When I was younger, if Austin had to drop me off or pick me up for anything with Teddi, it was always at the end of my driveway. It was really long. I never invited Teddi to my house, and she was understanding, and also never pressed it. Maybe it was that her house was such a hot spot of activity, she didn’t get too curious to see my house.

Of course, she met my parents over the years. Weird times out in the store when we would run into each other, unplanned.

As I searched through the trees to see if I could get a look at my house, I saw movement along the side of the road.

“Stop!” I put my hand on the dashboard. Austin whipped his head in my direction.

“Are you okay?” He focused on the rearview mirror and then eased off the road.

“It’s my dog.” I flung open the door and hopped outside.

I made eye contact with Axel, my black Labrador. Normally, people would expect a dog to be happy to see one of his family members, but that wasn’t the case with Axel.

His giant pink tongue was lolling happily out of his mouth. He had put on the brakes faster than Austin. He gave me a cautious look. Almost a challenge.

“Axel, come here right now.” I pointed at my feet.

I knew things weren’t going to have my desired outcome as he turned his head while keeping his gaze on me.

“Don’t you do it.” I took a step toward him, and soon Austin was out stepping next to me.

“Do you know this guy?” He squatted down. We were a few car lengths away from Axel.

“Intimately.” I took another step closer. “His name is Axel, and if you look closely, you can see he’s dragging his leash behind him.”

Axel gave me a trepidatious tail wag because he knew he wasn’t supposed to go joy riding around by himself. Axel had one hundred percent yanked his leash out of my sister’s hand. I knew this because he had done it to me on plenty of occasions. Axel was amazing at throwing a wrench in a person’s plans.

Once, instead of showing up for my shift at the mall on time, I had to call ahead to tell them I'd be late as I hung part of the leftovers from dinner out my car window to see if he could be baited into coming home.

“Your dog?” Austin tried clapping and snapping.

“Yes. This is one of his favorite games. Run away, find something horrible, roll in it, eat some of it, and then make me come and find him and bathe him. Come here, boy. You’re a good boy.” Axel stuck both paws out and his butt in the air.

“Playtime?” Austin stood next to me.