Page 23 of Shake the Habit

“I think we’re going to go,” I told him, and he stood straight.

“Uh, ok,” he said slowly. “Did something happen?”

“Sir started acting weird and it startled me,” I explained.

“He might have heard something in the walls. I think I have mice,” he said, and sighed.

“That was probably it,” I responded, and felt much better. “It was like he was noticing something that I didn’t, and it was probably them scrabbling and squeaking. As you said, dogs have superior hearing.”

“I don’t mind if we leave, though. It’s always going to be cold in here no matter how big I make the fire.” He blinked. “I didn’t mean to invite myself.”

“You’re totally invited,” I told him. “Absolutely.” And the whole way over to my house, I smiled every time I saw his truck in my mirrors. Sir was riding in the cab with him and they looked so handsome together. I shivered, though, when I thought about the mice in the walls of Caleb’s house. I wasn’t afraid of getting dirty, but I didn’t want anything to do with rodents, nothing at all. And who would have thought that Sir, with all his size, would have been afraid, too?

There was really nothing to be afraid of, except for the paper that was now stapled to my door. “Notice…” I read aloud, and then got out of my car to get a better look.

“What is that?” Caleb asked me as he emerged from his.

“This is my own fault,” I said. I let him read it, too.

“Non-compliance with your lease.” He looked at the animal standing next to him. “Sir.”

The dog hopped a little, raising his front legs in agreement. Yes, that was his name, and he was why I was getting evicted.

“This seems pretty straightforward, but you could talk to an attorney,” Caleb said.

“One of my cousins graduated from law school, but he’s never going to pass the Tennessee Bar exam. He’s a very nice guy, though,” I added. “He’d want to help, but I think he’s prohibited from practicing without a license.”

He looked again at the eviction notice and then at my dog. “How far out of compliance are you?”

“He’s a little over the size restrictions,” I admitted. “He supposed to be under twenty-five pounds.”

“That’s a lap dog, not Sir,” he pointed out. “Why didn’t you talk to your landlord about him and try to work it out? Why did you let it come to this?”

“I decided not to stir up trouble!” I defended myself. “He wasn’t hurting anything.”

“Except for his nails on the floor, scratching it—”

“I cut his nails and filed them. And painted them,” I pointed out.

“What about where he leaned against the screen door?”

“Marc can fix that, and he’s going to show me how to touch up the floor and I’ll also take care of the paint. And I know I should have told the landlord, but I was sure that he’d say no and I didn’t want to give up my dog. It’s almost a month and Sir will be officially mine, no matter what any landlord says.”

“And now, you’ll have your dog and no place to go,” Caleb pointed out. “You just told me how Sir’s not welcome in your parents’ house because of his behavior.”

“They’ve made a lot of excuses for poor behavior in the past,” I retorted. “I bet they’ll forgive him and let him keep going, eating more pot roasts until he pukes. They’ve never been able to crack down and say no and mean it. Not ever.”

“Are you talking about yourself? They let you get away with things?”

I opened my mouth but then stopped, realizing that I sounded like I was blaming them. “What I did was my fault, not theirs. They weren’t sure how to deal…” No, I wasn’t doing this again! I was not going to get into my sordid history. “I have places where I can go. This isn’t going to end up with me and Sir living in my car. He would really hate that.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re taking this very seriously.” And Caleb himself sounded very concerned.

“I am,” I told him. “I’ll deal with the consequences of my actions and fix this myself. I’m old now and I won’t run to my parents or to anyone else. I have savings. I’ll rent a new place—”

“With a dog this size? Where is that going to be?”

“Wherever it is, it’s my issue, not yours. I’m done with being the problem McCourt, besides my cousin David who truly sucks. I’m done with being the one who needs to be pity-hired. I’m an adult, a grown woman, and now I have dependents.”

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