“Would it be okay with you if we get some of your things and take them to my house for the night?” I asked Shelly when we got to her apartment.
“Would you feel safer there?” she asked, stopping in the entryway to her kitchen. She jerked her thumb toward her bedroom door. “I have guns in the gun safe. And ammo. And knives.” She started to tick items off on her fingers. “I have some low-grade explosives.” She stared at me. “Close your mouth, Clark.” She rolled her eyes dramatically.
“I have someone at my house who relies on me,” I blurted out.
She spun around quickly to face me.
“Close your mouth, Shelly,” I taunted.
“Who’s waiting for you?” She drummed the toe of her shoe against the hardwood floor. “Please tell me that you and Marley never had a child…” Her voice trailed off.
“No, no,” I rushed to say. “Nothing like that.” Thank God we never had a child. That would have compounded the horror of our love story.
“Then who’s waiting for you?” she asked, her hands settling on her hips.
“My grandmother,” I muttered.
“Your what?” she asked, cupping her ear as she leaned toward me.
“My grandmother lives with me, and I don’t like to leave her alone all the time,” I confessed, my cheeks growing warm as she studied my face.
“Your grandmother lives with you,” she said, slowly enunciating each word as the smile grew on her face.
“She raised me. And now she’s old.” I shrugged. She still stared, her lips tipping up more and more into a grin.
“You need to go home so you can take care of your grandmother.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “And I need to feed the dog.”
She hitched her shoulder against the doorjamb, crossed her arms, and stared at me. “You have a dog.” She shook her head, like she was shaking cobwebs out of her face. “Never would have suspected that.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “I bet you have a goofy, great big golden retriever with a permanent smile.”
I snorted. “Nope.”
“Then what kind of dog is it?”
I finally smiled, too. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“That is not a dog,” Shelly said quietly as Channing wandered around her feet, sniffing her and barking randomly.
“Don’t tell her that. She’ll bite you.” I showed her my hand where Channing bit the shit out of me last week.
“What did you do to her?” she asked, as she bent down and baby-talked to the most hateful dog that ever existed. I could barely touch the thing, but my grandmother had had her for ten years before coming to live with me three years ago. She was part poodle, part something else hairy, and all hateful. She weighed about eight pounds, and her favorite pastime was making me miserable, despite the fact that I was the one who fed her, walked her, and applied her flea and tick prevention. She whined during the night, keeping me awake, and she slept during the day when I wasn’t home. If I was working at night, she adjusted her schedule just so she could spread as much misery as possible.
“I didn’t do anything to her,” I groused.
“What’s her name?” Shelly asked, as she sat down on the floor and let the killer dog climb into her lap and lick her chin.
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“Her name is Channing Tatum.” I watched as the little dog that hated everyone fell all over herself trying to get closer and closer to Shelly. “Channing for short.”
“You named the dog Channing Tatum?” Shelly grinned at me.
“I didn’t. MeeMaw did.” Then I waited. Because I knew it was coming. But Shelly said nothing about what I called my grandmother. Instead, she grinned even wider. “And apparently Channing is a fucking traitor.” Okay, so I said the last part a little too loud.
“Watch your language, young man!” a voice called back from down the hallway. “It’s not her fault she doesn’t trust men!”
“That’s my MeeMaw,” I said quietly to Shelly. “You want to meet her?”