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“Yeah.”Phillip scratched his cheek again.“I didn’t return your baseball cap.”

“Keep it.”

He glanced at me sharply.

I shrugged.“I was never a big Kings fan.You saw how many caps I have.Enough for an entire baseball team.”Well, at least to cover every active player on the field.

“You’re sure?”

“Yep.Now, a Dodgers cap I might fight you for.So lucky you didn’t nab that one.”Totally not going to admit I’d give you that one as well.In a heartbeat.A little over the top.

“Well…thank you.That’s a very generous gift.”

Something in the way he said the word made my ears perk.Almost like…he didn’t get them often.Which made me want to ask about his family.And I restrained myself.Let him come to you.My every instinct warned me that he was skittish.Nothing overt.Just this pervasive sense of loneliness.Of isolation.Yesterday, though, I’d made him smile while we prepared the food for lunch.Then, he’d appeared to enjoy himself while we ate hot dogs at the beach.

Probably helped I’d spilled chili on myself.I never minded making a fool of myself if it made someone else laugh.As evidenced by my continual goofy ways with my nibblets.I had to be careful, though—sometimes Raphael saw right through me.Or took things too literally.

We’d be talking about one thing, and then nibblet would be off on another tangent.Probably baking up a storm.“What are your plans today?”We rounded a bend and headed into a more-shaded area of the park.

“I don’t have any plans.”He shrugged.“No, that’s not true.I plan to spend more time training Wally.He’s figured out thiswalking on leashthing so quickly.I want to go through that list Jordan provided.I want Jordan to see how much we can accomplish.I know Arthur did some basic training at the shelter, but I need to prove…”

“Need to prove…?”

“That they weren’t wrong in letting me rescue Wally.”He wiped at his eyes.

“Phillip.”I stopped.

He slowed.“Sorry, I?—”

“Please face me.”

After a moment, he turned to face me.

“No one—and I mean no one—can say you aren’t taking care of Wally.It’s barely been four days, and already I can see how attached he is to you.How much progress he’s made.”

“He hasn’t lost any weight.I haven’t lost any weight.”

My heart ached.I didn’t know much about weight loss—never having been in the position myself.Marcie had complained about six months after Thaddeus’s birth that she wasn’t back to where she’d been.I’d comforted her.And stupidly said I thought she looked gorgeous.Wrong thing.But how was I supposed to have known?She gave me a lecture, a lesson, and I’d learned.So I swallowed, dredging up that conversation and how she’d told me she felt.“Phillip.”

“Yeah?”

“First, it’s been, what, four days?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.”I swallowed again.God, let me not fuck this up.“Did the vet say Wally would lose weight in four days?”God, let me be focusing on the right thing.

He shook his head.“No.She said she wanted it to be gradual.Not to starve him and make his food insecurities worse.She figures at some point he’d been deprived, and now he feels he has to eat everything all at once and find more because he’s thinking he might have to go without again.Or…something like that.”

Is he talking about the dog or himself?Oh, sweetheart…who hurt you so badly?“Okay.So maybe you need to talk to the vet about what’s realistic.I understand weight loss can be unsteady.Uneven.He’s got a lot to adjust to.”As do you.“Look…” I floundered.“Would you like me to come to the vet with you?Would that help?Or would I just be interfering?You can tell me that I’m overstepping the friendship boundaries.”

“Are we?”He squinted.

“Are we what?”

“Friends.”

His question rocked me.“Well, I thought so.Or I was hoping we might become friends.Good friends.”