Page 39 of Here We Go Again

“Excuse me?”

“You’re right. He’s gross. Take him into the shower with you and get him cleaned off.”

“Fuck you” is her reasonable response to this absurd request.

Logan shrugs. “Okay. Then let him get his dog dirt all over your silk pillowcase.”

Rosemary takes four breaths and contemplates her options: get on the next plane out of Arizona, strangle Logan with the cord ofher travel label maker, shower with adog. But then Joe starts coughing out of sheer exhaustion from an entire day in the car, and she remembers why she’s here, at the Grand Canyon. It’s all for Joe.

Which is how she finds herself standing naked in the bathroom with a dog staring up at her ten minutes later.

“Okay, dog.” She points to the bathtub-shower combo. “In.”

The dog cocks his head to the side like he doesn’t understand her command.Doeshe understand? She knows fuck-all about dogs.

She turns on the hot water and tries again. “Dog. In. Get in the shower.”

He still doesn’t move, but his giant tongue slides out the front of his open mouth. It makes him look like Logan. She tries getting in first. “Come, dog.Come.”

“You might have to pick him up!” Logan shouts from the other side of the bathroom door.

Odysseus looks like a single-headed Cerberus. There is no way she can lift him.

“Odysseus,please.”

She’s not sure if it’s the use of his name or the magic word, but the dog suddenly, calmly obeys.

But as soon as the shower water hits his fur, Odysseus begins thrashing around, trying to make his escape. “No! No!” She closes the shower curtain and hopes he’ll think the flimsy vinyl is impenetrable.

“Stay. Stay. Good boy.”

She stands under the lukewarm water and tries to wet her hair as quickly as she can. Every few seconds, the dog paws at the shower curtain, and she shouts, “No! Stay!”

When the shouting loses its effect, she switches to gentle coaxing while trying to lather her hydrating shampoo into her hair. “Come on, sweet baby boy. Don’t do that! Don’t go anywhere. Isn’t this fun? Aren’t we having fun together?”

Then she switches to washing him, and the brown water thatdrips off his fur, and the black hair that comes off on her hands, make her gag.

“Stay, stay, stay,” she chants like a prayer. Or a Taylor Swift song. And it works for a bit.

But then she accidentally gets a splash of water in his floppy ears, and he absolutely loses his shit. He bucks around like a mechanical bull and bursts through the shower curtain like the fucking Kool-Aid man.

Rosemary screams. Odysseus barks as he runs agitated circles around the bathroom. She shuts off the water and launches herself out of the shower.

“Odysseus, no! Stop!” She nearly slips when she tries to tackle the dog with a towel. “Come here! Come here! Help me!”

She’s not sure what possesses her to cry out for help, but one minute, she’s catapulting her naked ass after a dog, and the next, the bathroom door is opening, and Logan is standing there, staring at that naked ass with her mouth wide open.

Chapter Twelve

LOGAN

Hale is naked.

There are other things happening—a maniacal dog covered in soap is thrashing around a hotel bathroom while a dying man zonked out on oxycodone is snoring—but Logan’s brain is stuck on the naked part. For approximately three seconds.

Then Hale manages to cover herself with a towel just as Odysseus bursts out of the bathroom. He leaps over suitcases and jumps onto their queen bed, rolling around so there’s soapy water on the pillows and blankets.

But again, Logan has tunnel vision, and that tunnel is homed in on Hale’s dripping wet legs beneath the hem of the towel, her exposed collarbone, and her birdlike neck. Ropes of wet hair falling over her pale, smooth shoulders, delicate like the petals of a white rose. Logan can’t remember the last time she saw Hale’s hair out of its braid, the way it frames her pretty face.