He found himself wishing he could show Doggo’s haircut to Sage. She’d been pretty taken with the dog when she’d come back to his place on Friday for their one-night stand. She’d be impressed with how good he looked now. But then on Saturday night after dinner, she’d vanished into that Uber without a second glance. He knew she didn’t want anything serious, but it still would have been nice if they could have hooked up one more time. Now there was no way he could contact her.

He found himself heading towards The Oaks, the pub where he’d met Sage, telling himself it wasn’t because he was hoping to run into her again, but more because he wanted a cold beer, and also wanted to avoid going home to stare at a blank document on his laptop.

He remembered his conversation with Pete about using a dog to pick up women. But he wasn’t really that much in the mood for talking to strangers.

‘Let’s hope The Oaks welcomes dogs,’ he said to his companion as they walked.

*

Thankfully The Oaks was very welcoming to dogs — provided they sat outside. Doggo had settled himself on the ground in the shade of Darren’s table, his tongue hanging out as he panted until someone from the bar brought out a dish of cold water for him along with Darren’s Corona.

He’d only been there about five minutes when a voice from behind him exclaimed, ‘Darren?’

He swung around, grinning. It wasn’t Sage though, it was Claudia, the groomer he’d just picked Doggo up from. The one who’d prejudged him.

‘Sorry, it is Darren, isn’t it?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, hi.’

‘Listen, I wanted to apologise again about earlier. I really shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions. It’s lovely what you’ve done, taking in a stray instead of just handing him into the pound. I really admire that.’

Darren shrugged. ‘It’s really no big deal.’

‘No, no, it is. I know for a fact the local pound is at capacity at the moment. If he’d ended up there, you just don’t know what might have happened to him. It’s so hard to get people to adopt older dogs.’

‘Thank you,’ he said.

‘Can I ask you a question? How come you haven’t named him yet? Jane at work told me “Doggo” is just his nickname.’

Darren dropped his eyes, slightly embarrassed. ‘Well . . . I’m worried that his original owners might still turn up and —’

‘And you don’t want to have named him and made him yours and then have to give him up?’

‘Yeah, I guess so.’

‘That’s actually really sweet.’

‘Or really soft,’ he said.