Cruel Money (Cruel 1)

Then, footsteps followed, and I heard, “Aristotle!”

The puppy nuzzled down in my lap and nudged my hand to keep petting him. “We need to figure out who you belong to.”

But the answer was there in the doorway before I even had a chance to stand.

“There you are!” Penn said with a sigh. “I knew that you were going to be trouble.”

I stared up at him in shock. “What are you doing here?” I gasped.

“Just getting out of your way.”

I scooped up the puppy and held him in my arms as I stood. This…made no sense. Penn had left yesterday with all of his friends and all of his problems. He wasn’t supposed to show back on Monday morning. It made no sense.

“You were supposed to leave yesterday. Why are you back? Did you forget something? Do you need me to look for it, so you can be on your way?”

“Well, you’ve found what I was looking for.” He pointed at the dog clutched in my arms. “Natalie, meet Aristotle.”

“You named your dog Aristotle?” I asked in disbelief. “How mean are you?”

Penn laughed, and it was a light, musical thing. “At the time, it seemed like the perfect name. But, after his actions the past couple of weeks, I think he is far more belligerent and might have been a better Nietzsche.”

“Why do you hate your puppy?”

“I don’t hate him.”

“Don’t worry,” I said, scratching Aristotle’s ears. “I won’t call you that ridiculous name. From now on, you’ll be…Totle.” Totle’s ears perked up, and he licked me in the face. I giggled. “You like that, huh?”

“You are not calling my dog Totle.”

“Well, I’m not calling him Aristotle. You must have lost your mind. And, anyway…you didn’t answer my question. What are you doing here?”

He sighed and took another step outside. “Can I have the dog back first?”

“That remains to be seen.”

He slid his hands into his pockets and shook his head at me. I could see the machinations working in his mind. Trying to figure out how to not make me mad at him while also somehow getting his dog back. I was pretty sure he was going to fail on both accounts.

“I’m on sabbatical this semester.”

“Okay.” I had a vague idea of what sabbatical was, but my blank stare must have been enough to trigger him to explain.

“A professor can take a semester off from teaching to accomplish a specific goal. Sometimes to finish a project or run a journal or travel for research. That sort of thing. Most assistant professors don’t get a semester of sabbatical. It’s given out after you get tenure.”

“But you’re getting it…pre-tenure?”

“Yes. I made a case for getting the semester off to finish my book project. I had enough riding on it that they awarded it to me. It’s the book that I’m hoping will get me tenure at Columbia, but we’ll see about that in another year or two.”

“Okay,” I said, trying to keep it all straight. “So, you’re writing a book.”

“Yes. I have been working on it since graduate school, but I wanted to have a deep dive into the material to get it all into place. I have an advanced contract with Cambridge for it. So, I can’t procrastinate on it anymore.”

My head swam with all the new information. Sabbatical. Tenure at Columbia. Advance contract at Cambridge. I found for a split second that I was insanely jealous of his life. Obviously, he’d put the work in, and I had no interest in academia, but a contract for a book was such a dream.

“That all sounds…amazing,” I admitted. “But what does it have to do with why you’re here?”

“I planned to stay here for the semester.”

“What?” I asked with wide eyes.

“That was always the plan. I just had to go back and get Aristotle.”

“You always planned to stay,” I said hollowly.

“Well, yeah.”

“Penn…”

“I’m going to stay out of your way.”

I snorted. “As if you’ll actually do that. You were here for a weekend and completely disrupted my life.”

“Is that what you call hanging out with my friends all weekend?”

“Yes!” Totle whined in my arm, and I bent to kiss his head. “Sorry, buddy. Look, you’re already scaring Totle.”

“That nickname,” he said with an eye roll. “I promise you won’t even know that I’m here. We don’t have to see each other unless we want to.”

“We don’t want to.”

“Right,” he said with his hands raised. He moved forward until he was standing before me and started petting Totle. “He’s really just the cutest dog ever.”

“What is he anyway? A whippet? He looks so small.”

“Italian greyhound. He’s only a couple months old. He’ll get a little bigger, but he’ll probably only be, like, fifteen pounds.”

“Are you going to race him? Do they have baby greyhound racing?”

Penn scoffed. “Are you kidding this time? Do you know how hard those dogs are run into the ground? I want Aristotle to live a long, full life.” A smile lit up his face when he looked at the puppy. It was something I’d never seen on him before. Apparently, puppies changed everyone. “No racing for him and lots of treats.”