Page 134 of If Love Had A Manual

And maybe that’s what healing looks like. Not some dramatic comeback. Not a perfect day. Just coffee on the nightstand, a little girl in a duck onesie, and a man who took the day off to remind me that life keeps going.

Fifty-One

“Lena, this is fucking humiliating.”

I glance over from the bookshelf I’m sizing up, arching a brow. Wes is standing frozen in the middle of the furniture store, jaw clenched, hands gripping the handles of—God help us both—the dog stroller. Not to be confused with Rosie’s actual stroller, which is parked beside it.

Inside said dog stroller is Milo. The forty-pound puppy.

Milo looks like he’s having a delightful time.

Wes? Not so much.

I smile sweetly. “What’s the problem?”

He just stares at me. “The problem is that I’m pushing a dog who weighs more than some fifth graders in a goddamn stroller.”

“He’s a baby,” I say, dead serious.

“He’s forty pounds, Lena. He’s a bear cub.”

“Forty-two,” I correct. “And sensitive.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose like he’s aged ten years in ten minutes.

“I used to be cool. I used to ride a motorcycle. I had abs. Now I’m pushing a rescue mutt through a furniture store.”

“You’ve still got abs.”

He ignores me. “He just tried to lick a lamp.”

“He’s curious.”

Wes makes a guttural sound that might be a plea to the gods.

Rosie, in the actual child stroller, is sharing her snacks. One cracker for her, one for Milo, one for her, one for Milo.

“See?” I gesture to them. “She’s learning how to share.”

“They’re plotting,” Wes mutters darkly.

“You’re being dramatic.”

“I’m being—?” He stops to lower his voice, but now he just looks like a deranged whisperer. “I’m being dramatic? We’re both pushing strollers. One has a fucking dog in it.”

I swear his eyes almost pop out of his head, so I bite back the grin I know he’ll hate me for.

“You didn’t have to be the one pushing him.”

“You said—” His voice pitches. “You said it’d look weird if I pushed the baby and you pushed the dog.”

Seriously, it’s far too easy to rile this man up.

“It would,” I reply. “Gender roles.”

He levels me with a dead-eyed glare.

By the time we make it to the couch section, Wes looks like a man who’s survived a war. I, on the other hand, am thriving, bouncing from couch to couch like Goldilocks.

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