I’m tired on the drive home. It’s late when I finally pull into the parking lot of my apartment complex. Avoiding Tathan is hard work, and I’m exhausted at the mere thought of doing anything else tonight.

The moment I’m out of my car, I remove my shoes as I walk down the hall toward my apartment. I hate shoes and wear them as little as possible. Being in Arizona, it’s hot as balls most of the time, it’s fairly easy to go without shoes.

He probably hears my keys when I’m opening the door, but the very second the door’s cracked open, my chocolate shoe-eating lab puppy, Oliver, practically launches himself through the air at me. It’s my standard greeting from him for the last four weeks since I brought him home. I have to say, it’s nice to have someone that excited about your return. Dogs are good for something.

Oliver and I go about our nightly routine, me loving on him, and then me cleaning up his messes he’s made throughout the day. He chews everything, but I guess that’s what puppies do. He’s twelve weeks old and a little monster. Our nightly routine consists of him licking me all over, me walking him until he’s almost comatose, and him peeing about a dozen times. Then it’s time for his dinner, which is essentially useless because he just knocks over the bag and gets it himself, so I don’t bother; I only knock it over for him. He eats like a cow, and I have absolutely no idea where he puts it all.

Zane has Oliver’s sister, and she’s totally calm. She likes to sleep all day and is prissy as hell. I got the hellion of the litter. I think subconsciously the breeder must have known I needed some excitement in my life and gave me Oliver.

I will say having a puppy is a lot like having a child—so everyone tells me—and I’d have to agree now that I’m the mother of a puppy.

Having a puppy is nothing like I expected.

SINCE IT’S A Thursday night, I don’t have a lot going on. These days it’s clear I have no life outside of this dog, planning Casey’s wedding, and my life-affirming job of getting coffee for slackers.

And that’s depressing too.

I do, however, look over some wedding magazines Zane gave me and dream that maybe someday I might find a man worthy of getting me in a white dress. That’s the thing about weddings, they always make you think about your wedding day. At least it’s where my mind has been venturing to lately. It’s depressing.

From the time I was around seven, I’ve dreamed of my wedding in detail. Everything from the dress to the cake and anything in between. Now all I need is the guy.

The thoughts make me think of Tathan, which annoys me because I don’t ever want to think of that man and me together in that way.

Who am I kidding? My mind totally went there.

As Oliver and I lay on the floor playing with his chew toys—an old pair of my heels he’s insisted are now his—I hear a door open in the hall.

Scrambling along the floor in full-on stealth mode, I crack the front door to see Tathan’s now home.

Did I mention Tathan lives next door?

Yet another reason my social life sucks.

Not only am I afraid to leave at night in fear he’ll see me, but I’m also silently obsessed with his life and who joins him in that apartment.

Which, to date, hasn’t been a single woman. It tells me he doesn’t bring them home to his bachelor pad, probably bangs them in their car. Or worse, bathrooms.

Did I mention he has to have Chlamydia if knocking boots in a bathroom stall is his method of foreplay? No class. I convince myself he has absolutely no class.

As he’s opening his door, I notice his mail in his hand, which probably has some of mine in it.

Here’s another reason why I can’t stand him. He steals my mail so I have to go to his apartment to get it.

In this day and age with locking mailboxes, you’re probably wondering how this is possible. Me too! I don’t know how it happens, or how he hasn’t been arrested. Isn’t stealing mail a federal offense?

Watching him retreat behind the door of his apartment, that’s when it hits me, staring out across the hall. I should be making him as miserable as he’s making me.

Why I hadn’t thought of this earlier is beyond me. Seems so brilliant.

What if I can make him miserable? Maybe then he’ll stop asking me out?

“How though?” I stare at Oliver as if he holds the answer to my question.

He gives me those pretty blue eyes that droop down and make you fall in love with him and licks my cheek. Puppies are ridiculously adorable.

Unfortunately, Oliver doesn’t answer me, but I hold him up in front of me so I can look at him. “Oliver, how come I never thought of this before?”

He wiggles in my arms as though each word I’m telling him lets him know he’s the best puppy in the world.

“It’s a genius plan. I can make him just as miserable and then maybe he’ll leave me alone.”

Where do I begin?

He already annoys the fuck out of me on a daily, hell an hourly, basis. I need to dream up something epic to mess with him so he will stop asking me out.

And then, like a lightning bolt scattering across the sky, it seems so obvious. Craigslist ads. I could post more and make his life miserable.

Now there’s an idea.

Setting Oliver down, I scramble to my computer, and immediately I get online and make a post that his car is for sale. I leave his cell number I stole from our employee files the other day. I knew it’d come in handy someday.

After this one, I’ll wait a few days and post another ad for someone looking to hire a pool boy, then another one wanting to adopt cats because why wouldn’t he want to be surrounded by pussy all the time?

You may think I’m crazy, and that’s debatable at this point, but if you ask me, I’m a motherfucking genius is what I am.