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“Is it time for your walk?” I ask.

At the word walk, the shepherd barks and then the dachshund comes careening around from the other side of Eloise’s bed, followed closely by the black pug. The dachshund jumps on my leg and paws at me, while the pug yips excitedly.

I can’t help but smile—these dogs are quite a group of characters. I like them a lot.

“Okay, come on,” I say, mirroring their enthusiasm.

I walk into the living room and down the hall, the dogs eagerly chasing my heels. There are leashes hung on name-tagged pegs by front door, attached to various sized harnesses. Charleston, the Colonel, and Hazelnut. There’s another smaller harness for Pip. That must be the chihuahua. He’s still hiding in the second room, and I think I have my hands full as is.

I’ve never walked three dogs before. But they’ve all lined up dutifully, like they know the drill. Well, except Charleston, who is facing the wrong direction.

I take the first harness labeled Hazelnut off the wall. “Let’s go,” I say to them.

13Eloise

I have the most vividly disturbing dreams.

In one, Pip has grown to the size of a dragon, and he sprouts wings, and breathes fire at me when I try to put his leash on. In another, I’m walking down the aisle at Rachel’s wedding, and everyone is whispering and pointing at me, and when I get to the altar, I realize I’m wearing a bathrobe and slippers, and the guests all start to laugh, louder and louder, and Rachel yells at me for ruining her wedding. The most vivid, though, and the most disturbing, are the dreams about Agustín. When he comes into my room and talks to me softly, or lays something cool against my forehead. Sometimes, those dreams come with the clicking of little doggy nails against the hardwood floors. They feel so real. But the blackness always pulls me back under.

When I finally peel my eyes open, I can tell from the pale light creeping in under my curtains that it’s early morning. I don’t remember closing the curtains last night. My skin is still clammy, but much cooler, and my head isn’t throbbing so badly anymore. I notice a glass of water perched on my nightstand, and there’s a trash can on the floor next to the bed.

Oh fuck. Those weren’t dreams.

I remember now. Agustín carrying me into bed. The cool touch of his hand on my feverish skin. The shape of his arms around me. Oh no. No, no, no. This can’t be happening. He cannot have seen me at my sticky, raggedy-T-shirt-wearing, vomiting-in-a-trash-can worst. Maybe it really was a hallucination brought on by the fever. Please, god, let me have been hallucinating.

But then I remember—Miriam came. She gave me an IV. There’s Tylenol and Pepto on the nightstand. How did she know?

I slowly push myself up into a sitting position. No nausea, so that’s good. I’m desperately thirsty. I grab the glass of water and take a swallow. Then another one. No need to push it. The trash can is empty, so someone must have swapped out the bag. Probably Miriam. Or maybe Rachel came to check on me. Another memory resurfaces—Rachel sent Agustín here. We are going to have words about that. How did it even happen, anyway? She knows how private I am. I don’t like anyone in my space. My stomach lurches but not in the nauseous way.

I glance at my bedroom door. It’s closed. Where’s the Pack? I climb out of bed on trembling feet and pad out into the living room.

My knees lock and my heart leaps to my throat.

Agustín is here. On the couch.

Agustín is still here.

He’s asleep, sprawled out in a heather gray T-shirt and jeans, his feet hanging off the edge of the couch, clad in socks with green and blue stars on them. The Colonel and Hazelnut are snoozing in the big dog bed. Charleston is nestled in the crook between Agustín’s calves. He’s wearing a diaper. Did Agustín put a diaper on my pug?

But that’s not the most shocking thing I see.

Pip is sleeping peacefully in Agustín’s arms, curled up in a little ball on his chest.

I feel another lurch, this one a confusing mix of jealousy, attraction, and exhaustion. Agustín’s hair is messy and his shirt rumpled, his face relaxed in sleep, his dimples playing hide-and-seek. I try and fail not to trace the lines of his arms, smooth olive skin over subtle musculature. One broad hand curves around Pip’s tiny body in a protective embrace.

Panic creeps up the back of my throat. He can’t be here. I can’t … I can’t be seen like this. I’m overexposed, like a badly developed Polaroid. Like my bones are visible through my skin.

Rachel. I need Rachel. Where’s my phone?

I tiptoe around, feeling like an intruder in my own house. This is why I don’t have people over! This is my safe space, the one place I can be myself. And he’s barged into it like a … a … a beautiful Mexican battering ram.

I finally find my phone perched behind the Boston fern on the coffee table. Slowly, I lean forward and stretch out my hand.

Pip’s eyes flash open. Oh, shit.

He growls and lunges toward me, causing Agustín to wake up with a startled yelp as Charleston topples off the couch and rolls across the floor. Hazelnut immediately starts barking, which makes the Colonel start barking, just as Pip leaps onto the coffee table, knocks over the plant, jumps onto the floor, bites my foot, then scampers into the decompression room.

“Ow,” I cry, though at least Pip didn’t break the skin this time. Agustín blinks around at the noise.