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I gave a sitting bow. “You’re welcome.”

Kamala smiled, then took my phone and started scrolling down Dale’s page full of pictures of him on boats and in big houses and traveling to exotic places. The guy was loaded.

“Is it wrong that I now find him more attractive?” she asked.

I shoved her shoulder with a laugh.

She showed me a picture of him in a pair of short swim trunks, shirtless. “I mean…” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Too bad he’s a huge jerk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Hugejerk? He was just trying to protect his friend.”

“By threatening to humiliate him?”

“I mean, maybe Asher wasn’t listening. Maybe that’s all Dale had left to get through to him.”

“You’re defending him?” I asked.

“He seemed harmless to me.”

I grabbed my phone back. “It doesn’t matter. He’s not the one I want to message. He’s the one who can’t know what I did or he will definitely follow through with his original plan.”

“You could look through all of Dale’s followers. Asherhasto be online. He was getting catfished, after all, which is pretty much only possible through social media. Maybe he goes by a weird name or something.”

“Ugh. I don’t care enough. I’m just curious if Gemma everfessed up. But if I have to put in actual work? Not worth it.” I dropped my phone next to me and turned toward the fan. “It’s so hot! Let’s go get Popsicles or sit in a freezer or something.”

I stood and pulled Kamala to her feet.

“I now know someone with a boat,” she hummed. “We should ask him if we can go for a ride. Pretty sure a whale can’t swallow a speedboat whether it’s trying to or not.”

“Funny. And you better not be talking about Dale.”

She laughed as we headed for the door. “No, but really. Do you think he’d take us on his boat?”

Rule:Never date a guy who has bad taste in friends.

Despite its unfortunate name, Petsacular was one of my very favorite places to be. And as I stood, earbuds in, hosing down a recently vacated kennel, I smiled at my good fortune in landing this job. A lot of the people who worked here were volunteers, but I actually got paid to cuddle, walk, and bathe animals.

As I watched the foamy brownish-yellow liquid head toward the drain, the water coming from the hose in my hand drizzled to a stop. I turned around to see Erin, my boss, standing by the faucet and pointing at her ears. She’d obviously been trying to get my attention.

I plucked out my earbuds. “Sorry!”

“It’s okay. You have a visitor up front.”

“An appointment? Did they say who they’re here to see?”

“You,” she said as I walked closer.

“No, which animal? Please say Bean. I’ve been posting about him a lot.” Bean was a brown pit bull mix with little white tufts of fur on each paw who I also called Beanie and Beano and Beansterand Goodest Boy and a number of other endearments. He’d been at the shelter the longest—nine months. Two hundred seventy-four days, to be exact—it was written on the whiteboard in the break room. Maybe that was why I felt so connected to him—because I knew him the best. Or maybe it was because I knew how it felt not to be chosen.

“I’m not sure,” Erin said.

“Hey, Good Boy,” I said as I passed Bean’s kennel. He gave a single bark. “Cross your toes that this one’s for you.” I knelt down by the chain-link door and put my palm against it. His tail was wagging his whole backside as he licked my hand through the door, then finished with another bark. “Yes, you’re such a good boy. So handsome and smart.”

“Only for you,” Erin mumbled.

“That’s not true. Don’t listen to her, you love everyone, don’t you, boy?”