I wakeup to a scratching sound.
“Huh?” I mumble, head fully under my pillow because I sleep like a psychopath. “Who’s there?”
No answer. Just another softscrtch scrtch scrtch.
I push halfway up. “Fox?”
Nothing. Silence. A snore. He’s out cold.
Scrtch scrtch?—
“Coming,” I rasp. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
I heave myself out of bed, grab my glasses, and stumble to the door to find…Nana.
The dog.
“Oh,” I say, as she lowers her little paw to the floor. “Good morning to you too.”
She wags her tail.
I cough, squinting even in the dim light of the hallway. “I…guess you want to go out.”
She bounces up and down on her front paws, her giant eyes bright with delight in an expression so goofy I almost want to laugh.
“Yeah, yeah.” I glance down to the rest of the loft, but no signs of life, so I just head for the stairs myself.
Outside the shop, Nana obediently trots out to the strip of dirt that separates the sidewalk from the street and daintily does her business, while I yawn and stare at the brownish-pink horizon and the dark loops of neon that spell out LIVE MERMAIDS across the street. When she’s finished, she scampers back to my side and just kind of…leans against me.
“Uh, hey,” I say, and scratch her behind the ears. “How about some coffee?” I ask on a yawn.
Nana bops her nose into my fingers.
I’m not a morning person. But maybe I could be a dog person.
Back inside, I head for the kitchen for a double shot in the only clean-ish cup I can find, Nana bouncing at the doorway the whole time.
“What do you—oh,” I realize, as she bounds toward the spiral stairs. “Food, huh?”
She does a little circle and sprints up to the loft.
Fair enough. I follow her, a little more slowly, and I’m just wondering if I even know where the kibble is when I crest to the second floor and see I’m not alone.
“Oh, hey.” Tink, in a hoodie and shorts, straightens up from beside the counter, where he’s pouring a mountain of little brown dog pellets into a dish.
“Hey,” I say. “She wake you up too?” I gesture with my coffee at Nana, who’s now doing a frenzied back-and-forth dance from paw to paw, eyes intent on her prey.
“Hah. Yeah.” Tink rolls up the top of the bag and drops it back on the counter. “Thought she’d just run off downstairs, but…”
“I took her out. At her insistence,” I add, eyeing her slim little doggy face now intent on Tink.
“Go,” he says to her. “You’re good.”
Nanarocketsforward to the bowl and snarfs with gusto.
I chuckle a little as I sink onto a bar stool, yawning—again.
“Big day,” Tink says.
