know TV. Baxter and I don’t have time to watch. What is Dog TV?”
Max was always very suspicious of people who said they didn’t watch TV. Generally, they said it like they were so much busier than anyone else, like they were too busy solving world hunger or designing an affordable health care system to kick back and watch a little tube. “You don’t watch TV?” he asked dubiously.
“Nope.”
“Nothing?”
Carly shook her head. “Too busy.”
Uh-huh. “Do you have a TV?” he asked curiously.
She blinked. She shrugged a little. “I have one. But I don’t watch it. I have no time to watch TV.” She shook her head, as if that was a given.
Oh yeah, she watched TV. Maybe even a lot of it. “But if you don’t watch—”
“So, like, what is Dog TV?” she said, interrupting him before he could make his totally logical argument.
He gave her a smile with the teeniest tiniest bit of smugness to it. “Come in. I’ll show you.”
He led her down the hall to the living room, where Baxter had resumed his place on the couch and was busy licking his paws. On the TV, two French bulldogs were romping in a field. Off-screen, a child laughed and intermittently whistled to the dogs or whispered, “I love you” or gaily called, “Come!” to the dogs.
Carly stared at her dog and then the TV. “That’s it? That’s Dog TV?”
“That is it,” Max confirmed. He felt bad for Baxter, deprived of something so basic.
Carly turned those lovely blue eyes to him, and her brows dipped, and she said, “You have to be kidding me.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe you shouldn’t be too judgy since it’s clear your dog is very happy with it.” He gestured to said dog, who looked very comfortable in lounge mode.
“I am judgy,” she agreed, and folded her sleeves. “Because dogs don’t watch TV. It’s a scam.” She looked back at her dog and pointed a sleeve at him. “Also, what is he doing on the couch?”
Max didn’t understand the question. Baxter was lying there, his head propped on the armrest now that he’d finished licking his paws. What did any dog do on the couch? She didn’t know Dog TV, she didn’t know about couches? Maybe she really didn’t know dogs. “Dogs like being up high—”
“No.” She shook her head.
“Yes,” he said, feeling slightly irritated. “It’s a proven fact. It’s like an observation point.”
She stared at him. “Are you seriously explaining dogs to me right now?”
“Well?” he said. “You’re asking dog questions.”
“My question was obviously rhetorical.”
Her question was obviously not rhetorical.
“Baxter, get down,” she said. Baxter didn’t move. “Down, Baxter.” Baxter thumped his tail a time or two to indicate he’d heard her, but he did not move. He was comfortable.
“Oh my God, what has happened to my dog? He’s not allowed on couches!”
She said this as if Max had done something really vile, like chained her dog to a tree. It felt a little as if she was taking aim at his dog skills, and he didn’t like it. He knew how to handle dogs, for fuck’s sake. “There is nothing wrong with dogs on couches,” he said defensively. “And there is nothing wrong with Dog TV. Why do I feel like I’m being pressed to defend my very good care of your dog before I even get to know where my dog is? I am happy to talk about couch philosophy, if you could just—”
“Baxter, get down from there!” she commanded again.
Baxter shifted his gaze to her as if he’d just noticed her, found her uninteresting, and then shifted his gaze back to the TV.
She lunged forward as if she intended to drag the dog off the couch. But then she stopped and made a sound of alarm so loud that had Max not been standing there, he would have thought she’d accidentally run into a pitchfork.
She was staring down at the dog food bowl, which Baxter had cleaned out. Mostly. She gasped again, this one more of a whimper, then squatted down and peered into the bowl. “Is that . . . was that mac and cheese?” she asked almost weepily, pointing at the telltale remnants that Baxter had left around the bowl.
Max briefly debated claiming the bowl was his, but wisely opted for silence.
She slowly rose up and pinned him with a look. “You fed my dog mac and cheese? And before you deny it, I know what the unnaturally orange remains of boxed mac and