, as if looking for even the smallest hint of cruelty. When she couldn’t find it, she slowly lifted herself onto her paws and crept toward me, careful, deliberate, as if afraid of startling even herself. My heart thundered in my chest as I watched her take those first tentative steps toward my still body. It took everything in me not to move—and if anyone showed up right now to startle her, I might have killed them.
She stopped just inches from my hand resting on the floor and lowered herself into a crouch. After one more glance up at me, she leaned forward, sniffed my fingers, and nudged them gently with her cold, wet nose.
I wanted to cry. Emotion flooded through me, overwhelming and raw. This—this was trust. Something she was offering freely. More than I could say for myself most days.
And then Asher drifted to the forefront of my mind.
A soft voice snapped me out of my deeply rooted thoughts. “We can stay here all day, but do you think she’d like to see her new home?”
I chuckled quietly. “Yeah, I suppose she would.”
He reached out with a leash, which I took, noticing the tags were brand new. He must have bought it in the lobby while I was here with her.
“Why don’t you want her to stay with you at your place?” I asked curiously.
I knew that accepting Nova would mean she’d be staying with me, but I couldn’t help wondering why he hadn’t even offered. In fact, I’d never heard him talk about his place or where he lived outside of Duke, the driver. Even then, he only really mentioned that Duke drove him around when his parents weren’t keeping him tied up.
“Um…my landlord wouldn’t want me to have dogs,” he said, his voice catching slightly, almost stuttering. Something about it made me feel like I was catching him in a lie.
“You know, landlords can’t stop you from having pets in your place,” I said matter-of-factly. “They can frown on it, but they can’t kick you out.”
He shrugged and kept moving toward the exit, Nova padding close behind. But something inside me refused to drop it.Why was I so fucking nosy?
“Do you have roommates who don’t like pets or something?” I asked.
Asher shook his head. Annoyed, I jogged up to his side and grabbed his arm. “Hey. Are you not telling me something?”
“No, why?” he asked, seemingly confused at my questions.
“I don’t even know where you live—or that much about you, really. You seem like you’re well off, yet you live in an apartment where you can’t have a dog? Seems like there’s something you’re not being forthcoming with.”
Asher closed his eyes, shaking his head. “Just drop it, Lennon.”
I shook mine, unwilling to let it go. “No. I need to know.”
His audible sighs made it clear he didn’t want to say what came next. Still, he turned to face me, stopping us in our tracks.
“I’m a loser who lives at home with his parents, okay?”
