Page 75 of The Incredible Ordinary

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re supposed to be in bed.”

“I was just getting some water,” he mutters.

“Okay?” I say slowly. He’s just a bit too twitchy for someone who’s simply thirsty.

“Well,” I say after a good minute of silence, “I’m gonna…” I point toward the bathroom, then turn around.

“Milán?” Rory says.

I turn back. “Yeah?”

He fidgets there in the middle of the hallway, in dark blue pajama pants, a white T-shirt, and bare feet. He looks impossibly young like this, and I feel impossibly protective.

I take a step closer.

“What is it?”

He breathes in deeply. “I, uh… I accidentally overheard you talking. Just now.” He licks his lips, eyes skittering between random points on the wall. “Jordan’s going to get a dog for Theo?”

I tilt my head to the side while I try to puzzle out why that factoid seems to make him so antsy.

“That’s the plan,” I say.

Rory nods, looking even more nervous now.

“Well… I was thinking. Dog needs a good home,” he blurts.

I stare at him. “Dog? But Dog is your dog.” I shake my head. “On that note, maybe it’s time to give him a proper name. Just something to consider.”

He’s shaking his head well before I’ve stopped speaking. “No. No. I was just trying to help him. I don’t… I don’t want a dog.”

My brows knit together while my eyes dart from Rory to his bedroom door where Dog is sleeping, searching for logic that isn’t there.

I scratch the back of my neck. This is well above my pay grade.

“Since when?”

“Since always. I don’t want a dog. I’ve never wanted a dog. I don’t even like dogs.”

What… is happening?

“But Dog needs a good home,” he says. “And they’re good people. They’ll take care of him. They’ll be better for him.”

I’m still so lost.

“But he’syourdog.”

His fingers roll into fists, nails digging into palms, and his body goes all rigid while he clamps his teeth together. “No. He’s not. I don’t want a dog.”

“Rory…”

“You can at least ask them!” He blows out a breath and looks away. “If they don’t want him—if they want, like, a puppy or something—then I’ll find him somewhere else.”

“Rory,” I repeat, even though I don’t know what the right words are to untangle this situation and figure out what’s making him say all these things, even though everything I’ve witnessed since we brought Dog home tells the exact opposite story.

He loves that dog.

“Look, just ask them, okay?” he snaps.