Oscar chuckled, but he shook his head. “No, that’s not it. I asked him out for a drink last night, but he turned me down. He said he had plans. I can’t remember the last time he had plans.”

“Maybe he had a date,” Sophie suggested.

Harrison snorted, recalling her ridiculous Tinder suspicions from earlier, but Oscar turned to her with interest. “You think? I was wondering the same thing.”

“Wait—what?” Harrison asked.

“Um.” Sophie was careful not to meet Harrison’s eye. “It wouldn’t be too weird, would it? I mean, he’s not that old.”

“Old, no. A miserable old bastard, yes.”

“He has been looking awfully…sunny lately,” Oscar admitted. “And when I went to visit him at the bar a few weeks back—you know, Harrison, when you said he’d gone out early in the morning—he wasn’t there. Meg says she’s been seeing a lot less of him these days.”

“Aw. Maybe he feels sunny,” Sophie suggested.

Both Oscar and Harrison laughed at that.

“Sorry, Sophie, but Wallace Parks hasn’t been anything but doom and gloom since VHS tapes stopped being a thing. Come to think of it, Harrison, neither have you.”

There was Oscar’s look of suspicion again, all narrowed eyes and furrowed brow.

“He’s not wrong,” Harrison said with a grunt designed to allay suspicion. “Digital streaming is just another way for the government to keep tabs on your movements.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is either way. He’s a grown man. If he wants to date someone and be happy, I think he should do exactly that.” Sophie reached for Harrison’s shoulders in a move he misinterpreted as a gesture of affection. He stiffened, but she only reached for the buckle of his sling strap to unhook the dog.

The effect of this exchange, however, seemed to work wonders on Oscar’s suspicions. Harrison and Sophie laughing together might put up all his red flags, but Harrison awkwardly shying away from any and all physical contact was right on par with what the man expected from him.

He stood still and let Sophie finish extracting the dog, careful to look as unpleasant and annoyed as possible.

“What are you doing with her?” he asked with a quick glance at his watch. “It’s nearing five o’clock—quitting time. Unless you wanted to run through those training exercises one more time, we should be done for the week.”

“Oh, I know,” she said with her usual cheerful calm—that same cheerful calm that disregarded everything he said and did. “But I’d like her to explore the training grounds once or twice while not attached to you. You don’t mind, do you, Oscar?”