“No wonder she picked you,” he says. “All I do is feed her, give her a dry place to live, and supply her with toys.”
I glance quickly at Levi, ninety-five percent sure he’s joking. He can be hard to read, and even though I’ve known him for a long time, I can’t say I know him well.
But then the dog is right in front of my face again, paws on my knee, doggy smile filling my vision. I realize there’s a tag hanging from her collar.
“Oh good, you named her,” I say, taking it between my fingers.
LEVI LOVELESS
(276) 555-1212“You named the dog Levi?” I ask, deadpan, as she licks my hand.
Human Levi sighs.
“I put my contact information on her in case she runs off again,” he explains. “Come on, girl.”
The dog looks at him, and he points her into the house. I stand and follow her.
“What’s her name?” I ask as I go through the door.
“I don’t know,” he says, the door shutting behind us.
It’s dim, but not dark. The pale gray of an afternoon thunderstorm, light coming in through the house’s many windows. It’s deeply quiet: nothing hums, nothing ticks, nothing creaks, no sounds except for our breathing and the quiet padding of the dog, walking across the room.
Near-total stillness.
“You should name her,” I say, breaking the silence. “You can’t just call her dog forever.”
Levi takes his boots off and puts them on a rubber tray, so I follow suit with my sneakers.
“I put more flyers up in Eli’s neighborhood last weekend,” he says.
“Did anyone answer them?”
“Not yet.”
The dog gives the back of my thigh one more lick — okay, thanks — then trots off through the living room and up a flight of stairs, disappearing into a room off a landing.
“They’re not going to,” I tell him. “Someone dumped her.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No, you don’t,” Levi says, walking into his living room and pulling his shirt off, over his head, and tossing it onto the back of a chair.
I avert my eyes, heart suddenly thumping.
“She’s house trained,” he says, opening a closet. “Aside from her paw, she was well-cared-for. She’s friendly. She’s clearly got owners, June, and I’ve got no right to take their dog and re-name her.”
He pulls a drying rack from the closet, opens it on the floor, and neatly arranges his shirt over it.
When he looks back at me, I pretend I was averting my eyes the whole time.
“She’ll remember her old name if they ever come back, which they won’t,” I say. “Just give her a name. You can’t call her dog forever.”
As if summoned by this, the dog comes barreling back down the stairs, a toy held in her mouth, and she trots over and presents it to me so I grab both ends of it and tug, grateful for something to do besides pretend I’m not ogling the shirtless man whose house I’m in.
She tugs back, tail wagging like mad. Levi went camping with some of his brothers a few weeks ago and Silas dog sat, so I got to hang out with her. Turns out she loves doggy tug-of-war.
He sighs, then pulls his hair back with his hands, ties it into a knot again.
“If I name her, I’ll just get attached, only for her rightful owners to return and take her away from me,” he says, walking away from me, across the living room. “Better to just call her dog until that happens. I’ll be right back.”
With that he heads up the stairs, across the landing, and into a room, leaving me and the dog alone in his quiet gray living room, still tugging on opposite ends of this toy.
“Maybe I should name you myself,” I tell her after a minute. She growfs and wags her tail. “Princess. Cupcake. Muffin. Fluffy. Tell me if any of these appeal to you.”
She just wags her tail and tugs on the toy. I tug back, trying to think of more names.
“Bella. Angel. Pumpkin. Queenie. Anything?”
Growf.
“Yeah, I don’t think you’re a Pumpkin,” I say, now sitting on the floor, still pulling back. “Maybe something more dignified, like Peaches, or Buttercup—”
“You cannot name my dog Buttercup,” Levi’s voice says from the loft above me.
“So she’s your dog when I’m trying to give her the dignity of a name to call her own,” I call back.
He pads down the stairs barefoot, wearing navy blue sweatpants and dark green t-shirt with a small Forest Service logo on one side of the chest.
Update: still hot.
“I’d hardly call Buttercup a dignified name.”
“She’s a dog.”
“Even beasts need dignity,” he says, padding off the stairs and through the living room.
“It was good enough for The Princess Bride,” I point out.
Levi stops in front of me. He’s got a small stack of clothes in one hand, and he’s holding them out toward me.