Wait. That wasn’t how it had happened, was it?
Was it?
“Hey, guys,” Jordan said, popping his head out the sliding glass door in the last of the April sunset. “Don’t worry about drying off. It’s getting cold, and my grandmother’s here, and she really wants to see you again.”
Oh yeah. That was what happened.
Dante stood up, almost too quickly, and stepped back, releasing Cully so fast he stumbled.
“We’re coming, J,” he said, giving a flash of smile before offering Cully a hand to help him stand.
Cully didn’t take it.
He swept himself up along with his dignity and marched into the house with his chin up and his towel wrapped tightly around his shoulders so nobody could see how much he wanted that moment to be more than it had ever been.
THE past dipped and looped, and Cully was in the present again, the machine still whirring under his fingers. His dignity had felt warm and real then, hadn’t it? As firm and dense as this cloak he was making, the one with the lace trim that was to be the showpiece of the heroine’s wardrobe. But now, working alone in this house, hearing the echoes of Dante’s voice fade off the walls Cully had decorated with so much pride, he knew the truth and shivered with the cold.
He lost track of time after that, until… crap!
With a mutter he yanked what he was working on out of the sewing machine and looked dolefully at six feet of seam in the red velveteen that he was absolutely going to have to rip out.
Dammit!
Muttering furiously, he stalked into the living room and threw the offending garment onto a pile on the dining room table, which was getting precarious again.
His conscience pinged him as he stalked back to his room, and he called, “Dammit, Donnie. I’m sorry!” before sitting down. “I was trying to keep this organized, and I lost my temper. I know you always tell me it’s not a problem, but—oh!” His heart almost leapt out of his chest. “Hi, Bartholomew!”
Bartholomew’s gray eyes were huge, and Cully smiled at him, trying to put him at ease. Bartholomew seemed to need quiet and gentleness in his life, and Cully—well, Cully was the guy who threw half-done garments across a room because he was irritated. Cully worked especially hard not to be that guy when Bartholomew was around.
“Hey, Cully,” Bartholomew said, his eyes never blinking. “Can we use some of your thread?”
Oh! That was such a simple request. While Alex often determined if a spell needed thread, Cully was the guy who had the thread—and usually in the exact shade. A lot of the rituals called for thread to bind a spell, and using the right color gave things a little extra oomph.
“Spell thread is in the little white lunch box by that wall. You see it?”
It was easy to spot in Cully’s room; his bedspread was a bargello quilt in rainbow colors. The thread box was the only plain thing besides the sewing machine, or would have been if Cully hadn’t put a rainbow pentagram on top.
Barty went for the box, and Cully suddenly needed a friend so badly. He rested his chin on his hands, and for a moment, he wanted to say the real thing on his mind. He wanted to say, “Do you think it’s too late for me and Donnie?” He, Cully, was the only person in the world who called Dante “Donnie”—and it was some exclusivity, but suddenly, achingly, it was not enough.
Seven years of silence was a hard habit to break, though, and what came out of his mouth was “Did you see that piece of crap I threw across the hall? Honestly, it’s like I forgot how to sew.”
He heaved a sigh and didn’t wait for an answer. There was no way for a true friend to answer that. Before Bartholomew could even venture across the room to get the box of thread, Cully was fully immersed in his sewing again, wishing he could forget the past completely and start with Dante all over again.
HE wasn’t sure when he remembered about Glinda.
That… scared him. Scared him in ways he didn’t think he could be scared. He’d made plans for that dog. He’d made Dante listen for hours as he talked about having a dog of his own, not a Labrador or a bloodhound—those were dogs who were supposed to work for a living.
Cully, mocked at school for wearing pink flowered shirts and spikes in his blond hair, had wanted a dog when he was a kid. His father had continually told him that he was too much of a space cadet for a dog. Too flaky, his father said. This was a kid who forgot to do the dishes or vacuum because he was busy—what? Singing along to a musical? What, he was gonna let the dog starve to death because he was belting out songs from My Fair Lady? No. Tom Cromwell Senior, put his foot down.
And Cully had yearned for a creature who would think he was the center of its universe and love him without fear or reservation.
At night in their dorm room, when he and Dante committed all their secrets to each other, their harsh breaths scarcely traveling the four feet of air between their bunks like a bridge of words, he’d told Dante that he wanted a dog. “Something that doesn’t have a job,” he said.
“A job?” Dante was half-asleep, but he sounded bemused.
“Like herding or hunting. Even terriers were bred to hunt rats, did you know that? I want a jobless dog.”
“Huh. I’d never thought of a dog like that. A dog without a purpose?”
“No!” Oh God. Cully was so stupid. Dante would never understand. But he had to keep trying. “It just… it doesn’t have to feel obligated,” he’d said. “It doesn’t have to have chores. All it has to do is be pretty and friendly. And it has to love me, because that’s all I am.”
“Well, you’re talented as hell,” Dante said, sounding a little more awake now. “And the dog isn’t going to be making costumes for My Fair Lady any time soon.”
“You don’t get it,” Cully mumbled, turning toward the wall dismally. He knew nobody would.
“Naw, Cully. Don’t be like that. I get it. I’m just saying—the dog would still have a job. I mean, besides not crapping on the carpet.”
“Yeah? What would its job be?”
“To love you,” Dante said, half laughing. “To love you for who you are. Not for cleaning up or being neat, which I know you’re not great at even though you try. Not for being six feet tall and built like a linebacker.” Which Cully had told him his father had wanted. “All this pooch would ever have to do is look at you like you were the be-all and end-all of its life. I get it. I’ve got ideas.”
Cully hmmd at that, soothed by the idea that yeah, Dante really did get it. He really did understand why Cully wanted a dog, even if he was humoring Cully right now so he could fall asleep.
But the next day after lunch, Cully found a text on his phone that had links to adoption places for “companion dogs.” The text itself read, Shih Tzus, Bichon Frise, Papillons, French Bulldogs, pugs—and all the crosses of all the above-named dogs. Start there. These are dogs without a job.
The minute Jordan lined up the cul-de-sac houses for them to move into, Cully started an internet search from pretty much that moment on—but he was having no luck.
Still, thanks to Dante, Glinda—a twelve-week-old bichon frise/Maltese mix—had been their dog by the September after graduation. They’d tell all their friends that she was a bichon frise so she could be fancy, Cully told her. J and the crew wouldn’t hold it against her that she wasn’t a purebred, but she was a lady, and a lady didn’t have to talk about her pedigree.