Page 6 of A Baby for Christmas
I swallowed, trying to convince myself that a broken condom wasn't the end of the world. It happened all the time, right? How likely was it that anything was going to happen? Robin's heat hadn't even been arealone. Those drugs had only induced a hormone rush, not heightened hisfertility.
Right?
Calm down, Ben. You know there's ways to deal with situations likethis.
Whenever omegas came to us after sexual assault, we provided them with morning after pills. There were always a couple in stock at the shelter. I could just go and grab one of those for Robin in the morning. Preferably early morning before too many people were around to ask me aboutit.
Taking a deep breath, I felt myself relax at least marginally as I discarded the sad remains of the condom. Things were going to be alright. At least, that was going to be my mantra until morningcame.
I was just about to settle back down next to Robin when I heard an odd sound coming from my backyard. A soft yipping or something like that. At first I ignored it, but then it came again, andthenI remembered the boys who rang my door before Robin and I had gotten down to business. They'd been searching for a runawaydog.
Could itbe?
I rose from the bed again, careful not to rouse Robin, but he stirred anyway. "What are you doing?" heasked.
"There might be a dog in mybackyard."
"A dog?" He looked at me as if afraid I might be losing mymind.
"Yeah, there were children here earlier, looking forone."
Robin sat up and rubbed his eyes. The yipping sound came again. Robin's eyebrows shotup.
"See?" I smiled at him as I threw on some clothes. Potentially finding a dog in my backyard was exactly the kind of distraction I needed now. Leaving the bedroom behind, I opened the door to the backyard and turned the outdoor light on. It wasn't super bright, but my yard wasn't big and the area the lamp illuminated was just large enough for me to see something out ofplace.
There was a yellow dog—a Golden Retriever?—in my back yard with his nose in my bushes. "Max?" I tried, recalling the name the boys had used. The dog glanced at me. Maybe he really was Max? He probably was. How many other runaway Retrievers could there be in Oceanporttonight?
Robin showed up in the door behind me. "Wow, there really is a dog. What's he lookingat?"
I hadn't noticed that the dog waslookingat anything, but now that Robin mentioned it... Max had his nose in the bushes again only seconds after noticing me. Whatever was in there was definitely more interesting to him than Robin and Iwere.
Robin thought faster than me and approached the bushes with the flashlight app on his smartphone turned on. "Oh dear," hemuttered.
"What isit?"
"Well," he turned around to me with a wide grin, "you thought there was a dog in your backyard, but there's actually twodogs."
"Two dogs? What are you talking about?" Was there another one hiding in the bushes? If so, it must be much smaller than the Retriever. My bushes weren't that high, and I didn't see anything sticking out. Robin leaned down, and Max gave an excited bark—pleased that someone was finally paying attention? When Robin came up again, he was holding a small, furry bundle that sniffed at his clothes with its tiny nose. It was a yellow-haired puppy. A tiny little thing. I didn't know much about dogs, but this little one didn't look old enough to be out on his own. What was he doing in mybackyard?
"Isn't he adorable?" Robin coed at the puppy. "I think it’s acorgi."
I stepped up to him to get a closer look at the small dog. "Yeah, might be... But how did he get here? And what are we gonna do abouthim?"
"I don't know, but let's get the dogs inside first. It's cold out here. Also, I want to take a picture and there’s too little light." Well, at least he had his priorities in order. As he spoke, he ushered all of us into my living room. "Here, hold him for a moment." Handing the puppy over to me, he pulled out his smart phone again to snap a picture. His eyes seemed to glow as he did so. I couldn't remember the last time I'd seen him so happy. All because we found a furbundle in mybackyard?
I glanced down at the dog I was holding to notice that he'd gone to sleep in my arms—probably happy to have found somewhere warm. "Do you think someone threw himout?"
Robin let his phone sink, face falling. I could tell what he was thinking by the look in his eyes. He sympathized. He'd been this dog, abandoned on Christmas Eve. "I'll take him," he said with quietdetermination.
"You can't keep dogs in your place," I gently reminded him. He rented the second floor of an old lady's house. An old lady with a dogallergy.
"It'll be fine," he insisted. "The dog won't bother Mrs. B. if I keep him on my floor. Look at the little thing. We can't just leave him!" Poor Robin. He would never admit it, but I knew all his little tells, and by the way he bit his lower lip, I knew he kind of wanted tocry.
"We're not going to leave him," I decided. "We'll have to see if we can locate his owner and if we can't, I'll keep him." I had a nice backyard and I could probably take the dog to work with me. The omegas at the shelter would love the cute little bugger. How bad could itbe?
"You will?" Robin's face lit up and he pressed a kiss on my cheek. "And here I thought you hatedbabies."
I cringed, not wanting to think about babies or the broken condom I'd thrown away maybe twenty minutes ago. "I don't hate babies." I just didn't want to be a parent, which was different. "And this isn't a baby. It's a puppy." An adorable puppy who would keep me company even when Robin went on to his next boyfriend. "Also, speaking of locating the owner, I think we need to get this Golden Retriever home." I pointed at Max, who sat by the back door wagging his tail. "His owner was rather upset at losinghim."
