The front desk is empty, no employee in sight. However, what I’d thought was a pet store actually looks like a shelter. Dogs bark in metal cages behind the front desk, some loud and deep, others sharp and shriek-like.

“I want you to do something for me,” Aaron finally utters as he turns to face me, hands in his coat’s pockets, jaw lined with short stubble. His gaze is warm, something I don’t deserve. He should be pissed at me. He should hate me. There’s no reason for him to look at me like I’m not the bane of his existence.

“Yes?” I croak.

“I want you to act as if you were going to pick a dog and choose the one you’d get.”

I frown. “Why?”

“Humor me.”

This is the strangest Sunday morning I have experienced in my life. I don’t even get where this request is coming from. I’m not in a place to refuse, though. He says I owe him, so I will do whatever he asks, no matter how weird.

Without a word, I start walking toward the kennels. A dozen or so dogs watch me as I look into each of the metal crates. One has a large golden Labrador, barking loudly. Another has a white puppy that looks so much like a young Maybelle, with a similar slow energy, it makes me grin. I pass rows of angry dogs snarling and energetic puppies yapping, until I reach the final crate at the end of the hallway. In it sits an old, cappuccino-colored male. He must be a mix because I can’t pinpoint the breed. Probably has some terrier in him, maybe coupled with some boxer. His ears are floppy, covered with white strands all over.

But it’s not his color or his scraggly, unkempt fur that gets to me. It’s his eyes. All the dogs I’ve seen before have looked at me like they wanted me to take them home with me. He looks at me like he doesn’t deserve to be taken home by anyone. Everything about him screams that he’s old and has gone through a lot. He doesn’t look aggressive or particularly cuddly. Just tired.

“This one,” I say. When I turn to where Aaron was standing, I actually find him much closer to me than he initially was, as if he followed me from a distance while I made my choice. I try to ignore the way he’s looking at me, the same way he did that morning we woke up in the cabin together. The moment he opened his eyes, they shone bright, as if I was exactly what he’d wanted to see first thing in the day. “He’s the one I would pick, if I had to.”