Sawyer
“Did he respond yet? Did you get an email from the Master?” Cooper’s excited voice called out from the kitchen, and my stomach leaped into my throat.
We had.
But just the start of it made my heart sink. Not for me—I hadn’t really thought it would work out anyway, but Cooper…he was going to be heartbroken. Oh, he might smile and tell me how it would happen next time, but I knew inside it would weigh on him.
Thank you for your interest, but…
Just the preview of the email screamed out that he didn’t want us. Maybe he’d say something about other applicants or not accepting anyone else at that moment, but it would all boil down to the same thing—two pups were a lot of work.
I knew it was a big emotional commitment too. We’d done enough research to see how close a master and pup could be. It wasn’t like we were going into the lifestyle blindly. Masters could picture getting to know one and training them but two…that meant drama and stress in most people’s minds.
They didn’t understand that Cooper and I weren’t like that.
Maybe if we’d started this when we first got out of high school, it would have been different, but now we were a family. How could I be jealous of their relationship when I’d have one with him too? We were so different, it wouldn’t be the same thing.
Cooper would want to have Master throw the ball for him or play, and I wanted someone to curl up with. Someone to cuddle who would pet me and—
“Have you checked yet?” Cooper’s head popped out around the doorframe. “Sawyer?”
“What?” It took me a second to process what he was saying. “The email?”
Internally, I sighed. I didn’t want to tell him that we’d gotten the reply. I wanted to protect him from whatever rejection was in the email, but I knew it wouldn’t work. We’d made a vow when I’d first found out about the puppy stuff that we weren’t going to lie to each other. Family didn’t lie.
At least, our family didn’t.
“Yes!” He grinned, shaking his head at me. “Dinner’s almost ready. Did you check?”
Cooper glanced down at the laptop in my hands, and I could see him barely holding back a little happy dance. We’d saved for months for the computer, and finally being able to walk into the store and buy it made him so excited it was like watching a football player do a touchdown dance.
Except my excited guy was a lean little twink, not a big hulking athlete.
“Yes, I haven’t opened it yet, though.” And I didn’t want to, but Cooper already knew that.
“It doesn’t matter if we can’t do it. Maybe it’s too expensive, or he’s already full. We tried, and we started planning the next step. That’s what matters. It’s like going out for job interviews. You keep trying until you find the right company.” Cooper had endless faith that things would work out.
When we were living in the rent-by-the-week roach motel, I was counting down the hours until we were living on the street, but he was always so positive it made me crazy some days. Now I counted on it and held it close. Things had finally started turning around for us, and I wanted to believe they could just keep getting better.
It was hard to believe.
Cooper bounced across the room. He didn’t see it, but it was like his puppy persona was so close to the surface it would leak out when he was doing everyday stuff. I thought it was why he was so popular at the coffee shop where he worked. People loved the innocent excitement that radiated from him.
“Let me see.” He grinned and curled up next to me on the couch, wrapping his body around mine.
Once we’d crossed the line from friendship to more, he went from having a small bubble of personal space near me to none at all. It was like once he knew it was okay, he held nothing back. I leaned into him and turned the laptop so he could see.
“Oh. That doesn’t sound good.” He sighed. “But maybe he’ll know a master who’s looking for pups.”
“Maybe.” Clicking on the email, I mentally prepared myself for what was coming.
Dear Sawyer and Cooper,
Thank you for your interest, but there was a mix up between my business and another separate ad that was not related to my company. I run a traditional dog training center, not one that caters to alternative lifestyles. I am very sorry about the problem. It was not intended to be advertised that way, and the incorrect ad has been taken down.
This is usually where I’ve been stopping these emails, but I just wanted to say that your letter was very sincere. I know that if the right person had seen your email, they would have been interested in getting to know you both. You look like a cute couple, and I’m sure you’ll find what you’re looking for. This whole experience has made me think, and I want to thank you for that.
Sincerely,
Jackson Kent
Riverwood Training Center
Well, I wasn’t expecting that.
“He’s a real dog trainer?” Cooper blinked at me and turned to read the email again. “Like real dogs?”
“Evidently.” Part of me wanted to laugh. Maybe it wasn’t the right response, but knowing that he wasn’t rejecting us because of anything personal was a relief. We weren’t dogs. We liked to pretend we were puppies, but no amount of pretending would magically change that.
Cooper clearly wasn’t sure what to think. He kept glancing back and forth between the screen and me. “I wasn’t expecting that.”
“Me neither.” The initial Facebook ad had come up in some groups we belonged to, and it had been worded a little weirdly, but it’d looked interesting, so we’d thought we’d try.
“I guess we need to do more research next time.” Cooper was still frustrated, but his growing smile showed that his normal cheer was starting to push its way to the surface. “He must have been shocked. It sounds like we weren’t the only people who contacted him. Can you imagine how horrified he probably was?”
Copper giggled and relaxed his head on my shoulder. “He was very polite, though.”
“He has a real business, so he doesn’t want to look bad.” The last thing the guy wanted was angry, kinky people raising hell online.
Shaking his head, Cooper pointed to the screen. “It’s more than that. He said we’re a cute couple and that someone else would’ve loved to have met us.”
Okay, so that was more than a polite rejection. “We are cute.” Cooper laughed, so I kept going. “Maybe we’re so cute we turned him gay.”
Giggling, Cooper nodded. “Maybe we’ve turned him gay and made him curious about being a master?”
I had to smile. “We probably turned him gay, but he’s going to be a pup too.”
Cooper groaned and turned his face into my neck. “Now you’ve jinxed us. I’m going to blame it on you if he turns out to be another new pup too.”
I set the computer on the couch beside me and pulled Cooper into my arms. He sighed and cuddled deeper into me. Just by the way he moved, I knew he was closing his eyes and relaxing. He could fall asleep almost anywhere once he stopped moving.
It still amazed me that after everything he’d been through, he was still so sweet. He didn’t let things make him bitter or angry. He just accepted problems and truly knew that they would get better. Wrapping my arms around him, I thought back to the first time I met him.
The first day of high school was overwhelming and frustrating. It was a huge building that pulled from a couple of different middle schools, so it was a sea of people, and I couldn’t find anyone that I knew.
Not that I’d had many friends.
I knew I was gay early, and I also knew what people in my neighborhood would have thought, so I kept most of the other kids at a distance. Space kept me from worrying about people finding out, but as I pushed my way through the crowds, what I wanted more than anything was one familiar face.
What I found was Cooper.
He’d been a skinny little thing that hadn’t gotten a growth spurt yet and looked like an easy target for the bullies. Something about him just screamed out that he wasn’t as “macho” as the other guys. Nothing made it obvious he was gay, but I knew by looking at him.
The first time I saw him, there were a handful of bigger guys watching, clearly getting ready to pounce. Cooper had no idea what to do and was staring as they got closer. They were probably going to give him a good scare, but he was like some kind of frightened rabbit. I couldn’t stand there and watch it happen.
Walking up behind him, I grabbed his shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “You didn’t wait for me, Cooper. Come on, we’re going to be late.”
Giving the guys a long stare, I steered him down the hall. I wasn’t that tall, but I was stocky and had grown up on the wrong side of town. I knew how to make it obvious I wouldn’t put up with shit. Not from them at least. I’d seen scarier. These guys were just jocks with too much time on their hands and too little brains.
Once we’d made it around the corner, I’d stopped and tried to give him a reassuring smile. “You okay?”
It didn’t seem to work.
He frowned at me and shrugged before charging in with his questions. “How did you know my name? Did we go to school together last year? Did you see how tall those guys were? What do you think they were doing to do? Do you think I’d really fit in a locker? Some guy said that when I first walked in.”
I remember thinking he was like a bouncy chipmunk, but looking back, a yappy puppy would have been a better description. “Your name is on your backpack.”
He stopped. “Oh.”
I wasn’t sure if his parents were trying to make him a target of every bully out there or if they were just that stupid. I should have walked away, but something about the expression on his face and how he made me feel pulled at me.
From that point on, we’d been inseparable.
The feel of his breath on my neck pulled me out of the memories. “Hey, if you go to sleep now, you’re going to be up too early tomorrow.”
“But…”
“Oh no. I’m not finding you flicking channels at three o’clock in the morning again.”
“That was a long time ago.” His relaxed voice made me want to curl up in bed with him. We’d both had long days.
“It was last week. I found you watching infomercials on cooking gadgets.”
“Oh, that’s right.” He groaned as he sat up blinking at me with half-lidded eyes.
“And you haven’t eaten dinner yet.”
He smiled, and it looked sweet and sleepy. “I made dinner. It’s done. That’s what I came out to tell you.”
“It smells great.” The list of things we could cook was pretty basic, but neither of us had any lessons when we were younger. And for a long time, we’d barely had money for mac and cheese. But we were getting better.
“It’s spaghetti, but this time I put sausage in the sauce and made garlic bread.” He grinned. “It’s not even burned.”
That was better than last time then.
“I’m sure you did a great job.” Standing, I grabbed his hand and pulled him up with me. “Let’s go eat. I’m starved.”
“Did you guys work through lunch again? I think you had an easier schedule when you were still out in the field.”
He was probably right. But my job now paid a hell of a lot better. “We’re just behind on the project. The client keeps changing their mind about how the garden needs to look. We’ve gone from formal and low maintenance to casual with an overgrown feel, and now they want us to look at making it ‘sustainable’ and listed off all kinds of environmental buzz words they don’t know anything about. We told them we only used native plants and that we were conscious of how we planted things. Joshua is going in tomorrow to have a sit-down with them and show them another set of plans.”
I might have started out mowing lawns and digging holes for ugly bushes, but it wasn’t long before my hard work was noticed. Within six months of going to work full-time for the landscaping company, I’d caught the attention of one of the office guys who actually put the plans together for the bigger jobs. Another couple of months had me out of the yards and into the office.
It had been long months of sleepless nights and worries that I wasn’t going to be able to take care of us, but once we hit that point, everything turned around.
Cooper frowned as he started walking with me toward the kitchen. “You need to make sure they realize how many hours you’re working in a row. You didn’t get lunch a couple of days this week. At least take a sandwich or something just in case they do it again.”
He worried about me and it was so cute, but even after four years, I’d never gotten used to it. Living with my dad growing up meant I learned to get by on my own pretty fast. No one had ever followed behind me and made sure I’d eaten lunch or gotten enough sleep. Accepting it, and understanding it was his way of telling me he was thinking about me, had been one of the hardest things to realize when we’d first started living together.
“You’re right. I need to keep some snacks in my desk too. At least until things calm down.” Spring and summer were our busiest times of the year, and I was waiting for fall when things would start to relax. “Will you put that on the list, so we can remember to grab a few things at the store this weekend?”
Having enough money to randomly add stuff to the grocery list was still pretty new.
Cooper nodded, then frowned at the stove. “We need to work on that tomorrow. I want to see if we can come up with some different things to cook.”
“Are you getting tired of spaghetti?”
He sighed. “Yeah. It was fine when that was all we could afford, but now we’ve got a real food budget, and I want to find some other stuff to make.”
If he wanted us to figure out how to cook, that was what we would do. “How about we look for some recipes online later and find a few to try out?”
Cooper stepped close and wrapped his arms around me. “Thank you.” Giving me a kiss, he pulled back and smiled. “I think it’s going to work out.”
“Dinner?”
“No.” He laughed. “Finding a master and…just everything. We’ve both got good jobs and a savings account now, and this is the next step. I just know it.”
Giving him a kiss on his forehead, I smiled. “We’ll figure it out. Now, are you going to feed me or not?”
I might not have been as convinced it would be perfect as Cooper was, but I wasn’t going to burst his bubble. His never-questioning faith that our life would work out kept us going through some rough times, and I wouldn’t forget that.