“Did you hear him say the dog’s name was Shaggy?” Sawyer sputtered.
Ethan rolled his eyes. “Like she’s the only one to ever exaggerate certain physical attributes.”
“I really don’t need to hear this.” Their mother stood and made an abrupt turn and headed to the back, calling behind her, “I’ll be back here when you’re ready to bring her to me.”
Ethan laughed.
“Seriously,” Sawyer said. “That is one ugly dog. It couldn’t have been love at first sight.”
Ethan helped himself to a cup of coffee and thought about Rue and her iced coffee addiction. After stocking his fridge back home with her favorite drink, he’d stared long and hard at the bottles. Buying them had been automatic, and he hadn’t realized the implication of doing so until they were lined up neatly in the space next to his beer. Now he thought of her every time he opened his refrigerator. And apparently when he drank coffee. Nice going, dummy. Of Shaggy, he said, “She came from a shelter. No one else was going to adopt her.”
Sawyer’s face twisted as if he smelled something bad. “And you just meandered into a shelter?”
“Not exactly. I volunteered for an evening.” A great evening. One he hadn’t stopped thinking about. He’d like to think he’d have adopted Shaggy no matter what, but the truth was every time he saw the dog, he remembered laughing like he hadn’t laughed in ages and he needed that as much as Shaggy needed a home.
“You volunteered? Doing what?”
Ethan took slight offense to the idea that he wouldn’t do anything, ever. He’d gone out plenty. He just didn’t date. “Photographer’s assistant.”
Sawyer’s eyes narrowed. “Isn’t your…girlfriend a photographer?”
“You know she is. A shark-punching, volcano-climbing, sky-diving photographer.” To Ethan’s own ears, the short resume sounded absurd, but when he thought of the way Rue’s eyes shone when she talked about her adventures, he wanted to smile, too. And the best thing about her was she was just as excited about helping the abandoned animals at the local shelter as she was the ones occupying the far-flung corners of the world. She just found life in everything, which made her an odd match for a man who’d been waylaid by death. Or maybe she wasn’t an odd match…maybe she was the best kind.
As a friend.
But either way, it wouldn’t matter for much longer.
“So this is legit?” Sawyer asked. Ethan automatically bristled, but for once Sawyer didn’t sound like he was headed for a punch line. With him, there was always one around the corner. “I mean, you actually have a girlfriend?”
Ethan sighed. He really didn’t want to go rounds with his brother. Again. He’d been doing it for a long time, ever since Amy’s diagnosis. People had been asking if he was okay for years now, none of them ever believing him if he said he was. Frustrated, he said, “Call it what you want.”
“I thought you were bullshitting us.”
“You met her,” Ethan replied, exasperated. And he wasn’t sure why. He’d had his own doubts about pulling off the charade with Rue, but after years of telling him he needed to move on, why couldn’t his family just accept he had and be happy about it?
Because it’s a lie.
Only it wasn’t. Not because his friends-only relationship with Rue wouldn’t go anywhere, but because in so many ways, it already had. She’d dragged him out of his comfort zone, and while he still had a long way to go, at least now he thought he might get there someday. At least maybe if he found a woman who knew how to sit still.
Sawyer watched him with open curiosity. “That doesn’t mean you didn’t hire her to play a part,” he said.
The accusation hit a little too close to home, but it pissed off Ethan anyway. “Look, not everyone jumps into bed with someone within hours of meeting them. We’re friends, we’re hanging out, and neither of us is seeing anyone else. I don’t know how you’re looking to define this relationship—my relationship, I might point out—but what’s there is real.”
In a deeply uncharacteristic move, Sawyer kept his mouth shut, at least for a minute. He glanced at Shaggy, then back at Ethan, then shook his head. “You know I’m not the type to give a fuck.”