Kono was sitting at her desk when her cell phone rang. "Hello?"

"Kono, hi! It's Callie. Listen, is Steve around? Can he hear you talking?"

"Hey!" Kono raised her eyes to her boss' office to make sure he was there. "He's in his office, so I'm all clear. What's up?"

"Well, I have a surprise for him. A big surprise. I've been planning it for a while now…like three months or so…oh, gosh, I'm rambling."

Kono laughed. "So, what's this big surprise?"

"See, a few months ago we were talking and I realized he'd never had a dog. His life just never really allowed for it, you know? He never had one as a kid, and then with being sent to the mainland and then being at Annapolis and going into the Navy, he just never got that experience. I know his life isn't calm right now, but it's much more settled than it was. I know Danny's been worried about his stress level lately, with the RP and all, and dogs are great for that."

"Callie….what did you do?" Kono asked slowly, not being able to help her smile.

"Well…a few days after this talk, I ran into a friend. He's a really reputable breeder and has really great dogs with a good bloodline. And he was telling me they were expecting a litter of puppies soon, and this was the exact breed of dog I'd been thinking about getting Steve. And so, I bought one. That very day. I paid the deposit, then went and picked out the one I wanted when the puppies were born. And now it's time for them to go to their homes. And I have a puppy sitting on the front seat of my car looking at me as I'm talking to you, and I'm afraid I've messed up. I probably should have talked to Steve about it, but I was just so excited and he's always doing things for me and I just wanted to surprise him. But then I was hinting around about it last week, just to test the waters, you know, and he didn't seem very interested. Like, at all. But it was too late, and I couldn't back out and I'm already in love with this little guy. I know puppies aren't the cleanest, and you know how he is about things being clean and neat." Callie paused. "I don't know why I called you, except I needed to confess…and maybe ask for a little bit of help?" Callie said meekly.

Kono couldn't stop laughing. Oh, this was going to be good. "Okay. Where are you?"

"In the parking lot outside your office. I figured this would be easier—safer-if I had witnesses."

"Okay. I'll be down in a minute and we'll figure out how to do this. Hey, what kind of puppy is it?" Kono was thinking a German shepherd would be a good fit, or maybe a Labrador retriever.

There was silence on the other end of the line.

"Callie?" Kono asked.

"It's a….goldendoodle." There was a long pause. "He looks like a little teddy bear."

Kono was dying. This just kept getting better.