Page 72 of Second Time Around

Part of his pleasure in walking through the center, though, was in having Kyra at his side in the daylight with other people around. Watching her interact with Farr, Emily, the kids, and the dogs gave him an odd sense of pride. Her trademark combination of caring and resilience fit right into the center’s spirit. He understood why she chose to work there. What he didn’t understand was why he felt some ownership of her accomplishments.

“Hey, Will, you might be able to help with this.” Kyra’s voice scattered his reflections. “Isaiah needs to name his K-9 Angel and he’s looking for a classical reference.” She smiled a challenge at him.

Will looked at the couch beside them to find three boys staring up at him with skeptical curiosity. He judged them to be about ten or eleven years old, although he was far from expert on children’s ages.

“I say Anubis. It be savage,” one boy said.

“And appropriate since Anubis was the jackal-headed god,” Will said.

“You deadass?” another boy asked. “I mean, is that facts?”

Will nodded and added, “Anubis is the Egyptian god of the dead, so maybe not the most uplifting name.”

“That be poppin’,” the first boy said, bouncing on the sofa with excitement. “You gotta use that, yo.”

“I don’t gotta use nothin’,” the boy who was evidently Isaiah scoffed. “He bemydog. He just gotta get his shots and sh ... stuff.” He turned to Will. “You know any other gods?”

“Greek, Roman, Norse, or Egyptian?” Will asked.

“Show-off,” Kyra muttered.

“Any of them god of dogs?” the boy asked, unimpressed.

Will considered this. “Not that I can think of, although some of them hunted with hounds. Maybe if you showed me a picture of your dog, it might prompt a name to suit him.”

“Dope,” Isaiah said, tapping at his cell phone before holding it up.

Will took the phone and tilted it so Kyra could also see the photo of a medium-sized black dog. The dog’s ancestry was so mixed that Will couldn’t have hazarded a guess as to the combination of breeds, but his large, upright, pointed ears made him resemble a bat.

“That crescent-shaped white mark on his forehead kind of looks like a moon,” Kyra said, a lock of her silky hair brushing the back of Will’s hand as she leaned in to look. “Got anything for that?”

He reined in his desire to wind his fingers into her hair and focused on the task at hand. “You could name him after the Egyptian god of the moon, Khonsu. His name means ‘traveler.’”

“That be more dope than some death god,” Isaiah said, throwing a glance at the Anubis proponent. “How you spell that?”

Will spelled it. “If you’d like, I’ll send you a book on the Egyptian gods, so you can learn more about Khonsu. He was a big name in Egypt.”

“That’d be lit,” Isaiah said. “Who are you anyway?”

“Will Chase.” Will offered his hand to Isaiah and then to the other two boys who were Jayden and Zion.

“You the reason we got to be clean and quiet today?” Jayden asked.

Will heard Kyra choke on a laugh.

“You mean you aren’t always?” Will lifted an eyebrow.

Zion grinned. “We got to beextraclean and quiet.”

Isaiah waved that topic aside. “How you know so much about gods?”

Kyra jumped in. “He was a classics major in college, so he studied ancient history.”

“Like Julius Caesar and those homies?” Jayden asked. “What good is that? You gotta know tech stuff now.”

Will sat on the arm of the sofa. “There’s a saying that those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. You want to avoid the mistakes your ancestors made, don’t you?”

“I guess,” Jayden said.