first seeing who it’d come from.
Laric: Bobo was hit by a car. We were at the rest stop between Kilgore and Souls Chapel when I opened the back door and he bolted. He ran in front of a truck and the truck clipped him. He’s at the emergency vet on 59. I was hoping that you could go check on him over the next few days. I can’t stay with him because I have eight other dogs at home. They’re too volatile on their own to stay by themselves. I was hoping you could help.
I had a long moment of wondering A, how the man got my number and B, how the man’s number got into my phone. But I dismissed both of them as soon as I thought about poor Bobo, the dog that saved my life.
I immediately replied.
Dillan: I’ll go check on him. Is he going to be okay?
Laric: Yes. Thanks.
That was it. Two words.
I immediately looked at my watch and sighed.
I still had two hours to go. Visiting hours for the emergency vet hospital didn’t open until eight, meaning I needed to find something to occupy my time.
I decided to fill the space cleaning up Booth’s place.
I started with the kitchen, and by the time that I wound back to the living room, it was time for me to leave.
I bit my lip, wondering if I should inform Booth of my whereabouts, but chose to wait.
He wouldn’t be too mad… right?
***
Booth
“Something happen to your brother’s dog?” Dax asked.
I frowned and looked up from my mountain of paperwork to the big man heading into the room. Dax was looking kind of rough.
Then again, after another fuckin’ sleepless night, it wasn’t surprising that he was looking rough.
I was just wondering what he was still doing here. At least he was caught up on all of his paperwork.
I’d been getting behind lately what with SWAT calls galore, Asa getting sick and forcing me to head home before I’d done any paperwork, and then there was Dillan.
Needless to say, being forced to go in early on a Saturday after spending four hours at a SWAT call this morning just wasn’t my happiest moment.
I looked at my watch and checked the time.
Eight minutes past eight.
“Not that I know of,” I admitted. “My parents have Asa, and I’m fairly sure that I would’ve heard first thing if Asa knew. He didn’t say anything on our phone call first thing this morning.”
Apparently while my dad had Asa after Dillan’s big ordeal, it’d been decided that Asa would be spending the weekend at my parents’ place.
Meanwhile, that gave me a full weekend of uninterrupted Dillan time.
Only, SWAT calls never waited for convenience. And since I didn’t want to wake Dillan up on her first day of vacation, I’d chosen to come here, finish up as fast as I could, and head back home.
“Heard Laric’s dog got hit by a car yesterday,” Hayes said. “Maybe she’s visiting the dog.”
Hayes looked at me with a shit-eating grin.
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered darkly, rubbing my face. “She’s going to be the death of me.”
“Just think of it this way,” Dax supplied. “The dog just got hit by a car. Maybe he won’t be in the best of shape to rip her face off.”
I flipped him off.
“I hear you don’t have much longer until the baby is born,” I drawled, leaning back in my chair. “Tell me, how are you with shit?”
Dax narrowed his eyes.
“There was this one time when Asa was young. I don’t know, about five months? I was off for a long week of leave, and I got to keep him all by myself for the first time. I thought I was going to be the best dad ever and take him everywhere. Took him to his first movie and sat him in my lap. I don’t know when it happened, or started should I say, but there was one point during the show that I realized that my shirt was wet. Thinking it was just sweat at first, I allowed it to keep happening. Only, when I finally started to smell it, I realized that it wasn’t sweat at all. It was liquid shit. He’d liquid shit all the way up his back. It was on me from my groin to my neck,” I recounted.
Dax looked positively green. “I can do everything, I think, but the poop. Jesus, I hate poop.”
I grinned. “Then there was the one time that he started projectile vomiting everywhere.