The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,21

a hundred pounds, maybe more—with fluffy white hair and a nose that was probably black at one point but was now mostly pink. He had a tail that curled up over his back, black eyes, and stubby white eyelashes. He had not stopped moving for a moment, jumping to his feet, then sitting down and trying to kiss me again, like he was thrilled with the way everything had turned out, his smile still in place.

“Calm down,” I said as I released my grip on the leash slightly. I wiped the dirt and gravel off on my jeans, then reached out and patted the dog’s head, even though he probably didn’t deserve it. His tail started thumping on the ground more rapidly, and he tilted his head to the side, like he was showing me that I should really be petting him by his ears.

“Birdie!” The guy who had yelled before was running up to us, sounding half out of breath. “I’m so sorry—are you—okay? Is he?” He stopped and bent halfway over, his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths.

“I’m fine,” I said as I pushed myself up to standing. I was okay—like, I might have a bruise on my hip tomorrow, but otherwise fine. The dog looked up at me with his head cocked to the side, and I had to admit, he was pretty cute. For a moment I felt sorry that he had been saddled with such a stupid name. I mean, Birdie? For a dog? I brushed off my hands and then rubbed the dog’s ears once more. His hair was soft and silky, and there was so much of it—like if this dog got wet, he’d only be about half this size. I noticed a tag hanging from his green leather collar, a round gold disk with BERTIE in engraved capitals. So that at least made a little more sense than Birdie. But not by much. “Here,” I said, holding out the leash to the guy, who was still trying to get his breath back. I wasn’t going to be rude—that had been drilled out of me years ago, first by my parents and then by Peter—but that didn’t mean I needed to be overly polite to a guy who couldn’t even keep hold of his pet. Also, I had something I had to do.

The guy straightened up and smiled at me. “Thanks,” he said.

I took an involuntary step backward. For some reason, seeing him from a distance, I’d assumed he was older than me—in his twenties, maybe. But this guy looked around my age. He was only an inch or two taller than me, which meant he was probably around five ten, and thin, but with broad shoulders. He had dark brown hair that was cut short and neatly combed and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a black shirt that read THE DROID YOU’RE LOOKING FOR in yellow capital letters, which rang a vague bell, but nothing I could place. I could see that he had two deep dimples, like parentheses around his smile. They were incredibly distracting, and I made myself look away immediately. He was wearing glasses with frames that were straighter on top and then became rounded, and his smile widened when I met his eyes.

“Sure,” I said as I took another step away.

“I—um, I really am sorry,” he said, looking down at the dog. It seemed like he’d gotten his breath back now. “I’m not sure what happened, but the leash got away from me.” He shrugged and went to put his hands in his pockets, and it wasn’t until Bertie’s head got yanked up that he seemed to remember he had a leash in one of them. I saw that his cheeks, and the tips of his ears, were starting to turn red. “Um.” He cleared his throat, his voice getting softer with every word. “I’m not great with dogs.”

I was about to say something to this—like, what kind of excuse was that? He clearly owned a dog—when I decided to let it go. “It’s fine,” I said, giving him a quick smile before I turned back to Dr. Rizzoli’s house. I had taken a few steps toward it when I realized that all the dog drama had taken place in pretty clear view of the front windows. Had Dr. Rizzoli seen what had happened?

The dog lunged toward me, and I heard the guy say, “Bert!” as he pulled him back, and then the soft sound of