“Oh, I got it. It just wasn’t, you know, funny.” I realized that he was teasing me in that sardonic tone of his, and it both annoyed and thrilled me.

Although the van had a high ceiling, Noah still had to duck when he got in and stand with his head slightly tilted. Magnus was sniffing everything in sight, and I shut the door behind us.

And realized just how tiny the space was with the three of us in it. I felt pressed to fill the silence with words. Any words. “Part of the benefit of using a mobile service like mine is that Magnus will have a chance to check this all out and get comfortable before we do anything. I’ll also play with him for a little while and give him a belly rub and a treat, so that he’s comfortable with me, too. There’re no other dogs here, no scents or sounds that will stress him out. Hopefully it’ll be an enjoyable experience for him.”

He nodded and reached for one of the knobs on the cabinet closest to him. “Sounds good. Did you always want to be a dog groomer?”

“Like, since I was a little kid? No. My mom wanted me to be an accountant, and that’s what I was studying in college, and then Shelby, the friend I mentioned earlier? You met her the other night. Her fiancé’s mother is the one who ran the seat-filler thing for the awards show.” I was veering into babbling territory and got myself back on track. “Anyway, a few years ago, Shelby got sick with acute lymphocytic leukemia, and it changed everything for me. One day I was looking at her lying in a hospital bed and it just hit me—what was I doing? I didn’t want to be an accountant. Life was too short. I wanted to do something I loved.”

“That makes sense,” he said.

Magnus finished his exploration, and I sat down on the floor next to him and gave him a treat. I started scratching behind his ears, which he seemed to enjoy.

Noah was watching me, as if expecting me to go on, so I did. “Anyway, I tried a bunch of different things for a couple of years. And I realized that I didn’t want to work in an office. I wanted to be my own boss, making my own schedule. My mom owns a housecleaning business and I was temporarily working for her, and she had this client who had bought this van for his third wife who wanted to start her own business, but it turned out she didn’t like animals. And I’d always loved dogs. So I offered to buy the van and he sold it to me at a discounted rate. I pay him monthly installments.”

“Was your mom disappointed?”