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Piper laughs, drawing my gaze. It’s a warm day and she’s wearing shorts and a baggy T-shirt, her bump showing the tiniest bit, a preview of the way she’s going to swell with our love over the next few months.
Flicking her hair from her face, she gives me a look.
I’ve come to know it as her wedding planning look.
“What?” I chuckle.
“What if I want to have the wedding tomorrow instead of in six months?”
“That’s fine with me too.”
She giggles, throwing her hands up, shaking her head. “So basically you’ll agree to whatever I want?”
“Marrying you is the part I’m looking forward to,” I say. “Being with you forever, letting the whole world know you’re my wife, so they keep their hands off you, that’s what makes me so happy, I feel like I could shed a tear… if I wasn’t such a grumpy bastard.”
She touches my face briefly, as we stop outside the dog area. It’s the reason we love this park so much. There’s a whole gated area exclusively so well-behaved dogs can interact off the leash, make friends, and generally have a good time.
We were nervous about bringing Bones here at first. Despite the ground he’s gained, we always remember where he came from and the conditions he endured.
But like he often does, Bones taught us a lesson. He leaped into the park in pure joy, tail wagging, keen to meet the other dogs.
And now he’s got a favorite.
“You’re not grumpy,” Piper says. “Not anymore.”
“I never was,” I reply. “I was just waiting for you.”
Bones harrumphs and glares up at us.
“What is it, boy?” Piper says. “Are you excited to see your girlfriend?”
“I’m sure he can understand us sometimes,” I say. “Just then, the way he looked at you… it was like he was silently saying yes. Does that make any sense?”
“Of course it does,” Piper says, still smiling down at him. “He’s a super dog.”
I open the park gate, close it, and then unclip Bones from his leash. He doesn’t seem to realize the play area is empty, as he runs around, nose buried in the earth, sniffing frantically.
“He can smell her.” I wrap my arm around Piper, and together we watch our Bones. “It’s a man thing. It’s like me with you. One sniff and I lose my mind.”
“What?”
I bury my face in her hair and make a dramatic sniffing noise.
She laughs in delight, digging her hand into my side playfully. “You’re crazy.”
“There’s some truth in it. When we first… when we were first intimate, there was something in your scent. I don’t care what anybody says. I don’t care if it makes me sound crazy. It was like our bodies were made for each other.”
“Well, duh,” she says. “They were.”
I focus on Bones, not letting myself get distracted.
I almost got lost in my hunger for her which I’ve learned not to do in public. A month or so ago, when Piper and I got carried away, we ended up making frantic hungry love in a changing room.
Her pregnancy is making her glow, beam, even if it's in the early stages.
And even with all the added stress of being pregnant, she’s stuck to her schooling, finishing the academic year with a distinction. She’s thrown herself into wedding planning now, often working with me in my office, sketching away.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
“Just how perfect our life is.”
Bones returns, sitting at our feet.
“Is it me, or does he look like he’s blaming us?”
Piper nods, smiling. “We’re sorry, boy, we text Janine but she said she wasn’t sure if Freya was going to make it.”
At the mention of Freya, Bones lets out a yap.
Piper's eyes meet mine. “Walked right into that one.”
“Maybe we should take him around the pond,” I muse. “Must be torture to the little man, smelling her all over the place but not able to play with her. It’s like us, in the early days, before we revealed how we really felt.”
“Those days seem so long ago,” she says. “It seems so silly, how worried I was.”
“It wasn’t silly,” I assure her. “It’s a miracle you felt the same way.”
Piper stands on her tiptoes, pecking me lightly on the cheek. Sometimes it’s those little shows of intimacy that hit me the hardest as if reminding me of the significance of the amazing bond we share.
“Do you want to take a look around the pond, hmm?” Piper says. “And then maybe—”
Bones rushes to the gate door, pawing at it, tail wagging in excitement.
Both Freya and Bones have been fixed, so there’s no chance of an accidental litter. Bones rarely even tries to mount her in their play area. When he does, Freya – a husky four times his size – gives him a stern look, and that’s the end of it.
But they love playing together. They can run around for hours, Bones seeming fascinated by the gentle giant dog, rolling around in the grass, their barks always spirited and filled with joy.
