1
Phillip
“I swear to God, Humphrey, if you don’t take a piss soon, I’m going to stop bringing you to the dog park,” I threaten as my dog takes his sweet-ass time, sniffing bushes and fences and the concrete sidewalk.
He’s supposed to be peeing.
Humphrey has other ideas.
Never one to take direction or learn obedience, my Basset Hound meanders at a glacially slow pace, taking up most of the sidewalk with his wide ass. He halts, wags his tail, then goes still again.
Fuck, he sees something; now there’s no way he’s going to listen.
The little bastard strains against his leash, gagging and choking and gasping for air as if I’m the one yanking on him and not the other way around.
Gag.
Cough.
Could he be any more dramatic?
“Come on dude, go potty. It’s freezing out here.”
Thing is—he doesn’t actually know any commands, though not for lack of trying on my part. I’ve taken Humphrey to training several times with little luck. For a Basset Hound—a dog with a supposedly even and mild temper—he’s inopportunely stubborn. Humphrey occasionally responds to one command and one command only:
Lay down.
Know why? Because he’s always laying down.
“Go potty,” I tell him again.
Humphrey does not go potty.
“Dammit! I’m serious. Go. Potty.” Now I’m getting stern, infusing my tone with discipline so he knows I mean business.
The dog wags his tail.
“No, stop it.” I point to the spot on the ground I believe would be a fantastic location for him to take a piss. “I said go potty.”
We continue like this until I’m good and late for work, the dog begrudgingly walking and peeing at the same time, not bothering to stop or lift his leg while we make our way back to my house. I live in a brownstone in an up-and-coming area of Chicago that’s great for families because, to be honest, I thought I’d have one by now.
I’ve had a few steady girlfriends, despite them all discovering I’m not their soul mate and dumping me for another man. At the ripe old age of twenty-eight, it’s discouraging, but that hasn’t stopped me from looking for The One. Or hoping for The One. She hasn’t shown up on my doorstep, so instead of dating, I’m carrying not the toddler I thought I’d have by now, but an ungrateful dog up the stairs to my front door, because the shithead refused to budge from sniffing crap in the shrubberies outside.
Nosey turd.
“You made me late for work.” He wags that outlandishly long tail again as I scratch behind his floppy ears, watching with satisfaction as he savors the feeling of my nails against his skin. Fur. Whatever. “You always make me late,” I lecture, softening my tone.
It’s a fact, and not a fun one.
It’s also a fact that I could probably wake up earlier every morning, but instead, I hit snooze to snooze and snooze and snooze, both the dog and me dozing and dozing and dozing longer than we should.
Making sure the dog is situated, I thumb through the apps on my phone, find the one for a car, tap, swipe to confirm. Race around my place, locking up, shutting off lights, and bound back down the stairs to head to work.
“You’re late.”
The hall monitor of our office doesn’t glance up from his desk, inconveniently located in the first cubicle on the block, his chair swiveling in my direction as my feet hit the smooth, cold, marble floor in the lobby.
I haven’t even stepped four feet inside the place and Paul Danbury is riding my ass. He’s not actually a hall monitor, simply someone who won’t mind his own business. What Paul is is an executive assistant who hasn’t learned that monitoring employee comings and goings, tardiness, or absences is not his job. That’s my boss’s job, and last time I checked, her name isn’t Paul—it’s Patrice.
“You’re late,” he says again, as if I didn’t hear him the first time.
I barely conceal a sneer. “Really? You think I didn’t know that?”
“I mean—it’s not a great way to start the week.”
“What’s your point?”
“Last week you were late twice.”
I try to walk past him without commenting, really I do. But Paul is neither my boss nor human resources, and this is none of his damn business.
So I don’t walk past him. I swivel on my heel, look him in the eye, and, like a grown-up, say, “So?”
“It’s a bad habit to get into.” Great. The last thing I need is Paul reporting me to management, or HR, or someone else in the office who has a grudge against me—I’m sure there are plenty who would love to see my ass get canned.
“No, smoking is a bad habit to get into. I have a dog that doesn’t listen to jack shit, including me.”
Paul sits up straighter in his chair, interested. “What kind of dog?”
Oh, Paul likes animals?
Fantastic.
If chatting about my lazy-ass pup is going to get my late ass out of trouble, I’ll lean into it. Resting my elbow on the top of Paul’s cubicle wall, I sigh dramatically—just like Humphrey would do.
“A Basset Hound. He has behavioral issues.”
The issue is: he doesn’t behave and lords it over me every waking minute of the day. For such a gangly and awkward animal, he sure is a dickhead.
“Oh my God, I love Basset Hounds,” Paul drawls out with a swoon. “Does he have those big floppy ears?”
“Yeah.” They’re floppy all right. I pull my cell phone out of my back pocket and click open the photo gallery. I have an embarrassing abundance of Humphrey pictures on my phone—more than any self-respecting man should have of a dog who won’t smile for the camera or make eye contact with it, either. “Want to see a picture of him?”
Paul nods. Fervently.
Cool.
I swipe through, ashamed of the sheer number of selfies I’ve taken with my dog, some with filters, some without, all with Humphrey’s lack of motivation.
“OMG this one of him with Santa—I want to die.” Paul clutches his chest as if it’s just too much for him to bear, this photo of my dog with Santa Claus at the fake North Pole. Inside the mall.
Yeah. I still can’t believe I took him to see Santa.
In my defense, my sister thought it would be cute, and she was in town visiting, so did I actually have a choice, or was I a victim of her sibling intimidation? She’s older than me by two years and always tries to lord the power over me the same way the dog does.
“What’s his name?” Paul asks after his fingers stop swiping across my screen. He props his chin in his other hand, settling into the subject.
“Humphrey.”
Paul gasps. “It’s too perfect. He looks like a Humphrey.”
I relax my shoulders a little, the stress beginning to leave my body. Maybe Paul isn’t such a prick after all, and maybe he won’t say anything about me being late.
“What does he love?”
“Sleeping.”
Paul chuckles as if it’s the most amusing thing he’s heard all morning. “What else?”
“Laying down.”
Paul’s brows go up. “What else?”