Zoe

“That’s a sweet baby,” I cooed at the Golden Retriever strutting around next to the stroller, his little tail waving softly side to side.

Everything in the world seemed new and exciting to him, despite being the ripe old age of nine. And everyone he came across was his-long lost best friend: other dogs, people, a random squirrel just trying to dig up a nut.

But there was no one in the world Blue loved more than Lainey. Not even his dog-mom. And she knew it too.

“I feel like this is his way of telling me I need to settle down and have kids,” she said when Blue rushed out the door to run up to the stroller and stare lovingly at my baby.

“If you need to be de-influenced, I changed my shirt three times today because I was spit up on. This was my last clean shirt. And if you can’t tell from that sour smell emanating from me, there’s more baby spit up on this one too.”

“Yeah, but look at her,” Blue’s mom said, giving Lainey the goo-goo eyes.

Blue was our newest walking buddy.

We were up to four walks a day now. And my aching legs reminded me of that every night when I lay down to try to sleep.

Lainey had a little pink fan I found at the dollar store clipped to the side of her stroller to move some air for her on the really hot days.

As for me, I sweated. A lot. Like through my bra and underwear kind of sweating.

And Blue? Well, Blue was allowed to take a dip in his little doggy pool in the backyard when we got back from our walks before I ushered him into the house, where he would trot down the hall and into his very own bedroom.

He had a twin-sized bed with bone-patterned sheets, a basket piled sky-high with toys, and an insulated and freezable dog bowl that kept his water cold all day—and cost more than my whole wardrobe put together.

There were also prints on the wall above his bed.

One for every year of his life, taken on his birthdays in front of what I assumed was a dog-safe cake with his mom beaming next to him.

Blue was a lucky dog.

And if his owner ever decided to have a baby, that would be one spoiled kid.

“You ready to go…” I paused, waiting for Blue to turn back and look at me, ears up, “swimming?”

He nearly ripped off my arm in his eagerness to get back home and splash around in the pool.

Did I maybe turn on the hose and soak my legs and wipe down Lainey too? Sure did.

It was a long, hot day, and Blue was our last walk. I was looking forward to going home, stripping out of my sweaty clothes, and taking a cold shower. Hopefully, one of the shirts I’d hand-washed in the sink would be clean to wear in case of some last-minute deliveries.

I hadn’t exactly been slouching prior to The Incident. But I’d been going above and beyond to use work to try to shut up my brain.

It had been a week to the day since that whole situation.

I still felt like my body was trying to metabolize all that adrenaline I’d felt.

I’d been antsy and jumpy. And while sleeplessness was the norm for me since I found out I was pregnant and that my whole life was about to change, I’d barely been managing three hours—with maybe a short catnap in the middle—since that night.

I was running on coffee from the dollar store made in a machine that had a dubious amount of electrical tape holding the cord together and the bone-deep need to do better for us.

So that maybe I wouldn’t be doing jobs late at night in weird areas of town where all sorts of bad things apparently happened.

I’d been checking the news and true crime channels online to see if anyone was covering the man who’d been beaten and shot in an alley in Golden Glades.

But I got no results.

This man wasn’t a blip on anyone’s radar.

Meanwhile, his image was burned into my brain. And right beside him, the men who’d chased me through the streets, ready to—what—silence me for good? Then do what to my baby? The same? Something worse?

My mind had been running wild with worst-case scenarios. Everything from human trafficking to being sold for parts.

Your mind could go to really dark places when you were solely responsible for a precious, helpless life in a big, scary world you knew was full of bad people with worse intentions.

“That’s a good boy,” I told Blue as I handed him his favorite stuffy then pulled one of his blankets up over his wet body. “We’ll see you after the weekend, okay? Have fun with your mom at the p-a-r-k tomorrow.”

I maybe walked slowly through Blue’s house on the way back out. Not slow enough to look like I was casing the joint—since I knew there were nanny cams around—but just slowly enough that I could really take it all in.

This was my dream house.

Even if, objectively, I knew I could never afford one as large as this one, it had all the features I loved. The warm white stucco outside, the cool tile within. The abundance of little rugs and runners for slippery dog feet—or toddlers learning to crawl.

Sun poured in through the windows, but the air kept the place cool almost to the point of chilly.

The kitchen sported lots of storage and a fancy range with eight burners, two ovens, and one of those espresso machines that cost almost a grand.

I loved good coffee.

And I missed cooking and baking.

I vowed that by the time Lainey was eating solid food, I would have us in a place with a kitchen.

I made my way out the back door, checking to make sure the gate locked, then turned on the car to cool off as I broke down the stroller and shoved it into the trunk.

“Let’s hope our air is working better today than yesterday,” I told Lainey as I clicked her car seat into the base, then got in myself, letting the cool air dry some of the sweat on my skin.

I liked the warm.

I even liked the humidity sometimes.

But it had been bordering on dangerously hot the past few days.

I’d been working with the owners of the dogs to walk in the off-peak hours of the day, stressing how bad heat stroke was for dogs—which was true—while also being worried about me and Lainey.

And most of the dogs, even energetic Blue, were dragging in the heat, so we took a lot of breaks under trees or in shade. Even, occasionally, dipping into pet stores to walk around in the air conditioning.

It wouldn’t last forever.

The heatwave would break.

Then the walks would be nice again.

Besides, it didn’t matter.

All that mattered was the money that was coming in. And, for once, I actually had a little bit leftover at the end of this week. If I took a few extra delivery jobs over the weekend when there were no dog walking clients, I could pad that bottom line even more.

“Oh, brr,” I said as I carried Lainey’s car seat into the room, finding that the room I’d left that had been a bit like a terrarium was now on the frigid side of cold.

“Thank goodness someone else is paying that air conditioning bill, right?” I asked Lainey, who I could swear sighed in relief at the sudden coolness.

I set her on the center of the bed to stretch out and cool off as I suppressed a shiver.

Even sitting and watching her stretch her arms and legs, I couldn’t just enjoy the moment.

My mind was shooting all around.

It started out tamely enough—thinking that I was going to need to invest in those bed safety bars soon.

She was only three months, but some babies started to roll over early.

And since I was not putting her down on that carpet that thousands of people had likely walked across (amongst some other questionable things), the bed was the only place for her to wiggle around that wasn’t her playard.

It wasn’t long, though, before I was suddenly picturing Coast and the effortless ease with which he picked Lainey up, held her, wiggled her, and carried her around. Which suggested experience.

But then he was cursing up a storm and talking to a baby about body shots and what made for the perfect margarita. Which I felt meant he had no children of his own. Because, really, what woman would let her baby’s father talk to it like that? Even if they didn’t understand yet?

Maybe he had nieces and nephews. Or his buddies had babies. He definitely gave off chaotic uncle (or honorary uncle) vibes.

“Ugh,” I grumbled, making Lainey turn her big gray eyes at me. “Why can’t I stop thinking about him, huh?” Her response was to kick her feet and produce an impressive amount of spit bubbles. “You liked him too. Don’t try to pretend that you didn’t. You were all moon-eyed at him.”

“Ooh,” Lainey said, lips in a perfect O .

“My little owl,” I said, running a finger down her plump little cheek. “Ma-ma. Ma-ma,” I tried, knowing it was too soon, but trying to plant that seed early. “Anyway, yeah, that man weaseled his way into our minds, right?”

I promised myself no man would ever do that again. That said, this Coast guy was not like Lainey’s father. He didn’t have the power to completely screw up my life.

“We’re not going to see him again anyway,” I said aloud, willing myself to believe it. So maybe I stopped thinking about him.

Lainey, who’d been inspecting her hand up close, promptly slapped herself in the face with it and started crying.

“Oh, I know,” I said, picking her up and putting her against my shoulder. “Don’t worry. We all slap ourselves in the face sometimes. Though, as you get older, it’s figuratively. Which is arguably worse. But that’s not helping your situation right now, right?”

I bopped her through the room.

Then, when that didn’t work, I did her favorite thing: I held her close and danced.

It was crazy how easily my body found the movements, how my muscles stretched and tightened, how my hips and feet found an invisible beat and moved with it.

I got lost in the movement, as I had been doing since I was four years old and my mom strapped me into my first pink leotard and silk tutu and waved me over toward a half dozen other little girls dressed the exact same way.

I’d fallen in love with it then.

I loved it now.