Chapter Thirteen

Having mutually rescued a tiny, freezing, starving, one-eyed, limp-legged dog, Orion and I promptly returned to bickering. Or maybe we started bickering, but we did it like old pros who'd been bickering for years.

"What're we gonna call him?" I asked. "Cyclops?"

"I'm pretty sure that's ableist."

I frowned. "Can something be ableist if the system that oppresses anyone at a different level of ability doesn't apply to the object of the original comment?"

"I don't want to call him Cyclops."

And so it continued until we decided we had to table the naming discussion for the stray dog we'd found whimpering in the garage because other things were more important. Like giving him a bath. I didn't know what he'd rolled in, but it was caked on his legs and belly and did not smell great.

"You don't think it's ... shit, do you?" I asked, the thought having just occurred to me.

"Not completely."

I contemplated this. "Like what percentage of this stuff that is now all over my only hoodie do you think is literal dog shit?"

He bent closer. "Maybe ... not quite half of it? I think it'd smell worse if it was a higher ratio of shit."

The hoodie was one of my favorites. I'd worn it for good luck in the morning, then taken it off before I'd gone to meet Orion because I wanted to look cooler. More suave. Less teenager. I closed my eyes and wished with a desperation born of emotional depletion that I'd worn any other hoodie when I'd been standing in my apartment staring at the selection and picking the one that made me feel most comforted, most reassured.

And now it was covered in dog shit.

"After we give him a bath, we can run the washing machine," Orion said after a few seconds of me not being able to speak. Or open my eyes.

I focused on the breathing of the dog. Yes, he'd covered me in shit, but also he'd been scared and hungry and very, very cold, and now that he was inside where it was warm, he wasn't trembling as hard as he had been, and we'd share our stockpile of tuna with him.

"Seriously, I think we can just wash the ... stuff off. Whatever it is. But we really need to get him clean because he's gross." Long pause. "Do you think we just put him in the shower? I don't have a tub."

"Oh my god, no , we are not putting him in the shower." I pictured the tiny little Cyclops shivering under the hard spray and glared at Orion. "Are you kidding me?"

"Well, he can't go in the kitchen sink! He'd get shit on the food surfaces."

"Okay, one, we can clean after, and two, you can't put him in the shower—it'd probably traumatize him, and he's been through enough."

"Fine. Bathroom sink. It's that or the shower."

There didn't seem to be much choice. "I guess we'll give it a shot."

Twenty minutes and a mud-and-shit-clogged sink later, he said, "This isn't working."

"What tipped you off?"

"Look, I'll take him in the shower. I'll hold him the whole time. It'll be fine."

"We can just bleach the kitchen after we use the sink. You do have bleach, don't you?"

"We're not getting dog crap all over my kitchen. I make food in there." He pulled off his shirt and started on his belt. "I'll just take him in the shower."

My eyes were so wide it seemed like they'd pop out. "Whatareyoudoing?" I squeaked.

"Well, I'm not going in with all my clothes on." He shucked his black jeans (not only didn't he need to sit down to do so, but he didn't even lean on anything, just balanced on each foot in all his nearly naked, incredibly fit glory, and took them off without even teetering). "Give him here."

"No." I couldn't figure out why I, like, hated the idea so much, but I did. I didn't want to hand over the little one-eyed dog. He was my rescue. I'd heard him, I'd stayed out there with him, I was the one who'd sacrificed my favorite hoodie to cuddle him.

"Oh my god, you can't have a problem with this. I can keep him totally safe in there."

"I'll do it." The words were out before I'd vetted them, but no, that was it, that was the way. I could shower the little dog, if that was the thing I had to do.

Orion eyed me with unflattering skepticism. "Are you sure?"

"He weighs like five pounds soaking wet and covered in crap. It'll be fine."

"Okay, then." He crossed his arms. "Well?"

"Uhh." Was this like get-naked-with-the-soccer-star-who-detests-you chicken? Except I immediately realized that I'd probably need some kind of help. I couldn't, for instance, strip off my clothes while holding a dog. I also couldn't adjust the water in the shower very effectively with one hand, and if I tried to actually get in, given my current track record, I'd probably slip and fall and break a leg, or worse, the tiny dog himself. "Here," I grumbled. "Just hold him while I get ready."

He smirked but didn't speak as I passed him the towel-wrapped bundle and carefully removed my now soggy, shitty hoodie.

"You could probably drop that in the sink. Let it soak a little."

I wanted to glare more at him, but A) it was probably a good suggestion, and B) I was getting pretty edge-of-panicked about disrobing in front of him. The thing about bodies is that I am theoretically pro–all body shapes and sizes. For other people. I aesthetically appreciated Orion's form, but it wasn't a thing I looked for particularly. I wasn't hunting for the right shape of man.

But when I looked in the mirror? All I saw were flaws. I was only twenty-five ... should I have love handles? Was that what the extra fat around my middle was? And how about my thighs? Were they supposed to be kind of ... thick?

A guy I'd dated for a while used to say I had "some junk in [my] trunk," and he meant it affectionately. I always pretended it didn't bother me. But it did.

And now I was taking off my clothes in front of a guy who detested me, who also happened to be a perfect cis male specimen of muscle and curve and perfectly sculpted ...

My hands faltered.

"Are you embarrassed?" Orion asked. "You want me to turn around or something?"

He was teasing me. And he wasn't even being totally mean about it. I could tell the difference.

"Shut up," I said. Maturely. Kind of not looking at him.

He literally turned around.

"Dammit." The thing was I felt so, so stupid, and also it was way easier to take off my shirt and shuck my crusty pants when his back was turned. "Don't drop my dog."

"He's not your dog."

"He's more my dog than your dog," I sniped back. "Okay, just like, shuffle this way so I can get over there and turn on the shower."

"You know how many years of my life I've spent in locker rooms surrounded by naked guys? You don't have anything I haven't—"

"Shut up ."

He sighed dramatically. And shuffled around, and for an awkward-as-hell moment we were in our underwear back to back in the tiny cabin bathroom, and then I scurried over to the shower and turned on the water and blushed and blushed and blushed until I thought my skin would steam open.

"It takes a minute to get warm."

"It's fine." I was going to stop blushing any second now. Or maybe he'd just think I was flushed from all the hot water.

I tried it again. It was tepid at best.

"It probably shouldn't be too hot for the dog," Orion said.

"Great, thanks."

Beat of silence.

"So ..." he said. "Are you gonna get in?"

Fuck fuck fuckity fuckity fuck. "Yeah, yeah."

So that was what I did. I got in the shower. In my undies. While Orion Broderick stood there, also in his undies, clutching a towel-wrapped shit-covered dog.

"I'm probably going to have to look in your direction for the handoff," he said. "But I'm not looking at you ."

"It's fine, I'm a grown-up. I don't care."

"Uh-huh." He moved closer, and I pulled the shower curtain back (clear, no design, very boring, zero privacy). He was looking away. I was looking at the dog. It was all going to be totally okay—

The dog, which had been trembling in his towel-wrap, suddenly tried to bolt. He started scrambling up Orion's bare chest and making this desperate, high-pitched whine, as if he thought we were trying to kill him. I made a grab, Orion tried to push him away, and then we were sort of all clutched together in a weird Two Gentlemen and Best Friend at Bathhouse tableau, one of his arms on my shoulder to steady himself, or me, or the dog, and me, dripping, with both of my hands on the dog, who was still trying to scale Mount Orion's Chest, and for a second it looked like I was going to crash down and the dog was going to escape, but Orion managed to stabilize himself so I could get a better grip and capture our quarry.

The towel fell into the bottom of the shower, and Orion kept one hand on my shoulder until we were both sure I wasn't going down.

"He's feisty," Orion said. "Ow."

For real. The vivid red scratches up his skin looked uncomfortable. I held the still-displeased dog tighter against me to keep him from getting a grip. "Shit, yeah, do you have disinfectant or something?" I looked up, waiting for a reply.

Which was when I remembered that we were both standing there mostly naked, and I was literally in a shower.

He seemed to have had the same moment, because he stepped away and slid the curtain shut. "I'll shower after you. I mean, you and the dog."

Even through the plastic I could see his face do a thing. "What? What did you just think about?" Maybe he was deathly allergic to dogs, and the scratches would give him hives and he'd die because I didn't know how to give him medical care and I couldn't call 911. Or maybe he just realized the dog was actually a wolf and it was about to chew my head off. Or maybe—

"Uhh, I only have two towels. So I guess you'll have to use mine. I mean, after you're cleaner."

"Oh. Okay." That didn't seem too bad. I stuck my head around the curtain, which wasn't totally necessary since I could basically see through it, but it felt psychologically necessary. "Wait, you only have two towels, like, in total? What are we gonna use for the dog?" Since the towel we had been using for him was now in a muddy puddle at my feet in the shower.

"I'll work on it. You get him clean. Give me a shout if you need me." He went out the door and shut it behind him.

Okay. All right. Just me alone in a shower with my boxer briefs on and a filthy dog in my arms who might try to climb me at any second. No big deal.

It was not that easy to wash the dog. I guess I'd figured I could just sort of scrub him, rinse him, and call it good? But every time I took away one arm, he got wily again. Finally I sort of grabbed the shampoo and half pinned him between my body and the wall to squirt it on him, which he didn't seem to mind. I had the impression that if he could stay pinned into a corner, he'd actually feel better. But I managed to mostly give him a good sudsing before rinsing him and using the wet towel to wipe down his face a little better, since I didn't want to actually shower him in the tiny little one-eyed mug. I wasn't even sure that was safe, though whatever had happened to his eye wasn't recent.

So that was ... it? Probably? I gave him a once-over, but now he smelled like clean wet dog, not shitty wet dog, which was a big improvement.

Orion had left one towel on the towel bar. It was this kind of aquamarine blue-green color, and incredibly soft. Since that seemed to be the only other towel in the cabin, I wrapped the dog up in it, and he almost immediately stopped shaking so badly.

It took a few minutes before I felt like he was mostly dry, at which point I wasn't totally sure what to do, since I was still mostly not-dry. And also I smelled like wet dog and was covered in wet fur.

"Um, Orion?"

"Hang on, I'm coming!" Within seconds he was standing in the doorway, now with a pair of sweatpants on, but his chest still bare and looking even more angry. "Hey, what do you need?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe if you could just take him so I could kind of wash myself off real quick?"

"Oh, sure. Wait, I'll get a blanket." He returned quickly, with a red plaid throw that looked like wool.

"That'll be perfect, thanks. I think he's partly cold and partly in shock."

This time the transfer went much more smoothly, with Orion using the blanket to scoop the dog up, leaving me with the now-sopping towel.

"He looks much better," he said approvingly. "And smells better. He's actually fluffy."

"I know, right?" I turned back into the spray of the shower and let it wash the fur off my skin. "I thought he was young, but I don't know, maybe he's older. I never had dogs."

"He's definitely not a puppy. Are you, boy?"

"That's another thing." I dunked my shampoo-covered head under the spray for a second, then came back out. "I think he's definitely a girl. Judging by the total lack of penis."

"Oh my god." Through the plastic I watched as he unfolded enough blanket to do a quick anatomy check. "Am I a jerk for assuming he was a boy? She was a boy."

"I thought about that," I said as I soaped up and gloried in the sensation of being clean. I probably could have just asked him if I could shower yesterday, but it had seemed so awkward. And I kept thinking I'd get to go home soon. "But I think this probably just falls into the human brain's desire to project itself on stuff? Like the dog doesn't care what pronouns we use, and unless she's pregnant, it doesn't really matter."

We both had the same thought at the same moment. I yanked the curtain back. "You don't think there are puppies out there? Oh fuck."

"Oh fuck ."

A few intense minutes later, after I'd used the very-wet towel to semidry myself and Orion had grabbed another pair of sweats and another T-shirt for me, we were back out in the snow with a big-ass flashlight, having left the dog curled up in its woolen blanket on the couch.

"Is it fucking freezing out here?" I asked through chattering teeth.

"It's always worse if you have wet hair. I should have given you a hat."

I was so cold I was shuddering. "I really hope there aren't any puppies. I can't take more tuna right now."

He knelt down in front of the hole and shone the light inside. "I guess I'm glad I just cleaned. I don't know how we'd be able to tell, if it was still full of boxes and crap. She could have made a den anywhere."

"She didn't seem to need to take any food back for puppies," I suggested, not because I thought it made sense as a diagnostic dataset so much as that I desperately wanted there to be no puppies, and any story that got us there would work.

"I don't see anything." He lay down over the snowy flattened area I'd knelt in earlier and stuck his head inside the hole, awkwardly navigating the flashlight with one hand at an odd angle. "See some dog shit, and it definitely smells like pee in here. No puppies, though."

"Oh good." I stamped my feet, trying to keep my blood moving. "So we can go inside now?"

"And I can finally take a shower, yeah." He wiggled himself backward and stood up. "You should get warm as fast as possible."

"No shit, Sherlock."

A flash of white as he smiled with those perfectly aligned teeth.

My stomach dipped unpleasantly and I turned away, resolute in my desire to get inside as quickly as possible. And also in my desire to unsee that smile.

You will not fall for Orion Broderick, dummy, I lectured myself as I trudged back through the snow. You will not do such a stupid thing. Nope. No way.

No confirmation came from the recesses of my head, where a very soft voice was saying, But he smiled, he doesn't hate us, he doesn't hate us that much, he rescued a dog with us, we're bound together now, and he smiled, he smiled, he smiled, did you see the smile?

It was a relief when he was in the bathroom and I was in the living room and the little dog was fast asleep in my lap.