Lift You Up (Rivers Brothers 1)

"I got you something," I told her after tucking the puppy into a large box I had in the trunk from a delivery at work, the bottom padded with one of my shirts so she didn't hear her scratching or sliding around.

"A leg that works properly?" she asked, clearly still wallowing, completely oblivious as I moved closer, turning my back on her, placing the box down, my body blocking it from view as I lifted her.

Then turned.

I was pretty sure everyone in a ten-mile radius heard the squeal that came out of her.

All thoughts of defeat or frustration or sadness slipped away as a smile spread across her face with enough voltage to blind a man.

"Oh, my God. Oh, my God."

"She was the ugliest one I could find," I informed her, looking down at the pint-sized thing with long, multi-colored hair, giant eyes, both different colors - blue and black.

She'd told me once that she would only ever adopt the ugly dogs. Because the cute ones would find homes easily.

"It's a girl?" she squeaked. "Is she sweet? How old is she? Did she give you kisses? Does she have a name?"

Yeah, I was pretty sure I did good as I sat down beside her, placing the puppy in her lap as Padfoot came rushing over, butt wiggling, smelling his new sister, nudging her with his nose.

"She is very sweet. She likes to bite shoelaces. She is twelve weeks old. She gives very sloppy kisses. And the name the rescue gave her is Petunia. But we can change it."

"She probably already knows it, don't you, sweet baby?" she asked, lifting her like people did with babies, out wide, then pulling her in, rubbing her face against her soft fur. "Besides, it works. Padfoot and Petunia. Do you like her, Paddy? She can't roughhouse with you like Hannibal, but she's going to use you like her own personal playground." Her head turned back to me, eyes still beaming. "You can't just get me a puppy every time I'm sad, you know."

"Why not? You have a giant piece of land. Plenty of room for them to play."

"Well," she said, resting her head on my shoulder. "I can't fight with such sound logic, now, can I?"

So, we got a puppy.

And a week later, her cast came off.She went back to work two weeks later, once Petunia was good enough with potty training to go with her or stay with me. She'd been halfway there when we had gotten her, and Savea insisted that if we stopped using the wee wee pad method, she would pick it up faster.

We'd had the closest thing to an argument about it as we ever had, me insisting she should take some more time, her saying she was going stir crazy, that she was worried about the animals, that she didn't trust that Harry was doing as good a job as he was saying he was.

And maybe it was selfish of me to want to keep her in the apartment where I could pop in whenever I had a free moment to spend some time with her.

We couldn't live like that forever. Things had to go back to normal. We had to find a rhythm like a normal couple.

That didn't mean my stomach wasn't in a knot that first day when I left her there in her old store, Petunia with her, Padfoot coming with me because I was worried he would be too much to handle. She was in physical therapy, but her leg was still a lot weaker than the other one. If Paddy pulled, I was worried he might knock her off-balance.

She spent five whole minutes apologizing to Padfoot about not being able to have him stay with her, telling him he was a good boy, that she would make it up to him later.

"What, is he the office mascot now?" Nixon asked when I brought Paddy in, letting him loose in the office.

"I promised Savvy I would bring him today so he wasn't sad all alone since she took Petunia to work with her."

"Whipped, man."

"Say that in front of her next time," I invited.

"I'm not saying shit in front of her," he shot back. "She was always a nice, quiet girl until you started fucking her. Now she's got nothing but shit to give me."

"You bring it on yourself. You are always picking at her."

"Don't know what you're talking about."

"You wrote a dirty haiku on her cast," I reminded him. "She had a giant black square on there to cover it. The doctor even asked about it. She had to say it was a signature from someone she didn't like anymore. Which, at the moment, wasn't even a lie."

"It was a nice little poem."

"It had the words fuck and suck in it," I reminded him.

"It was an ode to your relationship."