“How long do you think she’s been gone?” Christian asked, interrupting Becca’s terrible train of thought. At six foot four, he towered over her, his upper body ripped from countless hours in the gym, though Becca noticed with a bit of satisfaction the hint of a potbelly pushing through beneath his uniform. It seemed his love of beer and pizza outweighed his quest for the perfect LA physique.

Becca hesitated, a deep crimson staining her cheeks. “I’m not sure. I had a few glasses of wine and fell asleep on the couch. I didn’t hear anything. Not a sound. I shouldn’t have…” She couldn’t even look at Christian. What a disaster she was.

“Hey, don’t do that. None of this is your fault. It’s just.” He stopped, his eyes scanning the room. “Where’s Freud?” he asked.

The lump in Becca’s throat made it difficult to speak. She swallowed hard, her words taking on a strangled quality. “Ash took him.”

She held out the note. Christian held on to it, reading it carefully. “Fucking hell. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down.”

Becca didn’t disagree. “Chris, I don’t understand. Ash knows how much Freud means to me,” Becca said. She wasn’t even a dog person. At least not until Freud showed up. Her mother was a neat freak, always said animals were too dirty. As she got older, she told herself they required too much time and attention. It wasn’t until four years ago, right after the second miscarriage, when Christian came home, carrying a malnourished pit bull puppy he found hiding under the porch of a meth den in North Hollywood. He assumed, mistakenly, that it might cheer Becca up.

“A puppy?” she said scornfully. “You brought me a puppy?” As if a dog were some substitute to a having child of their own. Furious, Becca retreated to the bedroom, locking Christian and the dog out. She was no match for Freud and his full-court press. He was relentless, brushing his wet nose against Becca’s hand, demanding to be petted, whimpering until she invited him up on the bed or the couch, following her everywhere she went. She didn’t know it, but the second Christian carried that puppy through her front door, Becca was a goner. Of course she endured an endless amount of teasing from her colleagues. “You have a dog named Freud,” they said, amused she’d named her dog after one of the world’s most famous analysts.