Everyone lines up at the end of the marked-out rectangle and starts throwing their discs again. The dogs run joyfully after them. It’s kind of heartwarming to see.
Emmy takes us a little way away. “Can I take Bean’s leash for a bit?” I hand it to her, and Emmy holds out a disc for Bean to sniff. Then she lays it upside down on the ground in front of her and fishes a treat out of her pocket to put in it.
“So, the first thing you can and should do is to feed Bean in the disc,” she says. “Let her eat out of it. After a week or so of that, you can put treats in it, like this, and start moving it back and forth in front of her nose. Make sure she’s paying attention. Maybe even toss it a couple of feet. Pretty soon, she’ll decide that a frisbee is something she likes.”
I laugh and point at my dog, who’s licking Emmy’s disc. “I think she’s already decided that.”
The captain claps for her. “That was fast.” She tilts her head and pulls her hair over her shoulder. “Let’s try a little experiment.” She picks up the disc and holds it front of Bean’s face, then moves it back and forth. Bean’s nose follows it. “What do you think, Bean, do you want to chase it?”
Emmy digs another treat out of her shorts. As she does, I catch Logan glancing down at her legs. Again, can’t blame him. She’s lovely. She puts the treat in the upside-down disc and shows it to Bean, who stares at it, wagging her tail.
“Go get it, girl!” Emmy skims the frisbee a few feet along the ground. Bean runs after it and gobbles up the treat. Then she licks the disc and nudges it forward a couple of times, as if that might make another treat magically appear.
We laugh, and Emmy rewards Bean with another treat from her pocket. “I think she’ll pick this up quickly. Since she seems food motivated, be sure to have lots of treats on hand, or at least handfuls of kibble.”
“I will.” I pick up the disc, toss it up a foot, and catch it. Bean barks, and Logan nudges me.
“I think she wants you to throw it again.”
My dog stands, her head tilted to the side, eyes on the disc. I sling it. I can’t say it’s a great throw, but sure enough, Bean tears after it.
“Wow,” Emmy says. “She’s a smart girl.”
I beam with pride. “I’ve always thought so.”
Bean sniffs all around the disc when it lands, even using her nose to flip it over onto the other side, but she doesn’t bring it back. Not that I expected her to the first time.
Emmy watches her. “You might be able to shorten the introduction stuff. I’d feed her in the disc for a few days and maybe play around in the backyard or whatever with a treat in the disc. Ask her to pick it up when you throw it and be sure to reward her if she does.”
Bean barks at the disc, obviously wanting it to fly again. Logan walks over to retrieve it.
“I’m going to go work with Meadow for a while. You guys are welcome to join us and keep throwing for Bean.” Emmy winks. “You never know, she might be catching it before the end of the hour.”
“Thanks for the tips,” I say. “I’ll work with her this week.”
“We’re here every Wednesday at seven, and a lot of times we head over to Station 26 for beers afterward. The dogs come with us. We aren’t going this week, but we probably will next Wednesday.”
“Great, sounds fun,” I say. Emmy walks away as Logan returns. He watches her go.
“Nice woman,” I say.
“Yeah,” Logan’s eyes flick to me.
“Pretty, too.” I quirk a brow.
He elbows me. “Think so? Are you going to ask her out?”
I roll my eyes. “No, but maybe you should. You two would make a hot couple.”
He pauses for a second to look at me, then shakes his head and walks on.
What did I say? I was teasing him. Sometimes I wonder if I know Logan as well as I think I do.
That thought rolls around like a marble in the back of my head while we watch the others, and for a while after, too.
Chapter Four
Logan
That night, I shower, eat a sandwich, and sit down to play a round of Redemption with my buddy, Noah. We’re going after a pair of alien marauders bent on human destruction. The aliens look like humans, so there’s always a risk of shooting perfectly normal humans and getting life points taken away ourselves, but Noah and I have been watching these two for a while.
I’m about to outline my plan of attack with Noah through my headset, when Stevie wanders into the living room flossing her teeth. Bean looks up at her from the couch beside me, and I stop mid-sentence.
“Be right back,” I say to Noah.
I can hear him grouse, but I flip the headset to mute. “You’re flossing.”
Stevie nods absently. “Good dental hygiene is very important.”
I eye her. She’s wearing a pair of my old sweatpants and a cropped tank top with no bra. She’s never worn a bra in the house, so long as other people weren’t around. I know she doesn’t think anything of it, because she thinks of me like a brother. But it drives this brother nuts.
I have to make a heroic effort to keep my eyes off her perfectly formed chest. I would never want to make her as uncomfortable as she unintentionally makes me.
I drag my eyes back to the television screen in an effort to look anywhere but at her. Noah’s and my avatars are standing around watching the alley the aliens slipped down.
“Number five,” I say.
She cocks her head with a questioning glance.
“On your bucket list.”
“Yeah. I thought it was about time I tackled a few of those.”
I grit my teeth grimly. I was right.
I turn back to the game, but I’m distracted now. What does this mean? Does she remember the unwritten item number eleven?
Of course she does. Stevie might be the flighty artsy type, but she has an excellent memory. And who could forget their first—and only—kiss with a best friend?
I remember it perfectly well myself. Stevie and I had been playing on the playset behind her house. Our parents were lucky; we could always be found in her backyard or mine. Stevie’s mom, Carol, was already divorced. She worked full time as a receptionist back then. My dad worked in sales at an oil company, and Mom was and is a high school math teacher, so she’d keep an eye on both of us in the afternoons after school. In exchange, Carol would watch me and my brother Dylan on the weekends so our folks could run errands without dragging us with them or go out for dinner somewhere other than McDonalds. Carol hadn’t met Lamar, her husband and Stevie’s stepdad, yet.
Dylan, who must have been four at the time, had been sitting in the grass likely eating bugs or dirt or something equally gross, while Stevie and I swung on the swings. We’d all recently finished our Fudgsicles, and Stevie’s pale face was covered in drying chocolate ice cream. Mine too, probably.
I can’t remember what she’d been wearing but probably short shorts and a T-shirt. That’s what she’s pretty much always worn except for a brief stint in middle school when she went through a really girly phase and wore tiny skirts and cropped T-shirts. I hadn’t minded.
“Are you going to get married when you grow up?” Stevie had suddenly asked.