Page 84 of Hawk

“Come here, Milly girl. This is Hawk, but you can call him Daddy.” He looked up at me and winked.

A couple of hours later, we were home with Milly, and she was busy checking out the condo. He’d wanted to stop at the pet store on the way home, but I assured him that I’d taken care of all the basic necessities and that he had plenty of time to get to know her before he bought everything else.

“I guess I’ll need to take her across the street to the park for walks and to go to the bathroom.”

“For the most part, yes, but I do have one more surprise for you. Follow me and bring Milly with you.”

I opened up the door in the laundry room and started up the stairs to the roof.

I turned back to see if they were coming, and I could hear Mika talking to the dog. “It’s okay, Milly, it’s just stairs, you can do it. But if you’re scared, I can carry you up the first time.”

“She can do it. Just let go of her collar.”

“Her legs are short for her body. What if she falls?”

“Let her try. If she can’t make it up, I’ll come get her.” I had no doubt that the dog could go up the stairs, but Mika was already super protective of her.

He released her collar and said, “Go ahead. You can make it.”

Milly headed up the stairs with no hesitation, and when she reached the top, I grabbed her collar. The parapet around the building was as tall as most fences, but I didn’t want to scare Mika by letting her just run right out there.

Mika had run up the stairs behind her and was breathing hard by the time he made it. “Wow, she went right up those stairs like she knew exactly what to do.”

“Maybe she did. Who knows where she lived before she was at the shelter. Now let me show you something.”

We went out on the roof and turned to the right.

“Is this what you and the guys were talking about?” Mika asked.

“It is.”

I’d had them make a border out of landscape timbers, add a couple of inches of soil, and then cover it with sod so Mika would have a place right here in the building where he could take the dog out if need be.

“This is awesome. I didn’t even think of the roof as a fenced yard, but it works, doesn’t it?”

“It does. And you can use as much of it as you want. Like I told you, we’d had all kinds of plans for up here, but none of them ever made it past the fire pit and three chairs.”

He sat down in one of the chairs and watched as the dog checked out her newyard. After a minute, he shook his head. “When I think back to where I was a couple years ago, and the weight I’d been living with ever since, I can’t even believe this is my life now.”

I reached over and twined our fingers together. “Well, believe it, baby boy. You deserve all of this and so much more.”

“I think you’re pretty biased, Daddy.”

“Oh, I know I am, but I’m still going to make it my life’s mission to make sure you have nothing but the best from here on out.”

“I’m so lucky to have found you.”

He said that, and I knew he believed it, but I thought I was the lucky one, not him. “Well, I guess we both got lucky then.”

He smiled at me and nodded. “Yep, the luckiest.”

Mika

I was up on the roof, letting Milly take care of business before Hawk and I left for the club.

“Hurry up, sweet girl, it’s chilly up here.” I’d loved having the roof as a hang-out place all summer, but now that fall had blown in, that good old West Texas wind made our trips up here much shorter.

I walked over to the edge of the roof and looked down over the park where I normally took Milly to play. I loved the view from up here. I could hardly even believe this was my life now.

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