My brows skyrocket. “Wanton?”
She dips her chin, nodding. “I come here a couple of times a week and just sit here so I can build his trust. He was halfway to me before you walked in. Last week, he even sniffed my hand.”
“Wanton,” I say again. I glance over at him again and he immediately rips his attention from Red to me. “You can’t have a name like Wanton and be such a prick, dude.”
A hand slaps my calf, hard. Wanton fucking erupts. He lunges forward, teeth bared, hackles raised. His eyes are glued to Arden now, saliva falling from his mouth as he snarls her way.
And I know before I even look at her. I know I just fucked up.
Again.
She is devastated. She’s looking at Wanton with pain in her eyes, her face utterly broken. She apologizes softly, over and over, using the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard to try and calm him. But she’s upset, and he feels it. It takes a minute of both of us staying completely still, but Wanton slowly stops losing his shit and returns to his corner.
Arden’s throat bobs. She glares up at me like I did something wrong. “You just ruined weeks of progress.”
“Youhitme,” I remind her.
“You made fun of him,” she says through her teeth.
“Not in his language,” I say, like it’s obvious. It’s true. I didn’t bark. “He didn’t understand it.”
“He’s not going to trust me now.”
“Yes, he will,” I tell her, looking over at Cujo, who has now decided to put his back to us completely. “People make mistakes. So do dogs. I bet he’s done a couple of things that he regrets. I think Wanton is smart enough to give you a pass on that one.”
He landed here, didn’t he?
“He bit a kid.”
My head snaps in her direction. I raise my brows, but she’s staring at his back, hands gripping her book tightly.
Wanton. You can’t fucking bite kids. You’re lucky you aren’t chilling on the other end of the rainbow bridge right now.
“The kid kept throwing balls at him, trying to play catch,” she continues. “Parents weren’t watching. Trusted a dog to babysit their kid. When Wanton wouldn’t play, the kid ran and hit him with a bat, multiple times. It was a rubber thing, but it still hurt him. He nipped his hand.”
“Damn,” I say quietly, bending to a kneel. I feel her straighten beside me. “And then they shipped him away to this hellhole.”
It’s not a hellhole, it’s just no place where a dog should have to live. They do their best, but these little guys deserve to be free. A cement cell with a little bed and a blanket isn’t enough. Strangers coming in to gawk at you and determine your worth isn’t right, either.
“He’s terrified of kids now,” she mutters. “Men, too, but mostly children. The dad hit him as punishment. Kid didn’t even need stitches.”
My stomach churns. Everyone has a breaking point. Some people’s tempers are shorter, like mine. Wanton’s wasn’t. Wanton had the temper of a saint, but his people let himdown. They forgot he’s a dog. They expected him to be a human. A big brother to the child they’re responsible for.
People don’t deserve dogs.
People who hurt dogs deserve to meet me.
“They don’t euthanize here,” I tell her softly, because it just feels like something she has to know. This is a no-kill shelter. He’s safe.
“I know,” she says, smiling tightly. “I’d adopt him before that happened, anyway.”
I raise a brow. “You want him?”
“It would be selfish. I don’t have the lifestyle to have pets, but I’d do it to save him.”
I’m intrigued. What lifestyle doesn’t allow pets, especially for someone who clearly adores them? There’s only one other person I know who would sit here for hours on end, multiple times a week, just to earn a dog’s trust that she isn’t even going to adopt. Just to give him a chance to be better for someone else.
“Sometimes, I wish I had a social circle bigger than the people I work with. People who have the time for pets. I love spending time here, but I just want one night where I can sit on a couch and be smothered to death by four-legged babies.”
