The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,6
You abandoned him. So as far as I’m concerned, he’s my dog now.”
She hung up on me.
I stared at my phone in shock. I hit Send on the number again and it went straight to voicemail.
Cursing, I called Monique.
“You lost Tucker?” I growled, not bothering to lower my voice for the passengers still deplaning.
“Well, hello to you too, Jason.”
The click of her heels came through the line. I could almost see her, holding her fucking skinny latte with those huge sunglasses she always wore, shopping bags on her arms while she wasn’t looking for my dog.
“Tucker’s been lost for two weeks? Why didn’t you look for him? Or put through an emergency call to me? What the fuck, Monique? You’re supposed to be taking care of him!”
“I work, Jason. And I did look. Sort of.”
Then I heard a whoosh that sounded like a subway car. “Wait.” Disbelief coursed through my veins. “Where are you?”
A pregnant pause.
“New York,” she said quietly.
“How long have you been in New York?”
Silence again.
“Two weeks.”
I clutched the phone with white knuckles. “We are done. Fucking done,” I hissed.
“Jason, when Givenchy calls, you don’t tell them that you can’t be in their Vogue shoot because you have to look for your fuck buddy’s dog. I’m sorry, okay? Don’t—”
I hung up. I’d heard enough. She might as well have lost my child and then run off to do a damn photo shoot. It was that unforgivable.
I tried Sloan’s number again. Voicemail.
At a loss for what else to do, I stood by the gate going through the rest of my messages as rain pounded on the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the tarmac.
This Sloan woman hadn’t been kidding. She really had tried to reach me. Every day for over a week she’d left me a voicemail about Tucker. I got more and more pissed off as the messages detailed Monique’s complete and utter disregard for my dog.
He’d been in the middle of the street.
He’d had a bladder infection from not being let out.
This lady had posted all over, places Monique could have easily seen the signs had she bothered to stick around to look.
He’d dived into this woman’s sunroof. What the hell was that about?
I rubbed my temples. Tucker hated kennels. Monique had been good enough with him, at least in front of me, and I hadn’t had any reservations about it at the time. She told me she’d take him on her runs.
Stupid, stupid.
I should have flown him to Minnesota and left him with my family. I fucked up. It would have been a two-thousand-mile side trip, but at least Tucker would have been safe.
I raked my hand down my face and scratched my beard, tiredly. Fuck, now what was I going to do? This lady stole my damn dog.
When I finished my voicemails, I thumbed through my text messages and saw one from the 818 number I’d written down on my hand. I clicked it and a picture of Tucker popped up. It was great not knowing you.
The photo showed a woman with her arm wrapped around Tucker’s chest. I couldn’t see her face. The top of Tucker’s head covered her mouth. She wore black sunglasses and her hair was tucked under a hat. Her arm was covered in tattoos from shoulder to elbow. I tilted my head and studied them, zooming in on my phone. I made out the name Brandon on her arm. Then the screen shifted to an incoming call notification. The 818 number. I scrambled to answer it. “Hello?”
“If you love your dog, prove it.”
“What?”
“I’m not feeling the greatest about keeping your dog if you really do love him. So if you do, prove it.”
I blinked. “Okay. And how would you suggest I do that?”
“He’s your dog, isn’t he? Proof that you love him should be readily available.”
My mind raced.
“All right, hold on,” I said, getting an idea. I scrolled through the photos on my phone and selected several: Tucker and me at the beach, Tucker and me on a bike ride. Then I took a screenshot of my wallpaper, Tucker, sitting behind all my icons. I sent the photos through. “There. Check your messages.”
Her phone made a shuffling noise. She went quiet for what I knew was longer than it took to see them all.
“Look,” I said into the silence, hoping she could hear me, “he’s my best friend. He came with me when I moved to LA from Minnesota. I left him with someone I thought I could trust. I love my dog.