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“We’ll visit as often as we can, kiddo,” Braden answered. “But it won’t be every day.”
“Why not?”
“We might get traded far away. Like California,” Christian said.
“California isn’t far away,” Claire said.
Braden chuckled. “Hate to break it to you, but yes it is.”
“No. It’s not.” She unslung her backpack and pulled out a geography textbook. After flipping through the pages, she showed us a map of North America. “See? California is right here. And St. Louis ishere. That’s only three fingers away.”
“She makes a good point,” Braden said, turning away. Was he tearing up?
“We don’t know anything is going to happen,” I told Claire. “We’ll find out in a few months. So we don’t need to worry about it now!”
Claire put her book away. “Good. Because I have alotof poop to scoop.”
The four of us chuckled as she went running back out to the kennel. But it was forced. Everyone was worried.
Fighting Trip in small claims court seems very small indeed.
43
Beth
The next few weeks were stressful for a multitude of reasons. My kennel was completely booked, and many of the customers were newcomers. Some of the dogs didn’t get along with others, so we had to spend extra time keeping them apart and rotating them out into the field to play and get exercise. Even with Ken and Suzie under my payroll, and with my boyfriends and Claire occasionally helping, I began to realize I might need to put a third employee on the books.
Christmas arrived, and with it came a blizzard. Well, not really ablizzard, but a foot of snow fell overnight and blanketed my entire property. The dogs were fine since the kennel was insulated and had plenty of heat, but the snow complicated things in other ways. Poop was harder to scoop, and the dogs rolled and played around in the snow, which inevitably melted into their coats when they went back inside. The result was the omnipresent smell of wet dog hair. To counter that, I was forced to bathe every long-term boarder free of charge before they were picked up by their owner. That was better than returning smelly dogs to unhappy customers, but it meant more work for us.
The football players had to travel for Christmas, but I had a nice holiday at Logan’s house, joined by his sister Emily and her fiancée Leslie. The holiday was delightful, especially when Leslie had too much eggnog and started telling stories about Braden’s childhood.
“He was always the favorite,” she complained. “I don’t know why. When he was a baby, he had a bad habit of taking his diaper off and peeing all over the wall next to his bed!”
All of us were roaring with laughter by this point, even Logan. MaybeespeciallyLogan.
Emily put a hand on Leslie’s arm. “I think that’s enough stories for tonight.”
Leslie glanced at me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin the magic between you and my brother. He hasn’t peed on any walls in a long time. That I know of.”
Logan and I agreed to spend the next month teasing Braden about this.
The Colts played a very bad New England Patriots team on Christmas, and justbarelywon the game. Christian had an awful day, throwing three interceptions. Braden wasn’t much better, dropping several passes on crucial third-down plays. All of this further escalated the rumors surrounding the team’s plan to trade them during the off-season.
My three boyfriends were still affectionate during all of this, but they were more distant at times. I could tell that their concern about the future was weighing them down, like an ever-present humidity in the air. We went to a New Year’s Eve party hosted by one of the Colts players, and tried to be carefree as we celebrated, but it was difficult to ignore the looming problem. Every kiss we shared, every toast we made, felt like it could be the last. Whatever this strange polyamorous relationship was, I soon grew terrified that it would end before it ever really had a chance to begin.
Logan started the new year by flying to the Northeast to play a series of road games in Montreal, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. Claire stayed with Braden during this time, and when Braden was at football practice, Claire spent time with me at the kennel.
It was a dreary, snow-threatening Thursday morning when a familiar black Newfoundland started barking in my parking lot. Jackie, the journalist, stepped out of her car and gave me a friendly wave; Woody the Newfoundland stayed in the car, but hung his head out the window, tongue lolling lazily.
“I didn’t realize we were boarding Woody,” I said. “Or is he here for doggy daycare? I usually require all daycare dogs to be dropped off by nine, but I can let it slide this time since you’re only twenty minutes late.”
“Neither, I’m afraid,” Jackie said. She looked unhappy. “I’m here on business.”
I tensed. “What kind of business?”
“Look, I hate to do this…” She shoved her hands in her coat pocket and looked around. She was avoiding looking me in the eyes, I realized. “I have to run the story.”
“I don’t know what story you’re talking about.”
