Page 1 of Dog Days

ONE

Alfie

“Oh my God, Alfie. Why do you swipe right on guys who clearly want to kill you?” Andrea asked, spying over my shoulder.

I flipped my phone over.

The guy on the screen was…ugh, so perfect. Dangerously good-looking with intense eyes, visible tattoos, an impressive beard, and a sexy swoop of dark-brown hair sprinkled liberally with silver.

“Shut up. Mean-looking guys make me feel all safe and small.”

“You’re almost six feet tall, Alf.”

“Yeah, but I look like a friendly bit of Play-Doh with corkscrew hair,” I said, patting the tiny belly I’d decided to accept as part of my personality.

“Stop describing yourself like that! Are you ripped? No, but nobody really likes that anyway. Lanky guys with dad bods are a hot commodity, and bonus, your hair coordinates with Judi Dench,” she said, referring to my black teacup poodle mix.

Why, yes, I did name my dog after the best actress on the planet.

No, I would not be entertaining any debates on this topic.

Andrea picked up my sweet pooch and nuzzled her nose. “Isn’t that right, Dame Judi?”

Andrea, a genius pet groomer, had just finished Judi’s monthly trim and nail polish. Her face had been freshly sheared into a perfectly round puppy cut, complimented by the little ear poofs on either side of her head, not to mention the pretty forest-green polish to coordinate with the Texas “fall” landscape.

By the way, “fall” went in quotes because it was the end of September, and the high had been in the nineties all week. I lived north of Austin in Georgetown, Texas, where air conditioning was nonnegotiable.

Horrifying weather aside, Dame Judith Olivia Dench was pretty much the cutest damn dog ever. As long as you didn’t look into her eyes.

They were a bit…how do I say this? Pug-like for a poodle.

I’d never seen them look in the same direction at the same time, and only one of them actually worked. It was also helpful if you overlooked the tongue constantly hanging out of her mouth, or the fact that someone clearly gave a teacup poodle the wrong legs. Like maybe an Italian Greyhound’s legs, only fuzzier.

Wait .

“Why did you shave her thighs? She looks ridiculous!”

“Oh, come on! Now it looks like she’s wearing leg warmers!”

“Because what her look needed was a fashion tragedy best left in the eighties?”

Andrea cackled, giving Judi scritches under her chin. “We’ve come a long way, haven’t we, Miss Dench?”

She was right, of course. I was a family therapist and volunteered with a small-breed rescue in my free time. They called me the poodle whisperer, so when Miss Judi came into the rescue, I was the obvious choice.

Sadly, she had been a matted mess with a terrible skin rash and the worst gunky eye I’d ever seen. Within days of receiving proper care, however, it was clear she would be okay.

The board had serious reservations about how they’d ever adopt out such an ugly dog, not realizing that I’d already foster-failed so hard I nearly gave myself a concussion.

My two previous poodles, minis named Statler and Waldorf, had come in as a bonded pair, and I had them for over ten years. They’d passed within three days of each other, and I didn’t mind saying I was bereft for months after.

Then this goofy, leggy, six-pound girl crawled onto my lap and stole my heart, and it had been just the two of us ever since. I’d been trying to find her a daddy for a while now, but—despite Andrea’s insistence—my pale, nondescript physique was not setting my notifications on fire these days.

“And, anyway, what does it matter?” I asked, stealing my dog back from my very best friend. “I’m just looking.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, grabbing her purse and giving Dame Dench a little pat on the head. “I’ve got to go open up the shop. Text me if you hook someone who doesn’t look like he frequents the FBI’s Most Wanted list.”

I rolled my eyes as we exchanged hugs, then waited till she closed the door, got in her car, and backed out of the driveway before flipping my phone back over.

I’d been on every goddamn dating app, and I’d hated every single one of them. A couple of my friends had had good luck with a new app, so I signed up the night before in a brief, ill-conceived rush of optimism.

During Judi’s grooming session, I got on the app to find zero notifications—natch—so I decided I might as well take the opportunity to ogle the scenery. I nearly broke my fingers screeching to a halt on the enormous, beastly man Andrea commented on.

She wasn’t wrong—he did look like he wanted to kill me. Ugh, why was that so fucking hot? I mean…I didn’t actually want a murderous asshole. My true dream man looked like he’d kill me but was really a cinnamon roll. Unfortunately, most guys who looked like the scary hottie were exactly as dick-headed as they seemed. It was frustrating.

But this guy…while he looked like he’d give Dexter a run for his money, there was a spark in his eyes and a sexy smirk on his lips. Like maybe he knew exactly what people assumed about him, but he’d never been the kind to care about others’ expectations.

Maybe dad bods turned him on, and kids sounded like a fantastic idea. Sure, his neck tattoos would initially terrify the moms at our kids’ school, but he’d win them over when he volunteered for the carpool and brought his killer gluten-free cupcakes to the PTA meetings.

Obviously, he was good in bed.

Er.

It was possible I’d created an entirely ridiculous scenario in my head based on a handful of poorly lit selfies. Sigh.

Judi Dench was sitting on my lap, intently looking along with me. She sniffed at NiceGuy4U and put her paw on the screen.

“Judi! Are you choosing your new daddy?”

She looked at me with her one good eye, tongue hanging over the side, and gave me a little woof. That was as close to a “yes” as I was getting on this godforsaken planet, so I kept scrolling through his profile.

The thing with this particular app was they had these monthly themes you could participate in. It was kind of cheesy—and a bit cringe—but a lot of guys needed to be reminded that they weren’t only there to speak about themselves.

Epic eye-roll.

Anyway, this month’s theme was: “Ask an Interesting Question.” Some guys were better at it than others—it’d been a helpful filter if nothing else. Of all the guys I swiped left on that morning, half were because they’d asked a tragically boring question.

Unfair?

Probably.

The reason I was still single at the nearly ancient age of thirty-three?

Undoubtedly.

Crossing my fingers, I checked out Mr. Scary-But-Cute’s question : “Kirk, Picard, Sisko, or Janeway?”

Was it possible that my dream man was also a fan of Star Trek? I fanned myself, letting my thumbs go to work.

TeamDench: “How could I possibly answer this question? You’ve left off Captains Pike, Burnham, Rios, and most damning, Archer.”

I hit send, cracking up as I scratched behind Judi Dench’s ear, hoping he’d play along. My heart skipped a beat when the three little dots started to bounce.

Shit. He was actually replying to me in real time.

NiceGuy4U: “My bad. Of Kirk, Picard, Sisko, Janeway, Pike, Burnham, Rios, Archer—and, by the way, you left off Capt. Lorca, don’t think I didn’t see that—who is your favorite captain?”

Damn. He was right. Totally forgot about Lorca.

TeamDench: “Capt. Jean-Luc Picard is and always will be the very best of the captains.”

NiceGuy4U: Ugh, boring. By the way, the correct answer is Benjamin Lafayette Sisko.

TeamDench: HARDLY. He was the captain of a base station.

TeamDench: *Yawns self into a coma*

NiceGuy4U: Excuse you. Sisko was born in New Orleans, held the line at a wormhole, fended off the feckless Cardassians, and went to war against the Jem’Hadar, all while having the very best voice in the whole wide world. He is the one true captain.

He sent me a link to a YouTube short of Captain Sisko repeatedly saying battle stations in that rumbly voice of his.

I was already tickled that he was willing to tease me back, and Judi Dench licked my chin, totally in agreement with me. I sent him back a supercut of Captain Picard saying engage over and over again.

TeamDench: Capt. Picard had Q and the Borg to deal with. The Cardassians could never.

NiceGuy4U: You are wrong, and you should meet me for coffee so we can discuss exactly how wrong you are.

Not gonna lie. I do a little snort-giggle and give Judi a hug.

TeamDench: I can’t wait to debate the captain who regularly quotes Shakespeare against the captain whose only space-faring ship was a runabout.

NiceGuy4U: I promise I’m not getting pushy, but aside from tonight, the next free evening I have is Saturday, and I don’t want to wait that long to explain how ineffective Shakespeare is in the uncompromising vacuum of space.

TeamDench: And I promise I’m not desperate for saying yes. I just cannot allow this blasphemy to continue.

NiceGuy4U: Awesome Tonight at 7:30 okay with you?

TeamDench: Sure, as long as you don’t make fun of me for drinking herbal tea so I’m not up all night.

NiceGuy4U: You’ve already chosen the wrong captain. It really can’t get much worse from there.

I sent him an XOXO emoji, and we exchanged numbers.

Two minutes later, I got a text.

Unknown number: This is Gideon. Your profile says you live in Georgetown, too. I was thinking the coffee shop off the square is a good spot.

Me: Let’s do it.

Me: I’m Alfie, by the way.

Gideon: Nice to meet you, Alfie.

Gideon: It’s been a while since I looked forward to a date.

A flush rose on my cheeks, and I didn’t hate it.

Me: Same.

I looked at Judi Dench and kissed the top of her head.

“I might be bringing you home a daddy after all.”