Page 4 of Rescue Them

The place was remarkably clean.Somehow James had expected that the dogs might have pooped all over the place.Okay, so his imagination went a little wild sometimes.“I could take a look at it if you like.Though I do have to warn you that me and tools are a terrible combination.”

Lyle chuckled.“I swear I banged my hand twice and dropped a hammer on my foot at least once.”He led the way down the stairs and outside through a door in the back of the building.A few poles were in the ground and a roll of fencing lay on the grass.“That’s as far as I got.”

“You know,” James began as a thought occurred to him.“They make these dog play areas.They’re about thirty inches high, and you could get two of them and tie them together and make an area around the basement door.The dogs could play there, and you wouldn’t have to build anything.”He turned to face Lyle, and it suddenly hit him how cute he was, with his wild hair and full lips.He also seemed almost scared a lot of the time, like maybe he was waiting for the next bad thing to happen.The wariness in his eyes made James want to take him into his arms and tell him that everything was going to be okay.James paused and shook his head slightly.He had never seen vulnerable as sexy before, but with Lyle it certainly was.

“Oh.”Lyle’s face lit up.“I never thought of that.”

“And the nice thing is that you could take the enclosure in and put it here beside the door to store it.The dogs will love some outdoor time, and it’s not like you are just going to leave them there.”

“Right.They always frolicked in the grass when Corky took them for a walk.So I thought they might like some play time outside.I need to take all this stuff back.”Lyle pulled the poles out of the ground and put them in a stack next to the building.They had barely been in the ground and would have fallen at the slightest pressure.“See, I suck at stuff like this.”

“Hey.Let’s put these things in your car and get them returned.Then we can find the enclosures and have a few of the dogs check them out.”James paused.“That is, if you want.”He realized his own exuberance got the better of him.

“I’d appreciate the help.I had to haul all of this down here.”And it was clear he wasn’t looking forward to carrying it back up.

“You take the fencing, and I’ll get the rest of it.”Lyle lifted the roll of fence and awkwardly took it inside.James grabbed the entire set of poles and headed around the building.He smiled to himself when he glanced back, Lyle watching him for a second before closing the door.

James knew he was built.Heck, he had spent many years in gyms and on sports teams to sculpt his body.He’d wrestled in high school as well as played football.But he left those sports behind at Penn, focusing on his studies.He still kept active, and he was hoping to do the same thing while he was in law school.A good workout always seemed to melt away stress and leave him clear-headed.

He climbed the slight hill on the side of the building and found Lyle with the trunk of his car open.He placed the poles inside with the fencing and closed the lid.“Let’s go shopping,” Lyle said.

“Are the dogs okay?”James asked.

“Yes.They have food and water.I also took them out an hour ago.I’m worried about when I go back to work on Monday, though.”He got inside the car and started the engine.“I thought I’d come home at lunch and check on them.I figured they would need to go out.”

“Do you have a friend who can stop by?”

Lyle shrugged.“I don’t make friends really well.I have some good ones, but they work, like me, and they’re farther away than I am.Carrie works in Camp Hill, and a lot of my other friends work in Harrisburg.I managed to get a job here where I grew up.”

“Then you should know lots of people,” James said casually.

Lyle shrugged.“I went away for college, and sometimes it seems like everything changed in that time.Some of the people I knew stayed here in town and got jobs.Others moved away and… well.Four years is a long time, or maybe we weren’t those kind of friends.I don’t know.When I got the job at the warehouse, I moved in next to Corky.She had her daughter, but a lot of her friends had passed away.So she was growing lonely, and lord knows I was.Being on your own can be hard, I guess.”They pulled into the Home Depot parking lot.“Sorry.I didn’t mean to take a turn down Maudlin Way.”

James chuckled.“It’s okay.I live with three other people, and I’m rarely alone.They’re all good folks and we’re in the same program at the law school, so we work together on classwork.But….”It was hard to put his finger on it.“We’re friends….”

“But not the kind you tell your darkest secrets to,” Lyle interjected.

“Exactly.We like each other and get along pretty well, but the friendship is born out of a sort of shared hardship, and a lot of work that will only get done if we work together.So it’s kind of out of necessity.I don’t see myself bringing any of them home for a weekend when I visit my parents or something.”

“You sort of keep your distance and have things that are private.”Lyle certainly seemed to understand.“It’s okay not to be open with everyone about everything.”

“Yeah, I’m finding that out.Anne is a bit of a gossip, and I sometimes worry about how she’ll keep her clients’ business to herself.Wes is really tight-lipped and he likes to think of himself as professional, but he doesn’t know that we’re all aware that his mother still buys his socks and underwear.No self-respecting professional would have boxers with ice cream cones on them that say ‘Lick Me.’”He snickered.“I met his mom and asked her about it once.She told me she buys the tackiest boxers she can find out of hope that he will start getting his own.”James couldn’t help laughing as they got out of the car and loaded the supplies to be returned into a cart.“Mostly they’re good people.”

Lyle pushed the cart toward the door and then stopped “So what weird things do they say about you?”

James chuckled; he couldn’t help it.“Food.I have lots of issues about food.It cannot touch on the plate because I do not like the juices to mix.And once it’s on my plate, don’t reach for anything.I might bite.My mother had this food-stealing thing.If you saved what you wanted until the end, then you might find it gone because my mother would snatch it off your plate.The last time she did it, I set her up and stabbed her with a fork when she did it.I might have drawn blood.I’m not sure, but she didn’t do it again.”They both laughed as they entered the store.

“Okay,” Lyle said.“And here I thought my compulsion that everything have its place and be exactly where it belongs was strange.”

James patted him on the shoulder.“That won’t last long.You have four King Charles Spaniels, and they are going to want things the way they want them sometimes.Growing up, we had a golden retriever, Ally.She was an amazing dog….”He paused his story as they reached the service desk.Lyle explained the situation, and they issued the refund without a problem.

“You were saying…?”Lyle prompted as they left the store.

“Yeah… Ally.She was really good with her toys, loved plushies and never tore them apart.But after a while, they got really soggy and gross.So once, Mom threw them away and we went to get new ones.When we came home, the trash was all over the kitchen floor and each of Ally’s toys was back in her box where she wanted them.Mom was pissed because she had a mess to clean up, but Ally had all her toys back.”

“What did you do with the old, gross toys eventually?”

“Mom would take them out one at a time on trash day and they would be gone.And she’d get Ally a new one to replace it.”He remembered her as an amazing dog.“I used to take her for a walk out on one of the trails, and the leash would just hang there.Ally was so well trained.”There were times when he missed her.Though now it was impossible for him to have a dog, with his roommates and the fact that Anna was allergic to most animals and she had the EpiPens to show for it.