Chapter Four
Tennyson
“You’re back early.” Pops swung the door open and hugged me. “Usually it is a few months between your returns. Was Canada that awful?” He stepped out of my way and I walked in, pulling my backpack off of my shoulders and zipping it open as I took a seat.
“Canada was fine. Cold this time of year or colder than I expected anyway, but fine.” It had been, too. It was me who wasn’t. The entire time, no matter how exciting the day or fascinating the night, I found myself itching to be home in my crappy apartment. It was so unlike me.
“So you ran out of money, or is fine code for sucking?” I’d long since accepted the fact Pops had a vocabulary uncommon among his contemporaries, but that didn’t stop me from letting my jaw drop open and feigning shock at his turn of phrase.
“No, it was fine. I just wasn’t into it. I did bring back presents.” I dug in my bag, happy for the distraction.
“Frilly things won’t make me forget to grill you, young man.” He laughed, sitting beside me, his boot thunking the coffee-table leg.
“How long you gonna need that thing?” I pointed to his boot with my chin.
“They told me I could take it off at night but to keep it on during the day. I can walk Gizmo now.” His chest puffed out a bit at the accomplishment.
“Where is he? I assumed he was with the dog walker.”
“Naw, he’s getting groomed. He has a hot date today.” Pops held out grabby hands.
“Impatient much?” I teased as I handed him the present that had become our tradition.
“This might be the cutest one ever.” He beamed as he held up the mini teddy bear complete with Canada sweater. I never understood why he loved those silly things, but he did, and I was always sure to bring him one, going so far as to commission the older woman who ran the hostel I stayed at in Panama to knit me a tiny sweater when I’d been unable to locate one.
“It might be,” I agreed, loving how the little bear held his own little moose stuffie. “I also brought you something else.”
I pulled out the bag of Mars bars.
“I don’t know why it is so or what it is about these that makes them different, but they are twenty times better from Canada than from the US.” He immediately opened the bag, unwrapped one, and popped the mini bar into his mouth making exaggerated yummy noises as he did.
We sat there and chatted about my trip—all the places I went and the dinners I ate. Pops loved to live my travels through my stories, especially as they related to food and men.
Unfortunately, this trip, I had no stories of men for the poor guy. No, I only had one man on my mind, and I hadn’t managed to get his last name, just the name of his dog and where he liked to walk the little guy—or at least walked him that day.
“So, no torrid affairs, no fumbling bathroom hookups, no posh hotel rooms with room service?” He fell back against his seat, shaking his head. “The only reason I let you go on these trips is to regale me with stories of youth gone by.”
“Puhleeze, Pops, you are not that old. You just need to get out and find someone to date. And do you always have to bring up that time in the bathroom? Really?” I rolled my eyes right back at him. I’d missed the guy. Being surrounded by people at the hostel and pretty much everywhere I ventured this time around, I still felt alone. There, with Pops, that feeling was less. Not gone, but less.
“You got a concussion while getting a blow job. That’s hard to forget.”
Just then his phone rang.
“Saved by your ringtone,” I teased as I got up to grab his phone. The man still had a landline. Of course he did.
A hello and a few uh huhs later, Pops was hanging up and climbing out of his chair. “You ready, Freddie?”
“Ready for what?”
“Gizmo is about to be dropped off downstairs by that new mobile groomer, and I figured we could take him for a walk afterward.”
“Or I could take him—”
His glare told me we so very much weren’t going there.
“That sounds fun. I’m going to leave my backpack here. There is one more present.” It was a magnet with little old ladies making a sexual innuendo about a Mountie, something I was fairly confident Pops would find hysterical, but a nothing gift to be sure.
“You are trying to distract me from my adventure,” he huffed before grabbing his keys and heading out, turning toward me only long enough to instruct me to lock the door behind me. A walk it was.
The groomer was pulling up to the curb as I made it out the building door. Apparently, Gizmo needed shots this time, and so the groomer brought him to the vet as part of his service. Pops almost reminded me of a puppy, his excitement over having Gizmo back showing not only on his face, but in the way his body almost waggled like a dog’s.
“Are you Gizmo’s daddy?” the person climbing out of the van asked.
“How is my wittle baby?” Pops was messing with the guy. He never talked baby talk to the dog, but it was funny to watch the attendant decide if Pops was teasing or real. He erred on the side of real.
“Oh your wittle bitty baby is so purty.” He handed Pops a receipt. “Look at that polka-dot scarf. So gorgeous.”
The man didn’t know Gizmo at all if he thought that scarf was still in one piece. Unless they put it on three seconds ago, Giz would’ve gone to town destroying that. Sure enough, when the man went inside to get Giz, he brought him back out without his scarf.
“Wooks wike Gizzy didn’t want his wittle scarf after all.”
It was all I could do to contain my laughter at the forced cutesy talk the man was doing in the hope of pleasing Pops.
Gizmo was so excited to see me, he bolted from the man, almost pulling him over.
“Guess you missed me, bud.” I ruffled his head.
“Giz looks great. Thanks.” Pops handed the man a tip.
“Thank you, sir. Oh, and I almost forgot. Here are some coupons to try that new ice-cream place, Just One Lick.” He passed Pops a bunch. Fair to say it had been a good tip.
The man got back into the van after they made arrangements for the next grooming and, as soon as he drove off, we began our walk, in the opposite direction from the dog park, which was Gizmo’s favorite spot next to on the couch by Pops.
“Where are we going?”
“Free doggie ice cream, of course.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out the coupon.
Sure enough, it was for a place that sold ice cream—for both dogs and people. I had officially heard of everything. Not that I’d deny either Pops or Gizmo. Seeing Pops so spry after his surgery had me willing to agree to anything for him, including going to a place that advertised an ice-cream flavor called Pumpkin Spike.