Keep You Warm

As it turns out, puppies are more difficult than I thought they would be, and in the first week or so, he was even worse because I couldn’t get up to help. I just rolled after Sara and suggested things to her that didn’t help.

A puppy that lived in the park wasn’t potty trained and didn’t have his shots and wasn’t fixed. We had to buy food, a bed for him, his shots, medicine for his ticks and things, and getting him fixed. More expensive than I thought. And then we had to buy toys, a leash, and a collar, but to get a collar, you had to name him.

Sara waited the week to name him in case we found any missing posters, and we searched high and low for some, but never found any. So, now that she finally decided to keep him and I was out of my chair, we took him back to the pet store and stood in front of the dog tag maker for ages.

The Australian Shepherd was straining at the dark blue leash as he watched all the other dogs wander around. He was small, he was a few inches short of my knee right now, but he was just a puppy.

“What should we name him?” Sara asked after a while.

We hadn’t had this discussion yet, I’d been putting it off as long as possible. “I don’t know.” I mumbled. I’d never had a dog, and I knew Sara had one in California with her parents named Dusty, but I had never been through this before.

“Sam?”

“Nah. Too boring.” I sighed and watched him finally sit down and watch all the other dogs.

“Max?”

“Everyone uses Max.” I thought about all of the dogs I had met when I was a kid. “Cooper.” I finally settled on. The dog across the street from my house before the car crash was named Cooper. I liked it.

Sara seemed to contemplate the name for a moment and then smiled broadly. “Cooper. I like it.” And with that, we made his dog tags.

I woke up with Sara in my arms the next day, naked and with the blanket tangled up down by our legs. I sighed happily and pressed my cold nose against the back of her neck.

Vanilla and lavender. I would never get enough of that smell.

Damn, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d liked anyone this much. I loved Jan as a friend, but I needed space from her sometimes too, and she understood that. Sara was different from everyone. I couldn’t get her out of my head, and it was torture in class.

“Your nose is cold.” I heard Sara grumble in her sleep.

I started to pull away, but she grabbed onto me before I could and she said, “Don’t go. I’ll be cold. You’re supposed to be my blanket until I need to wake up.”

I chuckled quietly and wrapped my arms around her waist again. Her back was to me, like it usually was in the morning. I reached down to pull the sheet up, but instead it didn’t budge. I looked down to see a furry, sleeping, brown and white Australian Shepherd laying on top of it.

“Coop…” I sighed heavily and returned back to Sara. “Sorry, Cooper once again has claimed the foot of the bed, including the sheets and blanket down there.”

“It’s alright, it gives you more of a reason to keep me warm.” She pressed further into me and I couldn’t help but smile softly and let a few fingers trail from her neck to her shoulder and down to her hip.

Puzzle pieces. We fit together like puzzle pieces. And I liked that. I liked how comfortable I was with her. I liked everything about her. “Like I needed a reason to do this.” I said when I finally pulled myself from my thoughts.

“Dev?”

“Yeah?”

“I…I really like being with you.” She said after a moment and I kissed her shoulder.

“I really like being with you too. Do you want to do something today?” I asked before I kissed her neck.

“Don’t you dare leave a hickey.” She growled menacingly, and then added, “I’d love to go somewhere. Where to?”

“What? You didn’t like it the last time?” I teased, gently nipping at the soft spot on her neck. “I don’t know, I was thinking we could go out to lunch and maybe see a movie or something. Anything really.”

I think she was having a hard time paying attention when I kept kissing and dragging my teeth along her neck. “It’s all my friend could talk about for weeks.” She shivered and I took her earlobe between my teeth gently. “A movie sounds good.” She whimpered quietly.

“Are you free this weekend?” I whispered before moving back to her neck while I awaited her answer.

“Depends, what do you want to do?” She was breathing heavily, I almost had her.

“Camping. I have a great site I go to, about an hour hike from this great waterfall and tons of stuff to do around there.”

I could tell she was biting her bottom lip to hold back the sounds I wanted to hear. “Camping?”

“Sure, why not?”

“It’s fall.” She said breathlessly.

“And? We won’t go swimming, we can bring big jackets, and I can zip our sleeping bags together. We can share body heat to keep warm. The stars look better in the cold anyways.”

She rolled over and wrapped her arms around my neck and I went back to where her shoulder meets her neck and she tangled fingers in my hair. “Okay.” She said after a moment and I finally kissed her lips.

“We leave Friday after class and we’ll be back Monday afternoon.” I said as I rolled her onto her back.

By this point Cooper was long gone, which I was thankful for.

“What about class on Monday?” She could barely get the question out before moaning loudly and I let my hands run over her body.

“Skip it. One day will be alright. Come away with me. We’ll leave Coop with Jan and we’ll go away. Just the two of us and the stars and the waterfall and so much more. I’ll keep you warm.” I added with a smirk.

She groaned, “Fine, we’ll go.” And then wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled me down to her lips.

We were lying in bed after yet another spectacular sexual experience and panting heavily. “So, you’ll go camping with me?” I asked and looked over at her.

She had her eyes closed and her lips parted as she breathed and a few strands of hair stuck to her face from sweat. “Yes, yes, I’ll go camping with you.”

I smiled, “Good. I have camping stuff at my place. It’ll be fun, I promise.”

“Uh huh.” She cracked open her eyes to look at me.

“Have you ever been camping?”

“Never.” She closed her eyes again.

“Why not?” My parents had always taken me camping. Well, my adopted parents had. I was too young to go real camping with Caleb and my actual parents.

“It just wasn’t something my family did.” She shrugged.

I was about to say something else when I heard the last thing I wanted to hear.

A stream of water hitting the floor. Only I knew it wasn’t water. It was Cooper taking a piss in the living room.

“Coop! No!” I shouted as I shot out of bed and yanked on some gym shorts and a tank top. I ran to Cooper who was still in the process of relieving himself. I picked him up from under his front legs and ran to the door. When we got outside I set him on the ground and waited for him to continue going to the bathroom. Instead he just looked at me with this huge dog smile. “Cooper.” I groaned.

Sara came up next to me in a pair of pajama pants and a loose fitting t-shirt I recognized as my own. “And he was doing so well. He hadn’t peed in the house in two days.”

“I know.” I mumbled as I looked down at Cooper.

“We’ll have to warn Jan.”

“Yeah. Speaking of Jan, I have to go to the bar tonight.” Jan had texted me last night about going and I told her that I would be there.

Sara nodded, “Alright. Well, make sure you don’t go home with anyone.” She smiled weakly.

I turned to her and held her face in my hands. “Hey, I’ll come home to you, okay? I won’t smell like another woman, I won’t have been with another woman, it’s just Jan. You are what I want. You. I promise, it’s just me and Jan playing some pool. Maybe Jan will actually talk to Luce for more than five minutes, but I won’t be with any attractive women. You don’t have to worry about me, okay?” I kissed her forehead and pulled her against me.

“I know.” She mumbled.

“I’ll be back before you’re even asleep, okay?”

She looked up at me and smiled. “Okay.”

“Come on, we better get inside. You’re not dressed to be out here in the cold.” I looped an arm around my waist and called Cooper’s name before walking inside. Cooper raced past us and I sighed as I looked down at a wet spot on the floor. “I’ll clean that up and we can go have lunch, okay?”

“Sounds great. I’ll get dressed.”

We had lunch and watched a movie. It was fun; I really enjoyed doing that sort of thing with Sara. I liked being around her and going on dates. I liked holding her hand and kissing her and all sorts of things like that.

I kissed her goodbye and told her I’d be home soon before I hopped on my bike and drove to the bar.

Jan was already there, staring wistfully at Luce who was mixing drinks at the bar.

“Go talk to her.” I said as I walked up to the pool table.

“I do talk to her. I talk to her when it’s my turn to get drinks.” She sighed and I saw her smile when Luce tucked hair behind her ear.

“Go get drinks and have a real conversation with her.” I shrugged and started taking balls out of the pockets.

“I can’t. It’s your turn. She’ll know.” Jan frowned and I just rolled my eyes and shoved her to the bar.

“Tell her I forgot my wallet and do it dammit.”

I watched Jan walk up. I don’t think I’d ever seen her so nervous. She was all for everyone else going after their love interests, but she didn’t really take her own advice.

She came back over with this huge smile. “She asked if I could give her a ride home.”

“She wants you.” I said as I uncapped my beer and took a swig.

“No, her car broke down.” But Jan had this big blush on her cheeks.

“Nah, she wants you.”

“Whatever. How are you and Sara?”

“Really well. I really like her.” I smiled and before breaking.

“Just like?” Jan was leaning against the wall behind me with a dark bottle in her hand.

“What do you mean? Of course I like her. A lot. She’s great. She’s fun, she’s smart, she’s great in bed, she smells wonderful, she’s nice, she’s just pretty damn great.” I furrowed my eyebrows and took my next shot, missing completely. Jan was distracting me. What was she getting at?

“I mean, I’ve seen you guys together. It seems like it could be growing into more than liking her. I’m not saying you’re in love…yet, I’m saying it could be that you’re starting to fall for her.” Jan shrugged before she bent over the table.

“You’re crazy.”

“What? It can’t be too insane. I mean, you’re in a committed relationship again, which nobody thought was ever going to happen, you’ve got your brother back, which you never imagined, and you’re practically living with her. Love can’t be the only thing you believe won’t hit you in the face sometime soon.”

“I don’t believe in love.” I watched her pocket two more striped balls before I took my turn. “And I’m not living with her. I spend plenty of nights at my place alone.”

“Dev, come on. You can’t tell me you don’t feel more than ‘like’ for her. You’re falling, you’re just too oblivious to see it. And where are you staying tonight?”

“I’m not falling in love because there is no love. I like her, a lot, okay? And yes, I’m going to her place tonight. By the way, can you watch Cooper for a few days?”

“You are falling for her, and why do you need me to watch your dog?” She raised an eyebrow at me before getting in position to take her shot.

“We’re going camping. We leave Friday night and come back in the afternoon on Monday.” I ignored her love thing. I didn’t want to get into that whole thing with her.

“Yeah, I guess I could watch him. He’s a cutie anyways.”

“He’s a cutie who’s not fully potty trained.” I mumbled darkly.

“Still training him?”

“Yeah. He had gone two days without peeing in the house until today. I hope you won’t have to deal with it. I’ll give you his bed, dog food, his leash and all that. I’ll also make a list of how much food to give him and how many times to walk him and all that. He’s pretty easy. He does jump on couches and beds though, so I hope you don’t mind.”

“Not at all. It’s only for a few days while you fall in love with Sara some more.” Jan chuckled as she hit the cue ball.

“Yeah, whatever. Move out of the way so I can have my turn now. I’m taking that twenty.”