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LEXI

I woke up on the couch, my feet under Jen’s ass. The left one was asleep. Ow ow ow owie. I dislodged them by shoving her aside, pulling them out, swinging my legs off the couch, and pressing the foot on the ground, stamping?—

Jen mumbled, “What?”

“My foot’s asleep.” I massaged it. “You slept on me.”

She said, “You’re kind of on my bed, no complaining. You have a bed upstairs, this downstairs is mine.” She opened one eye to look at Dude.

He meowed.

“Fine, it’s your couch, Dude, but still, I let you sleep with me, so you share.”

“I also have a guest room, you know this.”

She said, “I blame the wine and the hottie down there in your back-shack.”

“How is it his fault you drank too much?”

“He was confusing me with his, you know, muscles.”

I chuckled.

Then I looked at her with wide eyes. “You think he’s still outside standing guard?”

“Let’s go see!”

We both clambered up and went to the window. It looked empty down at the back-shack shadowed from the surrounding trees, even though it was late morning.

For some reason I whispered, “Is he in there?”

She said, “We must go see.” She added, “With coffee.”

We watched the back-shack as I brewed a pot, then we took our mugs and a carafe with coffee for Torin down the hill to check on him.

As we approached, I called out, “Torin? Torin, are you here?”

We peeked in the front door.

He wasn’t there. The house was completely empty.

She scanned my property. “Is he off somewhere, relieving himself in the woods again?”

“I don’t think so. He said dawn, I’m sure his idea of dawn is a lot different than ours. If he’s not here, guarding over us, he must have um... you know, gone away.”

“Why can’t you say it?”

“Because it sounds crazy.”

She sipped her coffee leaned on the stoop post like Torin had been last night. “Well, he’s gone, that’s one less thing you have to deal with.” She glanced at her watch. “I really ought to go home. I’ve been away since yesterday. I’m still invited to dinner tomorrow to hear Coop’s tale of conquest?”

“Absolutely, I’m whipping up spaghetti and meatballs, his favorite.”

“When was the last time you talked to him, how’s it going?”

“Who knows, I’m sure it’s going well, he’s busy. We’ll have the whole story tomorrow.”