of Friday evening to the point that she was actually toying with the idea of getting Baxter a companion once Hazel had gone home. He was undeniably a different dog in Hazel’s company—he hadn’t once pressed his head to a corner since she’d arrived. Carly pictured herself heading over to the ACC to find a rescue, another basset who would adore poor old Baxter the way he adored Hazel. She imagined walking them on the streets of New York, and people would stop her to tell her how cute her dogs were, and her dogs would be perfectly behaved because of course she’d have them professionally trained, as the manual strongly recommended. She would look like the women on the cover of the books she saw in Target—cute and carefree and walking a dog down a tree-lined street. She’d meet guys who loved dogs, rich businessmen also walking down the street in snazzy French suits who would stop and speak to her dogs, then to her.
She imagined having a dog-friendly office somewhere, and Baxter and his puppy sibling would sit on the window seat and gaze out the window, attracting people to come in. People would come for the adorable dogs and stay for the public relations, or . . . or whatever her job ended up being. She would build some lucky company an entire client base on the backs of two adorable dogs.
She envisioned all that into a dreamy slumber.
* * *
The next morning, Carly woke up to the smell of something fishy. She lifted her head from the pillow and hissed with the pain that the sudden movement put in her neck. “Damn it,” she said, and rubbed her neck. Well, no wonder—she was on the very edge of the bed again, having been pushed aside by two basset hounds who had taken up almost the entire bed. “I don’t get it,” she said hoarsely to her slumbering companions. “It’s not even possible to get up here on those stumpy legs.”
Baxter lifted his head and looked at her. Or maybe that was Hazel. Whichever one it was sighed and resumed sleeping. The other one slid off the bed and onto the floor. With a grunt of dissatisfaction, Carly sat up, pushed her tangled hair from her face, and grimaced at the sound of her laptop sliding off and clattering on the wood floor. She’d fallen asleep with it.
She got out of bed. She felt groggy from the lack of sleep and stretched her arms overhead on a big yawn. And then, scratching her side, she took one step toward the bathroom door. Her bare foot landed in something cold and oily and slipped out from under her. She caught herself on the bed before she fell, but a muscle pulled in the back of her leg and she let out a grunt of pain. When she’d righted herself, she looked down to see what she’d stepped in.
She was still trying to work out which one of them had gotten into the fish oil when she heard the unmistakable sound of a dog retching. It was coming from the direction of her closet. “No,” she whispered as the worst sort of horror struck her. She dove across her bed, half sliding and falling across the foot of it just as the dog retched. By the time she made it to the closet, she very nearly combusted. Baxter had just vomited on her expensive, special-night-out, silk and beaded Jimmy Choos. “No!” she screeched. They were insanely expensive, even in spite of her having purchased them from a consignment store.
Baxter made a run for it, slipping and sliding out of her room in his haste to put some distance between himself and the remnants of the fish oil he’d eaten. Hazel, still at her slumber, lifted her head and looked curiously at Carly. That’s when Carly noticed an empty fish oil capsule stuck to the bottom of one of her paws.
And then she noticed the trail of oily paw prints the size of personal pizzas across her floor and on her bedspread. “Oh my God!” she shouted.
Hazel slid off the bed and trotted out of the room.
“That just makes you look guilty!” Carly shouted after her. She grabbed her phone, shoved her hair from her face, and FaceTimed Mr. Tobias Sheffington III.
After a couple of rings, his face appeared in the square. He was wearing his glasses, and his stubble had disappeared. He looked like he was in a hotel