It’s Mother-Pucking Christmas!

7. Dakota

7

DAKOTA

“ Y ou remember that time in seventh grade I tried to blackmail Lennox Kai into going to the dance with me?”

“Yeah?” Gracie winced.

“Well, this was worse than that.”

“Aww!” Gracie was in mom mode and trying to force-feed me hot cocoa and Christmas cookies.

“He literally said no, thank you. Like, I get it, I don’t look like all those other girls hanging out in front of the stadium, a couple of whom I think were actually our cousins. But still. Fuck him.”

“I know Violet and Bella like to try for a hockey hookup out there.” Gracie grimaced.

“I am so dumb. I don’t know what I was thinking.” I rubbed my temple.

I didn’t even want Ryder. I was just trying to help my little brother, but the rejection of my offer of a fake date stung.

“Trying to find love is a lot of pressure for the holidays,” Gracie murmured, rubbing slow circles on my back. “I think we should table the holiday boyfriend, and maybe you should find a furry friend for the holidays instead?”

I thought about a cuddly, wriggly little puppy or a happy bouncing kitten. “Yeah, actually I think maybe we should look for a dog.”

“The animal shelter is having an event. They even have some pugs,” Gracie suggested.

I looked down at Pugnog and Kringle drooling and rolling around on the floor. “Do we really need three pugs in this family, Gracie?”

“Don’t even think about sitting on my bed,” I warned Timmy when my little brother snuck into my room.

“I’m not!” he yelped, hands above his head. “I just wanted to see if you had an update on the you-know-what situation.”

I turned around to face him. “No dice.”

“Please, Dakota,” he whined. “Now people on the sports podcasts think the Icebreakers have a good chance of winning against the Frosthawks.”

“You need to start looking at tickets to Venezuela for Christmas.”

We were greeted by kittens in festive holiday bows and the happy yips of dogs finding their forever homes when we walked into the local animal shelter.

“Oh my gosh, look at all these cuties!” Gracie cooed as we greeted all the puppies. “Do you have older dogs, more of a couch potato?” my cousin asked one of the shelter workers, who had a Santa hat name tag that read Steph. “Not that puppies aren’t adorable.”

“Or any hard-to-place dogs that no one wants?” I suggested, feeling moved by the soppy Christmas carols playing.

“We do have one dog, but he’s a handful. He’s a nine-month-old husky who’s been returned three times. They are highly intelligent dogs.”

“They need a lot of exercise and stimulation, right?” I asked.

“Right. Do you have a yard?” Steph asked, leading me to the back of the room, where there was a crowd of people gathered.

“I live in a condo.”

“Oh, well, I don’t think that would work. We do have some pugs.”

“Pugs!” my cousin squealed.

“Gracie, Hudson’s already on edge. You showing up with yet another pug could push that poor man right over the side of the cliff.”

“There’s no harm in looking, right?” she asked as we pushed through the onlookers.

The crowd parted.

“It’s him.”

“Yeah, that’s the husky,” Steph said, confused, as a goofy-looking husky puppy in his awkward teen phase loped over to me, bowling over several corgis.

“No, him .”

The shelter worker beamed as Ryder scowled at me. “Our local celebrity! He’s here volunteering to help find the animals homes. You should take some photos with him. If you ask nicely”—she lowered her voice—“he’ll let you touch his chest.”

His very bare chest.

“I knew it wasn’t all padding,” Gracie said, sounding a little breathless. “Hudson’s a liar.”

“What a show-off,” I snapped.

Ryder crossed the room toward me, bare arms filled with happy puppies, black jeans low on his waist. A thin line of red boxers showed above the black band and framed washboard abs that matched the freaking Santa hat he was wearing.

“I suddenly feel the need to adopt another pug and maybe have a baby,” Gracie whispered to me.

“I don’t.”

“Are you stalking me?” Ryder said by way of greeting.

“Go to hell.”

“Nice to see you again, Mrs. Wynter,” he addressed Gracie.

“Oh, ha ha! Right, I’m married.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay, you can drop the ‘ma’am.’ I haven’t been married that long.”

“Did you want to see the pugs?” the shelter worker asked Gracie, leading her away.

“Actually, Dakota’s right. Hudson will have an aneurysm if I come home with another, but do you have German shepherds?” My cousin drifted off.

Ryder and I stared at each other. Or rather I stared at the parts of his chest that were not hidden by puppies, and he stared at me.

Before I could lay into him to disguise my embarrassment at the earlier rejection, the husky pup rammed his big head against my thighs and latched his sharp teeth onto my purse strap.

“Whoa!” Ryder handed me the three puppies and gently reached down to redirect the husky.

“Now don’t chew on her,” he said softly to the dog as it tried to mouth him. “That’s not how you make friends or get adopted. You’re not in the cute puppy stage anymore. You can’t act this way. We’ve been over this, Dasher. You have to get it together. Think of your future.”

The puppy was almost a full-grown dog—lanky with big paws he was still growing into and ears that would flop over occasionally.

“Frequent flyer?” I joked as the husky tried to climb on Ryder.

“I’ve done a lot of these adoption events, and I always see Dasher.” Ryder sighed. “At one event his previous pet parents even brought him back to abandon him again. He chews, he digs, he never sleeps, he knows how to open the fridge and turn on faucets. But not turn them off.” He grabbed the dog’s big head and shook him gently. “Don’t flood people’s houses.”

“Sounds like he just wants to go home with you,” I joked as Dasher licked Ryder’s face.

“I can’t. I don’t have a yard.” Ryder stood up. “I mean. I’ve always wanted a dog. Always. But I’m too busy. I travel. It doesn’t seem right. So I volunteer.” He shrugged one of those massive shoulders.

Then he held out his arms, inviting me to snuggle in them.

Er, no, Dakota. He wanted the puppies back.

“They’re not house-trained,” he warned. “You’re playing with fire with that sweater.” He tapped his bare, drool-worthy, lickable chest. “I think ahead.”

“And here I thought you were going shirtless just to get the ladies all hot and bothered. Mr. Boy Scout does have a little sex appeal after all.”

“There are children here, Dakota,” he scolded mildly. Then his mouth twitched into a smile. “If it’s for charity, I don’t mind giving the people what they want,” the deep voice rumbled.

“Uh-huh.”

He is not attractive , I chanted to myself to the tune of “Jingle Bells.”

“Puppies!” a little girl squealed excitedly as the shelter worker led her and her little brother over to us.

“These are the ten-week-olds I was telling you about. We have three,” Steph was saying. “Oh, and we have Ryder O’Connell!”

“Are you up for adoption?” the little girl’s mother asked with a breathy laugh.

“You’re my favorite hockey player, Mr. O’Connell,” the little boy declared as I carefully set the puppies on the floor.

The kids were immediately in love.

“I guess your dad’s going to be surprised when we tell him we’re going home with two new family members.”

“But there are three of them,” the little girl stated.

“Someone will adopt the third. Everyone likes puppies,” Ryder said, an odd expression on his face. “They’re little and cute. He’ll find a home no problem.”

“Abby, look, puppies! Abby, why aren’t you excited?” the little girl cried.

“Can you just try and be part of the family?” a man was saying to a tween girl dressed like Wednesday Addams as they made their way over.

“Sorry.” The harried father apologized as the two younger kids glommed onto him yelling, “Daddy!”

Ryder watched.

I didn’t know what to call his expression.

“Mom, can we go?” Abby sighed, annoyed.

“Did you find a cat?”

“Puppies!” her younger siblings cried.

“I wouldn’t recommend getting a cat with those two puppies,” Steph told the family. “That might be setting all the animals up for failure.”

The mom looked between her kids guiltily.

“Look, there’s Ryder O’Connell.” The little boy tugged on the tween’s skirt then raced to Ryder. “Look! He’s here, and he’s real! A puppy and Ryder. This is better than Christmas. I don’t even need a list for Santa.”

“Ugh. Who cares about hockey?” The tween rolled her eyes.

“Very few people not residing in cold climates,” Ryder told her mildly.

That earned him another eye roll.

“So they get whatever they want?” Abby snapped at her mom. “Cool, cool. Just take the dogs, and let’s go.”

“Maybe an older cat that’s good with dogs?” Ryder suggested to the shelter worker, who made a face.

“That’s against our policy. Maybe at the next adoption, when the puppies are older, you could adopt a cat?”

“The puppies will be fun,” the dad begged his oldest daughter.

The third chubby puppy stumbled up to the girl, climbed on her boot, and flopped down, sprawled out. Then his tongue lolled out, and he licked her boot buckle and wagged his stubby tail.

You could see the mask crack in real time. Abby gave in and bent down. The puppy nosed her fingers.

“Do you want a puppy?” her mom asked anxiously.

“He is black.”

The puppy wiggled his round bottom happily and licked her hand like she was his best friend. The girl giggled. “Okay, I mean if no one else wants him, I guess,” she said, cradling the puppy.

“What are you going to name him…” The family, arm in arm, drifted off to sign the paperwork.

Ryder stared after them.

I finally knew what that expression was—longing.

He swallowed hard and looked down at the husky. “See? Shape up, and that will be you soon,” he told the dog. Ryder seemed a little sad.

“Hey, you got three dogs adopted,” I said, suddenly wanting to cheer him up.

“He did better than that,” a shelter worker said. “He’s helped us clear out eighty-five percent of the kennels today! And we had someone ask about Dasher. They’re going to take him on a test walk, see how he does.”

“Awesome news!”

“This could be your lucky day. Don’t blow it,” Ryder warned the dog, who was wigging out now that the shelter worker had snapped a leash on his collar. Ryder knelt down in front of Dasher. “Good luck out there, okay?” The big hockey player gave the dog a kiss on the snout. He seemed tired when he stood up, the skin around his eyes tight.

“Go on a date with me,” I said abruptly.

That was enough to shock him out of the melancholy.

“A date?” He frowned. “Girls don’t ask guys out on a date.”

“I think they have to if the guy can’t get his shit together, Boy Scout.”

“Why do you want to go on a date with me?” he asked, turning away.

I followed the muscular back. “I don’t.”

He looked back over his shoulder.

“What I want is to have rough casual sex with you, forget your name in the morning, then three days later surprise you at work with a pregnancy scare until I remember that we did anal and actually I just ate two-week-old Mexican leftovers and will be facing the consequences of my actions.”

He looked horrified. “We’re not doing any of that. None of that is appealing.”

“You’re not a virgin, are you?” I said accusingly, poking him in the middle of his rock-hard abs.

“No! I had a girlfriend. In fact, I’ve had lots. Well, some. A handful. One of them was serious-ish. We might have gotten married.” He was on the defensive.

“Let me guess. She lives in Canada, and I wouldn’t know her.”

“She’s real.”

“Yeah, not surprising she dumped you then.”

A scowl marred the handsome face. “Now I really don’t want to date you.”

I picked up a Sharpie from one of the information stands and uncapped it with my teeth. Then I grabbed his wrist and scrawled on the muscular forearm, which had no right to be that erotic, I mean, really.

He didn’t pull away as I wrote the name of a café and a time.

“I’m going to be at the Noelle Noshery at five thirty p.m. Show up or don’t.”