Page 32 of Puck Daddies
“Yes. Please.”
She laughs once when I say please, and then she does what I ask. I close my hand over hers and show her the pace I like. Her hand is so small and soft. She watches my face. I try not tosay anything dumb, but at this point, I’m at her mercy. My balls throb a warning.
“Look at me,” she demands.
I do. She speeds up a fraction when my breathing changes. When I clench my jaw, she says, “You’re okay?”
I nod. When I’m there, I say, “Now,” and she keeps the rhythm until I groan and shoot a mess onto her warm hand. She slows it down and holds me steady through the end.
We breathe. She gets me water while I try to recalibrate my brain.
“More?” she asks. “Or rest?”
“Rest.” Before I let my nerves get the better of me, I ask, “Will you stay in here tonight?”
After a moment, she quietly says, “Yes.”
So, I lay a folded blanket on the floor next to the bed and set a pillow down. I put my hand on the mattress. “I’m on the floor tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because I have a head and I don’t always use it. I want you to sleep. I want to sleep. I don’t want to grab for you at three a.m. because I had a dream and mess you up.”
She looks at me for a long second. Then she slides toward the edge and reaches down for my wrist. “Get up here. Just to hold me.”
“Meg.”
“Hudson.”
I know that tone.
I climb in and stay on top of the covers. She tugs until I’m under them. Stubborn. She puts my arm around her and drags my hand to her stomach. I settle my palm there.
I fall asleep holding her and wake up in the same position, and the first clear thought that comes to mind is doom. I’m gone for her, and I’m not pretending otherwise.
11
ROCCO
The shelter opens at seven.I get there at six thirty because the key sticks and I like a head start. The building smells like bleach, wet, and kibble. The dogs start up in waves when they hear the door. I talk as I walk. Quiet voice. Names I remember. The board on the wall says who needs meds and who needs a long walk. I sign the sheet and start water bowls first.
The skittish hound is back in the far corner. Brown, thin, eyes too big for his head. Brownie. He stands when I pass and sits when he realizes he stood. I set the clean bowl down, slide it through the slot, and sit on the floor outside his run. I don’t look right at him. I rest my head against the wire and do nothing.
“Hey, Brownie,” I say. “It’s just me.”
He shifts his weight. His nails click on the concrete. I hum one note, low. He flicks an ear. I take it up. The middle breaks on me like it always does, thin and weak. I stop. He flinches because the sound cut off. I go back down, just under speaking.
He steps closer. Not much. Enough to drink a little. I try to hum again and go for a lower note to see if that calms him. Dogs tendto like deeper notes. It sits in my chest like an old friend this time. I try a couple of tones next to it. When I push higher, the sound snags and goes breathy. When I sink lower, it settles. The dog licks his lips and drinks again.
A staffer passes behind me, glances down, and keeps going. The dogs two runs over stop barking for the first time since I came in. I shift to another low tone, more air, less push. The sound sits in my chest; the reverb feels oddly good. The dog huffs and lies down with his nose on his paws facing me. I let the note fade.
I haven’t thought about registers like this in a while. Tenor was easy until it wasn’t. After the virus, I spent months trying to climb back up and hitting the ceiling at the same place every day. Today, the floor feels solid.
I try a scale under my breath. Low, a step up, another, back down. My throat stops bracing. My tongue sits where it should. The dog’s ears move once, then still. He stays down.
I rest my hand under the door. He leans forward three inches and sniffs. He doesn’t touch me. That’s fine. His eyes are soft now. I hum the low note again and think about how that felt. It didn’t hurt. It didn’t scrape.
I didn’t hate my sound. That’s new.
