In which Will is dragged to a wedding (and bachelorette party), questions his sexuality in a strip club, and is powerless in the face of southern mamas. (PS - I live for feedback. If there's anything you like or dislike about this story, I'd love to know.)
"You are the ugliest dog I've ever seen." Will said.
It was the ugliest dog he had ever seen.
The Georgia sun beat down on the back of Will's neck as he stopped jogging to stare at the little beast. It was over eighty degrees even this early in the morning, and the air was so humid it felt like moving through a thin layer of Jello. Sweat beaded on his skin and dripped down his back.
And the world's ugliest dog was barking and panting at him expectantly.
She was sort of cream-colored, with a shaggy, wiry coat and paws stained orange-red from the Georgia clay. Liquid dark eyes were offset by the largest and most imposing underbite he had ever seen. Her teeth jutted out like some kind of tiny reverse sabertooth tiger.
"Go home," he told her.
The dog didn't move. He watched her as he picked up jogging again. She probably belonged to someone; people were more relaxed about these things in Charlton County than Baltimore. The little thing probably had a passel of babies at home, and a little dog house. She probably hunted rats in the Okefenokee Swamp. Country dogs were tough like that.
Sighing, he promised himself he would check to make sure she was okay on his way back. Then he settled into his run. It felt good to let go, to feel the blood pumping through his muscles as he pushed them to their limits. He thought of Gus and Whiskey zooming through the dog park, looking so completely alive and without a care. For the third time, he considered calling the kennel to make sure they were okay, but he still remembered the looks the staff gave him when he dropped the dogs off.
"Sir," the receptionist had said kindly. "We don't have enough space for that many toys."
He blinked down at the cloth grocery bag with two rubber Kong toys, a tube of tennis balls, a pack of synthetic rawhides (less choking hazard), Greenies (approved by the Veterinary Oral Health Council), a bright yellow frisbee, another frisbee in case the first one broke, Gus's stuffed pig...
"Can you pick five?" she asked.
"Per dog?"
The girl sighed and relented, because that was still less than half of what he'd brought. Not including Whiskey's joint supplements.
A sharp yip broke him from his thoughts.
The little white dog was still following him. How she had kept up for the past half mile on those tiny legs, he had no idea. Small dogs seemed to have boundless stores of energy.
"Go home," he told her, but he slowed a little to let her catch up.
She followed him all the way back to his motel room.
The little dog was there when he left the next morning with a smuggled link of sausage from the breakfast buffet. If her underbite made it hard to eat, he couldn't tell. She scarfed it down and licked the grease off his fingers.
"Do you know anyone with a weird little dog?" he asked Fisher, the officer whose wedding he was about to suffer through.
Fisher shook her head. The wooden beads at the ends of her braids clinked softly. "There's lots of little dogs out here. Assholes won't get 'em fixed."
He pictured Lucy living in a ditch somewhere, trying to feed litter after litter of puppies. She would be a good mother, he thought. Fiercely protective. She would fight like a possum, teeth bared, no holds barred. But there were lots of threats in woods out there, not least of which was the blistering heat.
"You gonna come to the hen party?" Fisher asked with a wicked grin.
"Do I have to?"
"Yes." she replied. "The answer is yes."
Fisher insisted on dressing him herself, in her fiance's tight black shirt and his own faded jeans. She mussed his hair with a little gel before she was satisfied.
"I don't see why we have to do this." he muttered.
"The other bridesmaids are gonna love it."
"I'm not a bridesmaid."
"What are you, then?"
"Um." he tried. "Brides...man?" It sounded lame even to him. She rolled her eyes and waved him into the car.
The bridesmaids giggled and bought him shot after shot of tequila. His favorite was a redhead named Sheila, who proudly showed him a photo of her three Boston Terriers, Larry, Curly, and Moe.
"Why do you call him curly?" he asked fuzzily. "He doesn't have that much hair."
"His tail's curly."
Fair enough, he decided.
The first two bars were pretty normal little dives. Thankfully no one asked him to dance, content to let him guard purses and intervene if anyone got too handsy. Drunken assholes weren't impressed by his stature, but he was told his stare was unnerving. Even if no one could tell he was glaring at the frame of his glasses.
"You realize I could break you in half, right, Graham?" Fisher asked. "I can handle myself."
"You shouldn't have to. It's your night."
The grin she flashed him made the lights and the smoke almost worth it.
He regretted it as soon as they stumbled into the third bar. Naked women graced the faded posters in front of the bar, mostly uniform blondes with fake breasts and tans. Interspersed were occasional shots of shirtless men with gleaming oiled muscles. Someone had drawn an enormous cock on one in sharpie. A few someones, actually.
"Enjoy your night, ladies." the bouncer grinned, drawling the last word directly to Will. He clenched his fist and counted to ten, praying for the strength to resist decking homophobic pieces of trash.
The women insisted on sitting right by the stage, with Fisher on center, Sheila on her left, and Will on her right. He tried to escape to the bar, but a man wearing thick dreadlocks, a pair of chaps, and nothing else came to take their drink order.
Feeling a bit dizzy, he ordered a Yuengling.
Fisher seemed to have an endless stack of bills for jamming into the dancers' underwear. One of them fished the tip from her cleavage with a cheeky grin. It seemed much more playful than the handful of strip shows he'd seen. The performers were a lot more hands on, encouraging Fisher to clasp their biceps or run a smooth hand down their chests.
"Will needs a dance," Sheila demanded, flagging down a barrel-chested blond wearing a pair of tight red shorts, suspenders, and a fireman's helmet.
"I don't need a dance," Will said flatly.
"You don't like me, sugar?" the man teased, posing with one hand on his hip.
"You're going to hurt his feelings, Will!" Fisher insisted. The other women chimed in their drunken agreement.
Will wondered if he could pay the man to not give him a lap dance, but it seemed rude.
"Why don't I buy you a lap dance, Sheila?" he tried. "Shonda?"
His eyes unintentionally caught Fisher's, which were huge, brown, and pleading. There was a reason he didn't like to make eye contact.
The performer tucked the bills into his belt, reached for Will's beer, and took a swig from the bottle. He licked a drop from his lips and thanked Will despite not having asked. His hips swayed to the beat of the music as if it were the easiest and most natural thing in the world to present himself this way. The red shorts hugged the curve of his ass tightly.
"What do you do for a living, sugar?" he asked, writhing his backside less than an inch from Will's lap.
"I'm a cop," He swallowed and tried not to stare at the well-defined muscles of his back and shoulders.
"Cop, huh?" The performer cupped the back of Will's head as he pulled himself back against Will's chest. His fingers curled in Will's hair, lightly brushing the shell of his ear. Will swallowed. "Got a name, officer?"
"Will," he managed.
"Nice to meet you, Officer Will. I'm Billy."
The girls whooped as Billy turned to straddle Will's lap, pinning his wrists down as he thrusted not-quite-against the front of his jeans.
Will shut his eyes and recited the Pledge of Allegiance in his head.
What seemed like hours later, Billy retrieved Will's beer and took the seat next to him. By then, all the girls were distracted with another dancer on stage who was throwing various items of clothing into the audience.
"So, Officer Will." he said, leaning back with the bottle between his spread thighs. The gesture was both coy and incredibly masculine. "You got a girlfriend?"
"No. You?"
"Naw. Don't you get lonely, though?"
Will shook his head. "Not really. I've got dogs."
Billy grinned. "Can I see?"
His lock screen was a shot of Gus and Whiskey rolling in the grass at the dog park. At Billy's urging, he opened the gallery and showed him more. Whiskey the day after they removed the pins from his legs. Gus staring in fascination at Fisher's orange tabby kitten.
"I miss my dogs." Will sighed, looking at a shot of Whiskey sleeping upside down on the sofa.
Billy took his phone and fiddled with the buttons for a minute, then presented it with a grin.
"That's my number, Officer Will. You get too lonely, you give me a call. I'll take your mind off it."
He winked at Will's stunned expression and sashayed back to the bar.
His phone was a heavy weight in his pocket as Sheila ushered them out of the bar. It seemed to grow heavier as Cindy, the group's driver, drove him back to his motel.
Lucy yipped and darted past his legs and into the room. He stared at her for a moment before deciding he was too drunk to outmaneuver a determined dog.
Stripping down to his boxers, he pretended to ignore the warm lump curled next to his thigh.
Fisher's wedding was beautiful, rustic but elegant in the small wooden church. They held the reception in a tent with fans and ate fluffy white biscuits and lowcountry boil with shrimp, crawfish, potatoes, and corn on the cob. Fisher's mama, a tiny but fierce woman dressed in head to toe peacock blue, sat him down and made him try every dish on the table.
"Why is she feeding me?" he hissed at Fisher.
"It's what mamas do." she said, as if that were obvious.
He nodded as if he understood. He didn't.
The next morning, he checked out of the motel and braced himself for the long drive up I-95. He didn't stop Lucy from jumping into the seat next to him. She sat like a queen on her cheap vinyl throne as he drove them home.
Billy's number stayed in his phone. He looked at it from time to time, but he couldn't bring himself to call either.
Three months later, he couldn't pull the trigger. It earned him an impressive stab wound, four days in the hospital, and an unpaid suspension.
He deleted the number.