“How’s his harem doing?” Neil asked.
Simon socked him one on the arm. “Dude. Don’t call them that.”
“His girlfriends. Sister wives. Whatever. How do you guys not have kittens running all over the place?” Neil asked, rubbing his arm.
“Clive was neutered a long time ago. No nuts for my boy,” I said. “He won those girls over solely with his personality.”
When Clive had returned home after his stint as a runaway, he didn’t come alone. He’d brought along three lovely lady cats, all of whom adopted Simon and me. We now lived with four, count them, four cats. Norah, Ella, and Dinah now joined Clive in ruling our household, and we just did what we could to get out of the way. Our bed was a bit crowded some nights, but in truth? We wouldn’t have it any other way.
“Okay, Neil, let’s go over the plan one more time. We pick out one puppy—one—and let’s try and go for whichever one seems the calmest. Deal?” Sophia said, reaching up front and putting her hand on his shoulder.
“We’ll see,” he nodded. His face turned red ten seconds later. Sophia had begun to squeeze, obviously. “One puppy. You got it,” he managed, and she gave him a pat on the head. “Cello players. Strongest hands you can imagine. Normally a good thing. But sometimes . . .” he told Simon, who just laughed as we zoomed down the highway, bound for Monterey.
“And this is where we keep all the newer dogs, the ones we haven’t worked with as much. Sometimes they can go right in with the other dogs, but they usually need a little doggie detox,” the tall blonde said, grinning and making the tour sound fresh, though she’d obviously given it hundreds of times.
We’d made it to Monterey in just under two hours, which was a refreshing change. Whenever Mimi was on a road trip, it always seemed like we had to stop every thirty miles or so for snacks. Once we reached Monterey it was a quick drive up into the hills to Our Gang, a rescue center for abused and abandoned pit bulls. Not knowing much about the breed myself, and only hearing the stories that are usually reported on the news, I didn’t know quite what to expect. I certainly didn’t expect a former beauty queen to be running the joint. Sophia had filled me in on Chloe, and how she’d gotten the gig, and for someone who’d only been running her own business for just over a year, it was impressive.
“Where are the puppies? I want to see the puppies!” Neil said, practically dancing through the barn we were standing in.
“Easy, Neil, they’re just around the corner.” Chloe laughed, patting the dog next to her. Sammy Davis Jr. was gentle and sweet, and obviously the mascot of the entire operation. Every volunteer she had working today stopped to say hello to him. Since I had a cat named Clive, who was I to judge what people named their pets?
“So how many people do you have working here?” I asked Chloe as we headed to where I assumed the puppies were.
“Full time there’s just three of us, but I have six more part-time paid staff, and usually from seven to ten part-time volunteers, depending on the time of year and where we are in the semester. We’ve partnered up with a local veterinary college, and there’s usually someone interning here for credit. Plus my boyfriend, Lucas. He’s a veterinarian here in town, and he’s up here all the time.”
“You mean my cousin Lucas,” Sophia piped up.
“No, I mean my boyfriend, Lucas,” Chloe replied, tilting her head and smiling sweetly back at her.
“He’s my cousin.”
“He’s my boyfriend.”
“Shit, I like you so much better than his ex!” Sophia exclaimed, just as a very good-looking guy came around the corner.
“You picking on my cousin, Chlo?” he asked, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her into his side.
“I have to. She’s being prickly,” Chloe replied promptly, and Sophia stuck out her tongue. “Lucas, this is Simon and Caroline, they’re friends of—”
“They’re my friends, and I can introduce them,” Sophia interrupted. With as much crap as she was giving Chloe, I could tell she really liked her. “This is Simon and Caroline.”
“Nice to meet you Caroline, Simon,” Lucas said, reaching out and first shaking my hand, and then Simon’s. “I hear you guys are picking out a puppy to take back to the city?”
“Oh no, not us. Those two.” Simon pointed at Neil and Sophia. “We’ve got all we can handle with four cats at home.”
“Four cats? Wow, impressive,” Lucas said as we headed into a separate area. And then we finally saw . . . the puppies. And they were every bit as cute as promised. Neil immediately fell to the floor, letting them crawl all over him in a giant wave of adorable.
“Oh my God! These guys are awesome!” he cried out, now lying down in the pile of waggly tails. They swarmed him, to his delight.
As we watched our friend roll around on the floor, laughing his head off, I had a sudden vision of what Neil would be like as a father.
“You do know that you’ll never get to play good cop with your kid, right?” I whispered to Sophia, who just shook her head as she looked on in amusement.
“Oh yeah, that’s obvious,” she said, then turned to me with a grin. “Besides, I look really good when I’m playing bad cop.”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” Simon said, then lay down in the pile with his friend.
And as I watched Simon play with the puppies, I had a sudden vision of him rolling around on the floor in our home, in Sausalito, covered in kittens and babies. Mmm, good vision.
“So, obviously they’re all adorable,” Chloe said, watching the two grown men having a ball with a bunch of dogs. “Any thoughts on which you think you’d like?”
“Good lord, how in the world are we going to choose?” Sophia bent down to pick up a sweet little one that had begun nuzzling at her foot.
Ha! Sophie’s choice . . . I bit it back and said nothing. I did look down to see Simon, grinning up at me with hands full of puppies.
“A hundred percent no,” I said, arching my eyebrow.
In the end, it was the puppies who made the choice for Sophia and Neil. Not one, not two, but three puppies had been adopted. Cute won out over common sense, and even Sophia was excited about the prospect of having a houseful of paws and toddler toes all at once. Truth was, I’d never seen her happier. She still talked a great game, tough as nails and seeming to have Neil by the balls, but she was thrilled with the turn her life was taking. The puppy trifecta was just one more sign that our leggy redhead was being domesticated.