I’m not sure how it ended up this way—Eli, Conor, and I, together at the vet like a big happy family, then riding back home in the ever-present red Fiat. “Can you lower your window?” I ask. After a rocky start with the car, Bitty is climbing over my lap, showing some interest in the outside. “There’s no button back here.”

Eli looks back at me, elbow leaning out of the window. “When we were young, car windows had to be manually cranked down. And it was a big pane.”

“Please, not the dad jokes.”

“You didn’t like it?”

“Nope.”

“I’m shattered.”

I groan. “I’m begging you.”

“Hi, Begging You. I’m Eli.”

“Okay—Conor, could you please pull over? Bitty and I are walking home.”

Eli sighs. “And here I was, thinking you were cracking up.”

When we get back, Paul is on the patio, working at his laptop. Conor steps aside to take one of his big important money calls, and Eli and I decide to document Tiny and Bitty’s shameless reunion lovefest. They have been apart for less than forty-five minutes.

“If you change your mind, I’ll take him,” Paul offers after a while. “I’ve always wanted a dog.”

I look up from my canine masterpiece of a photo shoot. “What? No way.” It must have come out a little aggressive, because he looks at me befuddled, but I don’t back down. “Get in line, Paul. If anyone who’s not Tiny gets Bitty, it’s me.”

“He’d be closer to Tiny, with me,” Paul quips back, teasing, flirty, and I’m genuinely outraged. There was a time, when I was eleven or twelve and so lonely that I could feel it in my bone marrow, that I dreamt of some kind of serendipitous meeting like the one with Bitty. I’d rescue a pet, and we’d be inseparable forevermore.

Middle school fantasies die hard, and Paul is not getting this dog. “No, he wouldn’t. Plus, he likes me.”

“California’s a lot closer to Texas than Massachusetts. It would be easier to visit—”

To his credit, he immediately realizes that he fucked up. It must be my expression—the way I’m staring at him like I plan to vacuum his heart out of his mouth.

“I…Warren—we had a call this morning. He mentioned that you formally refused Sanchez’s offer. I assumed that…”

“What?” Eli asks.

Paul flinches. “Oh, crap. I’m sorry.”

I don’t relax my glare.

“I didn’t—I figured that if I was told, I must be the last one to know.”

My eyes narrow to slits, and he takes a few steps away, clearly terrified of me. “I can’t believe I used to have a crush on this guy,” I mutter to myself.

“In your defense, you were very young,” Eli says dryly. “Now, if we can go back to the major life decision you forgot to share with the class…”

“It’s not like that.”

“Did you turn down Sanchez’s offer?”

I try to stop my throat from convulsing. “I was going to…I was waiting till after the wedding to tell you.”