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I grab my laptop, toss some clothes into plastic grocery bags, grab Chutney’s crate and travel carrier, and I’m ready.
He stares at me for a beat longer than I’m comfortable with.
“You take this,” he says, handing me Chutney, and I exchange my bags of clothes and the produce for the rabbit.
Thank god he doesn’t ask if I have a suitcase or anything like that.
Downstairs and down the block, Gunther watches as I buckle the canvas animal carrier into the back seat of his car.
“You don’t have a suitcase, but you have a car seat for the animal?”
“Of course, I have a car seat for Chutney! She’s my first pregnant baby.”
He pauses. “First?”
“Listen, don’t worry about it,” I say brightly. “What about my car?” I ask, watching him throw my things into the trunk.
He glances down the block, then looks back at me. “We have to leave it for now.”
Disappointment suffuses me. “As long as I’m back in six hours to feed the meter, they might not tow it.”
Gunther winces, and I have a feeling there’s plenty more he’s not telling me.
“I’m not coming back in six hours, am I?”
He squats beside me where I sit in the passenger seat, and shakes his head.
I sigh. “I have an errand to run in two hours, so I at least have to do that. Do you have a car I can take for that?”
“No.”
“Fine,” I say, pulling out my phone and texting my friend Dahlia. “I’ll tell someone they need to feed the…to check on the thing.”
Gunther snatches the phone out of my hand. “You can’t text anybody a damn thing. Not for a while. That’s a quick way to get yourself in trouble.”
I watch in shock as he pockets my phone. Is this guy for real?
Oh, he’s for real, I assure myself, as he buckles me in extra tight.
“I’m not a baby,” I say.
“But you have to believe me when I say you are not to make a move, open a door, push a button, or click a goddamn pen without me.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’re kind of intense?”
“Everyone,” he says, his jaw working again. He stares at me for a beat before getting behind the wheel and throwing the car in gear, leaving my neighborhood behind.
The ride is weirdly silent to the “safe place,” so I fill the silence with chatter.
“What’s your last name?”
“Why do you need to know that?”
I twirl my hair and twist toward him. “So I can make doodles of my married name in my notebook. I’m making conversation, silly.”
This gets a laugh, and I feel blessed. Gunther’s laughter is one of those wheezy, raspy laughs that I know is real. “MacGregor.”
“Hm. No wonder you hate bunnies.”
