Page 6 of Shake the Habit

“Well, all right,” I told the dog. “That can be your name, since it doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice about it. Silly.”

“That’s a beautiful animal. Now that he’s clean, I can see it. I wonder if he’s some kind of purebred.”

That wasn’t what interested me, however. My focus was back on the man, not Sir. “What were you really doing here today?” I asked. “Were you just going to drive up and down these roads, looking for me?”

“I already know exactly where you live.”

I took a big step back, tugging Sir with me. He probably wouldn’t protect me from this man, though, the one whose truck he had just ridden in. “How do you have that information?” I asked, my voice taut.

“You said your name,” he answered. “You said that your relatives would think, ‘Kayleigh only cares about herself.’ You also mentioned that you have a lot of those relatives, and that their last name is McCourt. I looked you up.”

“Why did you do that?”

“I was worried about the dog. He seemed friendly, but we didn’t really know.”

Exactly. That was exactly what I was thinking about him—not Sir, but this stranger. He also seemed friendly and he’d been very helpful, but who really knew?

“He’s huge,” he continued. “Look at his jaws.”

“He wouldn’t bite. He’s a sweet boy, like a giant teddy bear,” I said, but then I thought about how I’d given him a bath and let him sleep with me. I had probably made poor decisions. Again.

“I was debating if I should knock and check on you, to make sure that everything was ok. When I saw him, I stopped to pick him up.” He looked at Sir. “I kept thinking that I should have taken him with me instead. I have a lot of land and room where he could run. You said you had an apartment, and again, an animal this big…he must be a hundred pounds,” he said, studying the dog’s broad chest and back under that beautiful fur.

“A hundred? Really?” I sighed. “He’s a little over the weight limit in my lease, then. But it’s ok,” I told Sir. I had that absentee landlord, which was a bit of a problem when I needed repairs, but made me glad right now. “I’ll walk him every day. Far,” I added.

“Before you do that, you should take him to the vet and see if he has a chip. Some dogs have them with information in case they get lost.”

My hand tightened on the scarf at the thought of giving him up, but I realized that this guy was correct. “I wouldn’t want someone to be missing him,” I said, and I looked at the man. “What’s your name?”

“Caleb.Caleb Woodson.”

“I’m going to look you up like you did about me,” I told him. “It might be nice that you found my address or it might be weird. I’m not sure which.”

“I know,” he said flatly. “That was why I didn’t want to say it, but I have a hard time lying.”

He was pretty different from me, then, because I’d spent years and years lying to everyone, from my parents, to my teachers, to my friends, to myself. But when I looked at Caleb Woodson and how he frowned, I decided that he might actually be honest. Maybe he really was thinking that I had taken home a killer dog and he’d wanted to make sure that I wasn’t getting attacked inside the small apartment I’d told him about.

I looked down at Sir, who took that moment to lick my slipper and leave a giant trail of sticky saliva. I was very sure about him, but I still wasn’t positive about this other guy. “I’m going to walk him home. If you want, if you’re truly concerned, you could come along. Not inside my apartment,” I cautioned, “but you could follow when I take him to the animal shelter to be checked for an ID chip and dog diseases. I also need to get him a real collar so I don’t lose him again. This scarf is a good color but it doesn’t hold him very well. I wouldn’t mind if you were there, and he seems to like you.” Also, I would have bet that this Caleb Woodson was stronger than I was. If Sir tried to bolt, I would further bet that he could hold him better than I could.

I walked off—more like, Sir took off and I tried desperately to pull him back and keep the pace, and the truck came slowly behind us. If I lost this crazy dog again, at least someone wouldbe able to catch him, and it was apparently too late to hide where I lived anyway.

Unfortunately, the issue that Sir had created in the yard was still there, and it made me think of my aunt Amber. She wasn’t able to talk about bodily functions, so there were special names for those: “going to the powder room” was anything relating to using a toilet, “unfortunate stomach problem” meant that you were puking your guts out. “Having a you-know day” was the most oblique, and signified a menstrual period. I remembered her announcement that “Aubree is dealing with her first you-know day” and later, my big cousin Bree had needed to explain to her little sisters all about uterine linings. Luckily for me, my mother had been able to discuss anatomy and biological processes with the specific and correct terms, so I’d already been aware.

But both my mother and Aunt Amber would have had trouble dealing with Sir’s mess. A person in a hazmat suit would have, and Caleb Woodson certainly seemed repulsed. “I guess that’s the downside of a big dog,” he mentioned. He helpfully held that dog as I got a bag and then, gagging, cleaned it up before my neighbor could come out and see it. He was a quiet guy (who was quite smelly himself) and we’d never had problems. I didn’t want to start any now.

Then I had to change, since I had mud all over me and after that disgusting clean-up, who knew what else? When I came back outside, Sir was in the truck again, looking happy.

“The spare on your car is flat,” Caleb Woodson announced. “Do you have a pump?”

No, and neither did he. I kicked the tire but surprisingly, that didn’t help the situation.

“I’m really not a murderer, or worse,” he said and I turned to stare at him. “Hell. I guess that’s what a murderer would say.”

He didn’t look like a murderer or worse. He looked normal, except better-looking than normal. I’d noticed it the day before, when he’d gotten out of his truck to help me with my first tire problem: he was someone my cousins would have pointed out in a club, or someone my aunts would have raised their eyebrows at if he’d come to church. I had always been a sucker for a beard, and I liked Caleb’s dark brown one a lot. It wasn’t just scraggles like the boys in my high school had grown but was neat and groomed, like his short hair. That was also dark brown, but his eyes were a greenish-blue color that was very striking. Sure, everyone would have pointed him out, but they all knew that a handsome face like his didn’t mean anything.

“I’m going to look you up now,” I said, and he waited while I took out my phone. Social media? None that I could find, and that was weird. So I typed his name in the search bar and there he was, looking serious in a suit. “You own a…I don’t know what this kind of business is.”

“It’s a financial services company.”

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