Page 44 of October
Finley set the picture down and turned to her.
“Are you mad?” Molly asked.
She shook her head and replied, “Not even a little bit. Now, we can talk about football.” She smiled widely.
Molly laughed and said, “Yes, we can. Where are we going, by the way?”
“Oh, a puppy party.”
“Awhat?”
CHAPTER 12
Molly walked through the door of the shop and was instantly happier, and she was already pretty happy because Finley Storm had asked her out on a date. They were on that date right now. She still couldn’t believe that. Finley had opened the door for her and was now smiling at Molly, probably because Molly was smiling at the dozen or so puppies that were running around the room that was clearly built for them.
“I can’t believe you found this place,” she said.
She heard several little puppy barks and growls and had to cover her mouth because they were just so damn cute.
“Hi. Name?” a woman asked as she approached them.
“Finley. I made a call a few hours ago for me and my–” She cleared her throat. “Date.”
Molly’s smile widened at that, looking over at her and not even caring if Finley saw that smile because they were on a date, so she could smile at Finley all she wanted tonight.
“Great. Well, welcome. Every animal is up for adoption or fostering, if you’re interested. We have names and histories on all of them, and they’re having fun running around right now, but feel free to join in wherever and whenever you want. We’ve got four golden retrievers, two corgis, and some mutts that are eight weeks old. We believe the mom is part beagle and boxer. Not sure about the dad, but they’re all cute, and this is theirfirst time around new people, so they’re enjoying their newfound freedom.”
“This is amazing. Thank you!” Molly replied.
“No problem. Have fun and let me know if you have any questions.”
The woman turned when someone else walked inside.
“How did you find it?” Molly asked.
“I googled,” Finley said, shrugging. “This place is great, though. They partner with a shelter and are a non-profit, so the money you pay to come and play with the puppies goes to their care, which I thought you’d like.”
“Really?” Molly’s voice was slightly higher than she had planned. “That’s so good. Can I play with them now?”
Finley laughed a little and said, “That’s why we’re here.”
The room Molly walked farther into was filled with puppies and their toys, bowls of food and water for them, and their beds where they could relax and sleep. In fact, one of them was currently doing just that, despite all the pandemonium going on. Molly wanted to pick the sleeping puppy up and hold it to her chest, but she didn’t want to wake it up, so instead, she sat on the floor where a few more people were playing with puppies, and one ran up to her, jumping around when he got closer.
“Well, hello, little one. What’s your name?”
“That’s Giles,” the woman from before replied.
“Giles?”
“Yeah, we name each litter after characters from TV and movies. This one had the perfect mix forBuffy the Vampire Slayercharacters, so we went with that. That one is Giles because he thinks he’s smarter than everyone. There’s Willow.” The woman pointed to another mutt. “Whoisactually smarter than everyone. There’s Xander, the goofball, and Cordy.” She pointed to a puppy with a green collar, followed by the one with a pink one. “And that’s Buffy. She’s the badass, older sibling.” Shepointed to the one in the red collar. “If someone adopts them, they can obviously change their names.”
“Why would they want to do that?” Finley asked as she sat down next to Molly.
“I agree,” Molly said, looking at the puppy in front of her, who was panting and staring at her expectantly. “Hi, Giles. How are you?”
The dog didn’t move at first, but she held out her hand, and he sniffed it. Figuring out that Molly was safe with his doggy superpowers, he moved into her hand, and she began to pet him. This was just what she needed, and she had no idea how Finley had known that. Even her mentioning Carly wouldn’t have been enough to make any of Molly’s exes do this for her.
“Lie down,” Finley said then.
