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One of those rubbernecking Casanovas walked over to us. “Excuse me, is there a problem here?” he asked.
“He’s trying to steal my dog!” Hannah said.
I looked at the wannabe Romeo and said, “She’s my dog. I came here with her. Everybody saw me.”
“Look at the tags!” Hannah said.
The guy approached Bagel, who put her tail between her legs and started to growl at him.
“Oh, be nice, Bagel,” Hannah said and grabbed my dog’s collar, showing the tag with her name on it loud and clear.
“I’m Hannah,” she said. “Not him.”
A small crowd started to form around her. She may have been the one who was acting big, but I didn’t have anything that could prove her wrong.
“Hannah, please,” I said. “Let’s not do this.”
She gave me a glare and the slightest smirk. This was her talent: communicating with me without anyone else picking up on what she was actually saying.
“No, Leo,” she said. “Let’s not do this. I’m taking my dog and going home.”
The Casanova stood between me and her. He put his hands on me when I tried to push through him.
“Let the woman go,” he said.
I could have slugged this guy in the face. I had at least twenty pounds on him. But if I did that, I’d still end up without Bagel and would also have a minimum of community service, and a small fine on top of that.
So I watched as Hannah put Bagel in her car and drove away. All the while, Bagel stared at me, pleading.
I’d never felt so powerless in my life, and the only person I knew I could trust lived right next door to me.
CHAPTER17
***MILA***
It isn’t every day that your dreams come true. Unfortunately, the timing sucked.
I was still overjoyed at the prospect of finally being everything I wanted to be. In nine months, I’d be an actual mother, assuming all things went according to plan. And I knew that I shouldn’t count my chickens until they hatch but also… I’d waited so long, shouldn’t I be allowed to celebrate? Over the course of nine months anything could happen. If we held off on celebrating until we were absolutely sure of everything, then we just wouldn’t celebrate, would we?
The problem was, at that moment, I realized just how alone I was. My sister was living with her husband, dealing with kids of her own. My friend that I usually talked to was pursuing his back-up dream of being a session musician. And the new neighbor doctor who, despite everything, I’d managed to develop feelings for, didn’t want children and tried pushing as much of his grumpy pessimism as he could onto me. He was the only one in my life whom I wanted to celebrate with, and he was specifically telling me not to celebrate.
Why did he feel like he had to suck every last ounce of joy from the world everywhere he went? What good did that do?
I suppose I’d be seeing him in the future as he was my doctor, but for the time being, I swore to limit my exposure to him. It only ended up upsetting me.
I’d just decided on that strategy when he was suddenly banging on my door with immediacy and desperation.
“What?” I said, opening the door, but when I saw the look on his face I immediately regretted the harsh tone that I’d used.
“She took Bagel.”
“What?” I asked. “Who?”
“My ex, Hannah,” he said. “She took her from right out of my hands. We need to get her back.”
This didn’t make sense. When I asked for an explanation, he let me know that the registration was in her name, and so were the tags.
“What you’re asking me to do,” I clarified, “is help you steal your ex-girlfriend’s dog.”
