Page 122 of How To Plot a Payback

For days. I ventured by his flat, but Mrs. Teaberry said he was gone. She didn’t know where.

I take a breath perfumed with vanilla and coffee beans. The dog park has a fresh crop of grass, and lawnmowers hum in the distance. It’s an April Saturday in LA, and I sit on the bench, my fingers anxiously wrapped around my cup of coffee.

I was told to be here at ten. I arrived at nine thirty.

Bernie has done his best to play alone. He zoomed by the trees a few times, but his energy quickly petered out. Eventually he settled in the shade of a tree. For the first twenty minutes his eyes ticked around, looking for his pal. Eventually he gave up, and now his eyes are closed, head on his paws, nothing to indicate he’s even awake except for the occasional flick of his ears when a loud bus or running dog passes.

A Schnauzer comes by and gives him a chummy little sniff.

He flicks his ears and turns his head away, not even bothering to open his eyes.

“Poor bud,” I say. “I miss them too.”

And I have missed them pretty sorely. I couldn’t have anticipated how much.

Work, home, dog parks, cafés. Bernie and I still frequented them all, just without Finn and Miles. The colors of the day muted slightly, everything feeling a little less vibrant.

And then late last night I got a text from Finn.

“Dog park tomorrow? 10AM?”

So here I am.

I check my phone for the fiftieth time and exhale. It’s 9:59.

Bernie’s eyes pop open, and his head lifts off his paws as if zapped by an electrical shock. My brows crease as he stares at something behind me, and I feel a tingle up my spine.

A second later he stands, and I take in a breath, steady myself, and turn my head.

Bernie’s racing feet pound as he goes to meet Miles.

And a man at the end of the park is just shutting the gate. Finn looks subdued today. A breeze sweeps through, showering the ground with white confetti blooms from the evergreen pear trees around him. He takes off his glasses and gives his eyes a quick rub before putting his glasses back in place. Turns. Takes a breath.

He looks weary. His clothes are nicer than his usual Saturday morning attire, as though he just left a meeting. His laptop bag is slung over one shoulder. There’s a five-o’clock shadow on his chin, something so utterly atypical and yet so attractive I find my breath momentarily stifled. No, this is more than a five-o’clock shadow. He’s gone days without shaving.

The tension grows as he closes the gap between us. When our eyes lock, I catch a shy twinkle in his eye, and all the nerves in my body tingle from my heart to my fingertips like an electric shock.

I can’t sit any longer, so I stand.

He seems to feel likewise because his stride lengthens.

And then, suddenly, he halts a foot from me, so abruptly one would think he bumped into an invisible force field.

But I know better.

I rise on tiptoe and wrap my arms around his shoulders until the air really does leave him. His body tensely receives me, but after a few seconds I feel his shoulders release, his muscles melting into the hug.

“Good grief, Lavender. I haven’t gone to war.”

“It’s been nearly a month—”

“Not even two weeks.”

“Spring is practically over—”

“Literally ten days.”

“Do you know how hard this has been on Bernie?”