Of course he’d brought two.
Bowen was a good dog daddy. He wouldn’t dare deny Clyde a snack if Sugar was getting one.
He handed me the meat wrapped in a paper towel. Nerves almost two decades old churned in my stomach as he cracked the door. I waited for Clyde to plow over his owner, trampling Sugar in his herculean wake. But Bowen simply scooped Sugar up with one swift movement, tucking him under his arm, and then calmly ordered, “Stay.”
Chancing a peek into the room, I saw the mammoth dog sitting in the middle of a huge, round dog bed, the tip of his tail thumping the wood floor. Terrifying as my brain thought the brown beast might have been, he was also pretty damn cute with his droopy jowls and floppy ears. Bowen tore off a piece of the meat before walking over and offering it to him. I waited for my man to pull back a bloody stump, but Clyde was a gentleman, sniffing it before delicately taking the ham between his teeth.
“He was hoping for cheese,” Bowen said, ruffling his ears.
“Right, so I’ll bring a block of cheddar when I’m ready to meet him.”
He laughed and headed back my way. Luckily, Clyde made no move to bolt out the door and maul me. With all of my limbs still intact, I’d already chalked the doggy meet and greet up as a huge success and I hadn’t even officially met Sugar yet.
“Easy, boy,” Bowen mumbled. His fingers tangled with mine as he led me to the bedroom.
Sugar wiggled in his grip, locking eyes with me over his shoulder. It was probably because he smelled the ham, but I pretended he was just excited to meet me—and not at all kill me in my sleep.
“All right,” Bowen said as I got comfortable on the bed. “Here’s how this is going to work. Tear off a little piece of the ham and I’ll set him down. Fair warning, he’s going to do exactly two zoomies around the bed before stopping for the treat. Then he will immediately do another two.”
I crinkled my nose. “Zoomies?”
“Race around in laps. It’s his nightly ritual. Don’t fight it. When he’s done, he’ll want the rest of the ham. If you aren’t quick enough, he’ll bark. But that’s all. I swear to you he’s a lover, not a fighter, and I’ll be right here with you the whole time.”
The dog couldn’t have weighed more than five to ten pounds. I felt relatively confident I could handle my own if he turned rabid. But it was sweet how patient and reassuring Bowen was with me. Come on. I was a twenty-nine-year-old woman scared of a poodle. It wasn’t my most attractive trait.
“You ready?” he asked.
I tore a corner of the ham and blew out an even exhale. “As I’ll ever be.”
He set the dog on the bed, and I waited for the so-called zoomies. Instead, Sugar pranced over to me, bypassing the ham I was all but trying to shove down his throat, and climbed up my chest, licking my face any and everywhere he could reach.
Bowen had been right. He definitely caught me on the lips a few times.
“Are you good?” Bowen asked, studying me intently.
“Yep.” I giggled, pushing the dog out of my face. He collapsed into a ball on my lap, rolling in every which direction, his nubby tail wagging a mile a minute.
Bowen sank beside me on the bed and gave the dog’s belly a rub. “See? I told you he wouldn’t hate you.”
I laughed as Sugar jumped right back up, catching me with a kiss on the chin, before taking off in a dead sprint around the bed. He came to a sliding stop in front of me, letting out a loud yip that made me jump, but after a quick nibble of ham, he was back off to the races.
“Is he always this hyper?” I asked as Bowen leaned back against the headboard, kicking his legs out. Sugar did not hesitate to launch himself over them mid-dash.
“He’s actually calmed down since we got him.”
It was strange. I knew Bowen had a whole traumatic history involving his lost fiancée. It had never even occurred to me to be bothered or jealous by a woman who had lost her life. But there was something about the way he’d said we that hit me squarely in the chest.
I tried my best not to let him see it, but I must not have been quick enough to hide the flinch. He took the paper towel from my hand, gave the last treat to Sugar, and then put his arm down around my shoulders, dragging me against his side, resting my head on his bare chest.
“Ah, shit, I fucked that up,” he groaned.
“No, you didn’t,” I lied.
