Page 29 of Will Bark for Pizza
“More than you’re giving me credit for.”
“If she drives your Jeep into the lake, don’t come crying to me,” Grandpa said.
“What reason would I have for driving a perfectly good car into a body of water?”
“Ask me that again when Connor’s towing you out. Because it won’t be me.”
Their back-and-forth banter was soothing. They liked to jab at one another, but it was never in malice. Their voices never raised. Their tone always hinted at playfulness. They’d send each other off with a kiss before one walked away.
For a long time, I convinced myself that was what Travis and I did. We bantered. But when the bickering turned to all-out screaming matches, I couldn’t seem to remember how it happened. One day everything was the storybook version of the love I always wanted. The next, it was a special kind of hell I didn’t know how to escape.
“Kira?” Grandpa called, as though he’d said my name more than once and I missed it.
“Yeah?”
“You still writing books, then?” he asked, his tone gentler than before.
“Just published one yesterday, actually.” A non-answer was better than an outright lie. Or the truth. Because if I admitted to anyone that the words had dried up and shriveled into nothingness, they’d worry more than they already did.
“Huh.”
Husker trotted over from his spot in the shade and sniffed around Grandma Connie’s bucket. Before I could warn him off, she tossed him an offering. He refused eye contact with me as he tracked it down.
“We should cook steaks to celebrate,” Grandma Connie suggested. “Probably too late to pull them out of the freezer for tonight. But we’ll do that before you leave. How long are you staying?”
“At least through the weekend.” I wasn’t in a hurry tohead back to Omaha. Other than Lila, all that waited for me there was a writing desk void of sticky notes, an apartment I no longer enjoyed, and a bunch of bad memories. “Maybe a little while longer.”
“Youhaveto stay longer,” Grandma Connie insisted. “The book club’s meeting next week. I know they’d love to have you.”
A heavy silence fell over the conversation. I wanted to ask, but I already tried that when I first showed up. Apparently, everyone had formed a consensus. The only person who was going to fill me in was Dad.
“Husker, don’t do it,” I called to my dog when I noticed him sizing up a chipmunk perched on top of a boulder across the yard. I’d granted him off-the-leash privileges because I knew he wouldn’t stray far from the garden where his favorite snacks were kept. At least not while Grandma Connie was there to schmooze.
Unless a squirrel-like creature was involved.
“Bubbies,” I said, my tone another warning.
He darted a look at me then refocused on the chipmunk.
Abandoning my weed-picking post, I reached for the leash . . . but I wasn’t fast enough. Husker sprinted after the chipmunk as though it represented the Iditarod finish line.
I held my breath as the Alaskan Husky came within inches of clipping the tail of a really pissed off chipmunk, seconds before it scampered under a giant boulder. Husker stood near the base, looking quite proud of himself as his tail wagged in earnest at my approach.
“C’mon, Bubbies,” I said, reaching for his collar.
But before I could successfully clip the leash on, his head snapped to something else entirely, and he bolted.
“This is your fault, you know,” I said to the chipmunk in hiding.
I spun on my heel, prepared to run in case he’d spotted a chicken on the loose. Connor would not be pleased if Husker terrorized one of his precious hens. But it wasn’t a chicken. It was my eight-year-old niece, Opal.
Her laughter rang out as she dropped to the ground and Husker smothered her with kisses.
“She must taste like bacon,” Grandpa said, shaking his head.
“Probably pizza,” I said.
Husker looked right at me, expectantly.
