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“You’re bringing the dog?” Aunt Izzie asked as Oliver jumped into the back seat.
“Do you mind? I don’t want to leave him here by himself all day, and he loves hikes.” I was also afraid that Kyle might take him and use him as leverage to make me talk with him.
“Where’s Kyle?” she asked.
Heat crept up my neck to my face. I hadn’t told anyone what had happened. I couldn’t make myself say the words that Kyle had cheated and was having a baby with someone else. Voicing them would make his infidelity too real. Only the Linehans knew something was wrong, that I had kicked him out.
“He’s working.”
Dana turned from the front passenger seat to pet Oliver. “Your time with him is coming to an end.”
I’d been in the process of buckling my seat belt, but I sat frozen, unable to move.Does everyone already know? Did Kyle call her?I tried to ask Dana how she’d found out, but I couldn’t make my tongue move. Heat coursed through my body. I felt as if I might spontaneously combust. I wished I would. I didn’t want to talk about this. I pulled my sweatshirt off and lowered the window. The protein bar I’d had for breakfast threatened to come back up.
Dana tousled the fur on the dog’s head. “He’s coming with me to the Cape.”
What is she talking about? Who’s going to the Cape with her? Kyle?“Coming with you?”
“Of course he’s coming with me.” Dana turned forward.
Aunt Izzie met my eyes in the rearview mirror. She flashed a sad smile.
All at once, I figured out what Dana meant. My stomach dropped. “You think you’re taking Oliver with you to the Cape.”
Dana looked at me over her shoulder. “Of course I’m taking him. He’s my dog.”
My hand rested on Oliver’s spine in a proprietary way. “You had him all of two days before you gave him to me.”
“I didn’t give him to you. I asked you to watch him until I left for the summer.”
Aunt Izzie turned onto Mountain Pass Road, and the car sped up.
“I’ve had him for three months. I trained him.”
“And I appreciate that.”
All the anger I’d bottled up over the past few days erupted. “You are so selfish. You can’t just take him, rip him away from his family.”
“You’re not his family, Nikki. I am. He’s my dog.”
Aunt Izzie took the sharp corner at a fast speed. I swayed right with the car, my shoulder brushing against the door.
“I’m the only family he knows.”
“Deeogee is mine.”
“His name is Oliver.”
My aunt’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror again. They were stormy this time.
“He’s coming with me,” Dana said.
“Enough!” Aunt Izzie slammed the brakes. The car skidded to a stop in the middle of the road. The momentum flung me forward. I bumped my head on the back of Dana’s seat, clutching Oliver to keep him from being thrown to the car floor.
“Dana, your lifestyle, especially during the summer, isn’t conducive to caring for a dog,” Aunt Izzie said.
My sister’s head snapped toward my aunt. “You always take her side.”
A pickup truck came up behind us. The driver leaned on his horn.
