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On Friday I met with Noé Caldera in the morning, and he was really down. It set a bad tone for my whole day. Then the train got backed up on my way home, so I was hungry and annoyed.
I grumbled hi at Rhys and went to stand under the shower until the water ran cold.
“I’m so fucking glad it’s Friday,” I mumbled, and draped myself across Rhys’s back where he stood in front of the stove, stirring something. “What’sat?”
“Chili.”
“You made chili? I love chili.”
“I know, babe, that’s why I made it.”
I buried my face in Rhys’s back and let his words seep into my skin.
Sometimes it was too much.
“You love me,” I whispered into his back.
He squeezed my arm. “I love you so much.”
I relaxed as we ate. Rhys had gotten cornbread from the market stand outside the grocery store, and we ate outside, with sweatshirts on against the chill.
“So, do you still want to give out candy for Halloween?” Rhys asked. We’d talked about it when he was on tour, but that felt like a lifetime ago.
“Do people trick-or-treat here?”
The Halloween before we’d been in New York at a show that some of Rhys’s friends were playing. The audience and the musicians all wore costumes.
“Yeah, if we leave our light on, we’ll probably get trick-or-treaters.”
“Sure, let’s do it. If you want to?” Rhys was looking at me but he seemed distracted. “Rhys?”
“Matty.” He grabbed my hand, and when he spoke his voice was intense. “Let’s get a dog.”
“Uh. What?”
Rhys ran a hand through his hair. “It feels like we’re starting our life together all over again. In our home. And when I picture our life, I . . . I see you rolling around in the grass with a dog. I see us sharing that. Something that’s both of ours. Have you ever had one?”
“No.”
I felt something crackle between us. Some acknowledgment that maybe we were talking about something beyond dogs.
“Um. What kind of dog?” I finally choked out. Rhys’s smile lit up his face. He started talking about different dogs, naming breeds, talking about dogs his friends had. I didn’t know what he was talking about but he made me so fucking happy I almost couldn’t breathe.
“What do you think?” he said finally.
“I think . . . great.”
“I mean, what would you want in a dog?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know, man. I know fuck-all about dogs. But maybe I’ll know it when I see it?”
* * *
—
Because Rhys was Rhys, we ended up at the shelter the very next morning. Rhys hesitated to get out of the truck.
“Listen,” he said self-consciously. “I didn’t mean to steamroll you with this. This isn’t a thing I should be all possessive and growly about. We don’t have to do this.”
It was rare to hear Rhys second-guess himself.
“Did you change your mind?”
“No! I just, um.” He bit at his thumbnail, and I climbed back in the truck. “I was at Caleb’s the other day when we were working on the song. He asked how you were, and I was telling him how shitty I felt that I didn’t come home early from tour. I didn’t tell him anything about you, babe, I promise.”
“It’s okay.”
“I just told him you were having a hard time, and I should’ve come home. And I said, um, something like, ‘I’d give Matt anything he asked for.’”
I blushed at the thought that he could say things like that to Caleb.
“Caleb said, ‘It’s great that you would. But a lot of the time people can’t ask for what they want.’ And I realized how right he was. That a lot of the time you can’t ask me for what you want cuz you’re not used to getting anything you want. Or it just doesn’t occur to you that you could.”
I looked down and nodded.
“Like with Mal.”
“What about her?”
“When I asked her what she wanted on the tour bus and she said she didn’t want anything.” He looked chagrined. “I . . . babe, I really thought because I had asked her it meant she could just answer. Because. . .”
“Because you could.”
He nodded.
“I feel so stupid. It really never occurred to me that there could be so much stuff in the way.” He traced my mouth. “In the way of being happy. In the way of even trying to be happy. I’m . . . hell, I don’t know. I’m really lucky. I’ve always been so fucking lucky.”
He looked guilty, and my heart ached for the truth of it.
Before I could say anything, he brushed my hair behind my ear and kind of rolled his eyes at himself.
“So anyway, I started thinking about all the things you might want but never think to ask for. And then I started picturing you with a dog. Which I really do want, in case that wasn’t clear.” He grinned. It was definitely clear. “Uh.” He narrowed his eyes. “That sounded insulting, huh?”
