After a few seconds, I rushed back into the apartment. I dialed Luciano—no answer. I tried Bruno’s dogsitter next—nothing. I steeled myself, bent my knees as I slipped my arms underneath him, and put everything I had into it.
It wasn’t enough.
I fell back onto the ground as a sense of helplessness flooded me. I wouldn’t cry. I couldn’t. Bruno needed me to keep a clear head.
For maybe the first time since my breakup with Neal, I felt truly alone. Maybe bad friends and a worse boyfriend were better than nothing at all.
My phone buzzed with a text message from Sebastian. I grabbed it to call him just as Bruno stirred, woke up, and began to squirm.
“Shh,” I said, latching on his leash a second before he jumped off the couch and stumbled toward the door. I didn’t even have time to feel relieved; I kicked the magazines aside on our way out so the door would close as I steered Bruno toward the elevator.
Once we’d boarded, I kneeled to face him. His eyes held either fear, confusion, or both. The lack of recognition made a lump form in my throat. In the strongest, clearest voice I could manage, I said, “Good boy, Bruno.” I touched his warm forehead and swallowed painfully. I wanted to curl into a ball on the ground. To be at the vet five minutes ago. To break down, when I couldn’t even afford to fracture. “Good boy,” I repeated. “I’m here.”
I could get us to the hospital with my eyes closed, but fortunately I wouldn’t need to. When the doors opened, I sprinted for the cab.
It turned out life was full of thin lines. They formed tenuous tightropes between loving and hating, mating and dating . . . life and death. One misstep, one nudge, could knock you from one side to the other before you realized it. Before you were ready.
* * *
I woke up curled onto a cushioned seat with my face smashed against a muscular, denim-clad thigh. My eyes focused on a vending machine as stale coffee perfumed the room. Holy shit. I’d fallen asleep at the vet? I shot upright and cursed when I banged the top of my head.
“Oww, G!” I recognized Luciano’s voice. “What the hell?”
I covered the welt forming and blinked sleep from my vision. “Lu? What are you doing here?”
“You texted me to come.” He rubbed his jaw with one hand. “I found you sleeping all contorted on the chair with your pencil skirt halfway up your thighs.”
“Oh my god.” I yanked it down and threw my face in my hands. “Bruno.”
“He’ll be all right,” Luciano said in an uncharacteristically gentle voice. “He has to be.”
I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”
“Almost eleven. You weren’t out long.”
“I can’t believe I fell asleep. I had such a long day. What if something had happened?”
“They would’ve woken you. Don’t beat yourself up. Bruno will need you when he’s released, so you should rest now.”
I pinched the corners of my eyes until a wave of tears subsided. I hadn’t let myself cry yet. Not with an audience. Not without news. Not when I needed to be strong for Bruno. “I can’t believe this. I thought it was a seizure, but Doctor Rimmel said it’s more likely that he fainted. Something about his heart restricting blood flow to his brain.” I nearly choked on the words. “He’s never fainted before.”
“You’re prepared for this, Georgina.”
I’d frozen up. All Bruno’s life I’d known he could go into crisis, and yet I’d almost messed up. What if the seconds I’d sat there staring had been the difference between saving or losing the brightest light in my life?
“You should’ve seen his eyes,” I said, shuddering. “He looked so scared.”
“I doubt that. I’ll bet with you there, he felt nothing but safe.” Luciano put an arm around my shoulders and kissed the side of my head. “Remember that time I showed up on Halloween in a Freddy Krueger mask and Bruno nearly mauled me?”
I hiccupped, halfway between a sob and a laugh. “I wouldn’t have blamed him. You were hideous.”
“Or how about when he cost me the Wii Tennis championship?”
I nodded against him. Luciano and I had gotten so worked up during the final moments of the last game of our set that Bruno had jumped on Luciano and knocked the controller out of his hands. It was the only time I’d won. “It’s just like you to blame a poor, innocent dog.”
“Right.” He snorted. “Try poor, innocent beast.”
I looked at a clock on the wall across from us. “It’s getting late. I wish they’d just tell us what’s going on.”
“Why was it such a long day?” Lu asked.
He was trying his best to distract me, so I let him, considering the alternative was worrying myself to death. “Where do I start?” I said, sighing. “I slept with Sebastian.”
He gasped. “Julia Roberts in a bubble bath!” he cried. “Warn a girl before you blurt out something like that.”
It felt good to laugh. “I knew you’d get it out of me in the next few minutes anyway.”
He seized my shoulders to push me back into my own seat. “When was this?”
“Last night.”
“Spill everything.”
“Not much to say. It ended about as quickly as it started.”
He grimaced. “Already?”
I caught Luciano up on everything that’d happened since he’d slept over, from Sebastian ambushing me outside my apartment for a faux date to doga in the park to our thwarted spaghetti kiss. And how one of the best days ever had turned into an even better night.
“That sounds like the date of a flipping lifetime,” Luciano said. “How the hell did things go bad?”
I tugged my skirt down as far as it would go. It was too cold not to have tights on, but I hadn’t had a moment to change since work. “When we woke up, I felt guilty for keeping the job offer from him. So I told him.”
He sat back. “Oh. Shit.”
“Yeah. You won’t believe his response.”
Luciano shook his head. “I’m imagining all kinds of curse words. Was he at least clothed when he flew off the handle?”
“He was. I wasn’t.” I picked at my chipping nail polish. “Not that he really flew off the handle at all. I was actually the one who got mad.”
“Did you?” Luciano looked impressed. “Why?”
I dropped my hands in my lap. “I told him I got the offer, but I never said I wasn’t taking it. He just assumed I wouldn’t accept out of loyalty to him. I was ‘too good of a person’ to steal his job, which is more or less the patronizing way he put it.”
“Ah.” Luciano nodded slowly. “And even though you weren’t going to take it, it felt like he expected you not to.”
I nodded. “It all went downhill from there. He said I wasn’t qualified for the job. I accused him of sleeping with me so I’d be easier to manipulate.”
“Jesus, G. Do you really believe he’d do that?”
I twisted the pendant of my necklace. I didn’t think so, but after he’d asked if I was trying to ship him back to Boston, it’d felt like a fair comeback. “Maybe,” I said, because I wasn’t done being angry. “But it doesn’t matter. We’re over.”
“Hmm.” Luciano sighed. “Were you worried it’d become a Neal situation all over again?”
“Obviously,” I said, scratching my temple. Except, even though I’d insinuated Sebastian was like Neal, he’d never really intentionally made me feel like I didn’t matter. Neal had employed manipulation to control me. For a moment, in the breakroom with Sebastian, I’d retreated into a memory of a similar argument with Neal over where to spend Thanksgiving—only in that one, I’d backed down. With Sebastian, I fought. Had I regained my strength, or was it simply that I wasn’t afraid to be myself with him, no matter how hard we argued?
“Actually, Sebastian’s not like that,” I admitted. “I don’t really believe he planned the date with bad intentions. Even though he tricked me into going on it in the first place.”