Home Is Where Your Bark Is

Chapter 32

Jenna curled up on the floor in front of one of Jake’s living room windows and wrapped herself in a mound of blankets, watching the Jeep’s taillights disappear into the dense snow. While it was arguably a little more than a sliver, this window had a wider view of the sidewalk down below than the other and was Jenna’s best chance to catch sight of Seven should he instinctively know how to navigate the eighteen or so miles between here and where he’d last been spotted—and want to return.

He wants to be found. He wants to be here. I know it.

When she hadn’t stopped shivering once in a full thirty minutes, Jake had driven her here. He’d been right about it making sense to split up, except now he was driving around in this mess alone, and the storm showed no signs of relenting.

“I’ll check every half hour,” he’d promised. Since Jenna didn’t have a phone, they’d run her by her place so she could grab a change of clothes and her iPad. Thank God for technology. She’d be able to make calls and check her texts while using Wi-Fi calling.

While dropping her off, he’d run inside long enough to give her his Wi-Fi code and change into sweats and a gray-green hoodie that brought out the green in his hazel eyes and made Jenna wish circumstances were different and he could stick around awhile so she could lose herself in their depths and maybe a little more.

Jenna pulled up the Find My iPhone app for the second time since logging on to the Wi-Fi here, hoping for new results. Someone had likely pulled out the battery because her phone didn’t show up anywhere. Pausing often to glance out the window toward the empty sidewalk below for signs of Seven, she filled out the form to report her phone as stolen. Not for the first time tonight, she said a prayer of thanks that her photos—priceless ones of the boys, images of her artwork, painted pots, and plants and, new to the mix, of Seven—were backed up on the cloud. At least she hadn’t lost those.

Afterward, she pulled up Instagram. Jake had shared how he’d reached out to Alyssa in hopes she could help him find Seven, and before leaving, he’d given her Alyssa’s Instagram handle so she could track the comments in case someone spotted him. “I don’t know if there’s ever a good time to talk about exes, but, if it helps any, there’s no nostalgia on my end; I doubt on hers either. But if there’s one thing Alyssa does well, it’s get the word out, and right now Seven needs all the help he can get.”

Jenna didn’t blame him. She’d have done the same thing. Even so, as she pulled up Alyssa’s handle, she thought back to her nine-year-old self opening the kitchen junk drawer after Christmas and finding an envelope stuffed full of receipts for all the wonderful things Santa had brought. Maybe Jake had been ready to leave Alyssa, but he’d still spent a full year with her. It had been a significant relationship, and diving down into the rabbit hole of all things Alyssa would no doubt hurt.

The first thing that caught Jenna’s eye as the account pulled up was the endearing close-up of Seven from Alyssa’s most recent post. The second thing was Alyssa’s number of followers. Upward of nine hundred thousand. Not too far a cry from a million. Alyssa was an influencer, one who was only following 133 people herself. Jenna’s 1,860 hard-earned Plants N Pots by Jenna followers had never seemed less significant.

As she skimmed through Alyssa’s older posts, Jenna could feel the voice of self-doubt poking its ugly head, but maybe that shouldn’t come as a surprise. Didn’t this happen to just about everyone poking around on someone else’s social media feed? Even as Jenna reminded herself that half these photos had been taken with filters and most had likely been staged, she also recognized that this voice of doubt had deeper roots.

It warned how relationships founded upon the adrenaline of car crashes and surrendered dogs had no staying power. You’re not even close to his type, it promised. Bookends need to match. Jake was a lawyer who’d been told more than once he resembled a rock star. With Alyssa’s dark hair, smoky eyes, full lips, and coordinating accessories, she’d looked like a coordinating accessory herself. The proof of it was right there, further down on her feed. A dozen or more photos of them at fancy events peppered it, as did selfies in remote and picturesque locations. The intimacy of a close-up of Jake dozing in a hammock in a remote tropical paradise stabbed Jenna right in the gut, so much so that she needed a moment to collect herself.

You’re thirty-one years old. Everyone you meet is going to have a past.

Clearing her throat, she pulled up the post about Seven and started scrolling through the comments. The post had only been live less than two hours, and there were already hundreds of comments. Dozens upon dozens of them were from people remarking how kind and beautiful Alyssa was and how Jake never deserved her. Some were flat-out propositions. A handful of people asked if she knew if Jake was on any dating apps. The ones about Seven were mostly well-wishes and prayers and people promising they’d watch out the window for sight of him, while a few were by people reflecting on the breed being anything but an easy one, and a few others were by people reflecting on their own experiences with lost dogs.

Jenna was scanning the sidewalk below through the dense snowfall for sign of Seven when her iPad rang out. Spying her sister’s number on the screen, she pressed the speaker to accept. “Hey, I was about to call you.”

Monica’s shriek filled the quiet room. “Finally! I don’t care how good the sex is, nothing is worth you not checking in like this. Is Seven okay? Did you find him?”

“I couldn’t check in because I lost my phone. Actually, it’s looking like it was stolen.” Her jaw had finally stopped chattering enough for her to speak without sputtering, at least. “But more importantly, we haven’t found him yet. Jake’s still driving around looking for him. I’m at Jake’s place watching out the window in case he comes back on his own.”

“That sucks—about your phone and Seven. I really hoped he was toasty warm and dry by now.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“But good idea about keeping lookout for him there. I’ve heard stories of dogs traveling a lot farther than that to get home. We’ll do the same in case he comes here.”

He won’t , Jenna thought but refrained from saying. Seven’s panicky behavior at the arrival of her sister and the boys at the park last Saturday was proof enough of that.

“Well…” Monica said, hopefulness lifting her tone. “What do you think? It’s the universe stepping in; I know it!”

“What’re you talking about?”

“You seriously didn’t see my texts?”

Biting back a defensive reply of how she’d been out walking around in this storm all evening, Jenna pulled up her texts app and opened her sister’s texts. “I haven’t so much as glanced at a text since I last saw you. I really just got here.” Monica’s most recent text was a close-up of a kitten’s face, its blue eyes wide and its pointy ears perked forward. There was a carousel of other images, too, in the kids’ arms and up against Monica’s cheeks. “When did you get a kitten?”

“We didn’t get her. We found her! This afternoon. While we were out looking for Seven and trying to get ahold of you. She was in an alley under this disgusting old sofa next to a dumpster.” Jenna was still processing this when she added, “Tell me you see it. You have to see it.”

“See what?”

“Her markings.”

Jenna swiped to the close-up photo. The kitten was black-and-white with black ears and a larger patch of black over her right eye than her left. The white of her chin and neck was disrupted by a single circle of black directly under her nose and mouth. “She’s a cutie, that’s for sure, but see what?”

“Jenna! She looks just like Seven! Don’t you get it? We were meant to find her. All week, we’ve been going back and forth about the boys missing Seven and maybe getting another dog or a cat, and there she was, and she looks just like him. That expression. You cannot tell me you don’t see it.”

The pattern of color was the same, more black on top, more white underneath, Jenna would give her that, but other than that, Jenna could mostly just see what appeared to be an overwhelmed black-and-white kitty with big blue-gray eyes, but maybe it was something you had to see in person to pick up on. “Poor thing was out in this weather, huh? She looks so little and frail.”

“She doesn’t act it though. Not now that she’s eaten and warmed up. We’re guessing she’s about ten weeks old, but yeah, she’d have frozen tonight. No question. We’ll get her to the vet tomorrow, but she’s got a voracious appetite, and she even used the litter!” After a slight pause, she added, “We stopped at the pet store on the way home.”

“That’s sweet, Monica. Really sweet.”

“Yeah. This was meant to be. I know it. The boys even agreed on a name, and Stuart and I are good with it.”

“The boys picked it? Let me guess.” Jenna circled through a few Thomas the Tank Engine character names that she’d committed to memory. “Bertie?”

“Close. Rosie.”

“Aww. I like it.”

“Yeah.” Monica fell quiet for a second. “I’m really sorry I’ve been an ass this week. I just don’t want to lose you.”

“You aren’t losing me. Ever.”

“I know. I know that. My head knows that.” She dropped her voice. “Even if you are having great sex, and I’m not.”

“First, I’m not having sex. Not yet. Second…” She drew a blank as her thoughts trailed off, imagining her and Jake having sex and what it might be like. She cleared her throat. Where had she been headed with this? “Maybe there is no second. But in any case, you aren’t losing me. Promise.”

When Monica spoke again, it was obvious she’d teared up. “Thanks. The truth is, I know we don’t deserve to keep Seven after the way I quit on him. I knew it last week too. Just like I know he deserves someone like Jake who isn’t going to do that to him. When he finds him, we’re having a party to celebrate. You three can come to dinner. Seven and Rosie are going to have to get to know each other anyway, so we might as well jump into it.”

Jenna bit back a myriad of skeptical retorts. Didn’t her sister realize she and Jake had only officially been dating a couple weeks? There was no guarantee Jake had entered her life with the sort of permanency that warranted introducing the two animals to each other, even though doubting it had her heart aching.

“You two are going to make it,” Monica added, knowing exactly what Jenna was thinking. “I know it just the same way I knew Stuart was the person I was going to raise kids with the very first night I laid eyes on him.”

Most of the time, Monica seemed to live in a world of complete faith and zero practicality. Sometimes this was frustrating as could be. Other times, Jenna would give just about anything to live right there beside her. “I hope so.”

“I know so. Before you know it, you will too.”

For a second or two, Jenna debated confessing the insecurities that had flooded in upon pulling up Alyssa’s Instagram account but decided against it. Before tonight, Jenna had figured Jake was as practical as she was, but when they’d been standing by his Jeep earlier, she’d caught something both hopeful and knowing in his gaze that had reminded her of her sister; she just hadn’t been able to put her finger on it until now. Whether it was a leap of faith or instinct, it was the same thing that first-year hummingbirds had to have when starting out on their migration over the endless gulf on their way south to Mexico. Maybe they couldn’t envision what was waiting for them on its other side, but they trusted it was there all the same.

How was it so easy for some people to believe in something—their own instincts even—when everything was so new and unproven?

If it worked for newbie hummingbirds, why couldn’t it work for Seven and lead him right to this door? In the same way, why couldn’t it work for her and Jake?

Why couldn’t it?

As soon as she asked herself this question, a soft smile pulled at her lips. “So, this celebration dinner you’re talking about… What would you like me to bring?”