SEAL Baby Daddy

“You look tired,” Maisie said. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay and cook dinner?”

“Nah, we’ll probably just order in,” I told her. “I’m thinking pizza.”

“Sounds like Miss Ava is a lucky little duckling tonight,” Maisie said, grinning at me. She gave me a quick hug. “Just let me know if you ever need anything else.”

“Thanks,” I told her gratefully. “I’m really just tired. Lots of work this week. But hopefully, that means things are going to slow down soon, and I’ll get a little more time with Ava then.”

For now, I’d take what I could get. Ava and I went out in the little square backyard. The place wasn’t ideal; it was half concrete, and the grass was thin and wiry. But it was at least a space that Ava could run around in.

And tonight, she zoomed all around it, waving around her stuffed dog. “Doggy!” she yelled every time she passed by me. I watched her from the back steps. I wanted to join her, but I didn’t have the energy to chase her around tonight.

“Doggy!” she cried out again.

Somewhere in one of the other yards, a dog started barking as if on cue, and she dissolved into giggles. “Want to see the doggy,” she said, though, pouting.

I sighed. I had known it was only a matter of time before she wanted to get her first pet. But even if our landlord was okay with me getting a pet for us, I knew my lifestyle wasn’t exactly a match for a dog. How many times a week did I have to dump Ava on Maisie or Mom? Not that they minded, but I couldn’t very well add a dog to the mix. A dog would need walks and food and vet visits and all sorts of things.

It was out of the question. But I hated depriving Ava of the joy of having a pet around.

For a moment, I considered talking to Ace about it. Maybe he could see if he could bring one of his training dogs over and let Ava get acquainted with it. Wouldn’t that be good for the dog, too, having to learn to be okay with childish antics? The screaming, the squealing, the hair- and tail-pulling, all of that.

But if it was just a training dog, eventually it would have to move on to a more permanent home, once it was trained. And I wasn’t sure that I was ready to teach that lesson to Ava just yet: that sometimes, you loved something that you’d never get to see again.

For some reason, Ace came to mind when I thought about that. I’d definitely never expected to see him again. Or if I was going to see him again, I’d thought I would have to work to track him down. I hadn’t expected to literally run into him, and I hadn’t expected everything that had come from that.

I shook my head. That was neither here nor there. I didn’t want Ava getting attached to dogs that she couldn’t keep. No matter how much she might want one. Maybe we could get some fish. I made a mental note to look into that when this long week was finally over.

20

Ace

By Saturday, more than a week since the last time I had seen Harper, it almost felt as though the universe was conspiring to keep me away from her. It had been a busy week. On Thursday, there was an emergency with one of the dogs, and I’d spent most of the day at the vet while Sparky underwent emergency surgery for stomach ulcers.

At least it wasn’t anything contagious that some of the other dogs could pick up. I was just shocked that things had gotten so bad so fast. We’d thought it was just some routine sickness keeping him quiet and subdued, but apparently, this pup had a pain tolerance of a god.

He was doing a lot better, but he still had to be given his meds multiple times a day, and in typical dog fashion, he didn’t really want to take them. The best way to get them into him was to feed them to him in a peanut butter sandwich and then hold his head up with his snout together so that he really had to swallow them. But it was time-consuming.

And then on Friday, Stone was in a car accident and I had to help him home from the hospital. He’d refused to tell me anything about the accident, other than the fact that there had been an accident and his car was totaled. He was hobbling around on crutches now, and I knew he must be going absolutely stir-crazy around the apartment. He was drinking more than he had been before, and with the addition of his medications on top of that, he was pretty out of it most of the time. I had to keep an eye on him and make sure he was eating and that he didn’t have too much to drink.

Every time I got frustrated, thinking that this wasn’t what I’d signed up for in a rooming situation, I tried to stop and remind myself that this was just like being back in a unit. We all had to take care of one another. And not only that, but it could just as easily be me who needed help. Between my job and Harper, my reintegration was going really well. Better than expected. But I could have been the one having a hard time through it all.

Harper and I had made tentative plans to meet up over the weekend, but I was having a hard time figuring out where I could take her if I was still babysitting Stone. I didn’t want to go anywhere too far away, just in case he called me, and I also didn’t want to drink too much. Staying over at her place, even if her mom could watch Ava again, was probably out of the question.

On top of that, Sadie asked if I could meet up on Saturday afternoon so that we could work with Vixen in the park. She had another set of commands that she was hoping to teach the dog, and if nothing else, she just really wanted to know the extent of what the dog could do, so that she could put her through her paces and give her a good workout that would keep her in top form. I didn’t want to bail on that—first because she was a new friend, and second because I was interested in working with Vixen. She was such a smart dog, after all.

Finally, I called Harper. “Hey,” she said warmly when she answered. “What’s up?”

“I was just wondering if you were still interested in meeting up, and if you would mind doing so at the park,” I told her. “I’m supposed to meet a friend with her service dog in a little while. It would be good to see you, if you wouldn’t mind the company. And I’d kind of like for you to see the kind of stuff I do.”

“That sounds fun,” Harper said, easily agreeing. I blinked at the phone. For some reason, I’d expected her to protest, to say that she wanted to see me in private, that she didn’t want to hang out with anyone else. I shrugged at her easy acceptance.

“Cool,” I said. “Same place I ran into you before. I’ll see you in, like, half an hour?”

“Sure,” Harper said. “I have a couple things to finish up around the house—it’s been a busy week. But if I’m going to be much later than that, I’ll let you know.”

“Sounds good,” I said.

When I got to the park, Danielle and Sadie were already there, with Vixen lounging on the ground between them. “Hey,” I said, dropping down onto the bench next to Danielle. “How’s it going today?”