Unwrapping Hank (10 page)

Hank put one large hand over the two small ones around his neck and stood up, careful not to dislodge the boy. He walked over to the dog, swinging his ‘cape’ as he did. The little boy giggled like mad.

“Hey, Mitz.” Hank squatted down. The dog happily received some pets on its head, licking at Hank’s hand. God, that was a perturbing sight—Hank Springfield with his coat off and flannel sleeves rolled up enough to show the tatts on his arm, his bearded face and broad shoulders contrasting with the innocence of the little boy hanging off him. Hank Springfield making nice with a kid and a dog.

Not fair.

Mitsy’s tail pounded harder as Hank carefully felt her stomach. “Wow, she’s big.”

“Seven pups, we think,” Mrs. Fisher said with a sigh. “Already have homes for most of ‘em.”

“Hey, maybe Sloane could tell us if she’ll have the puppies today. He’s studying to be a veterinarian,” Hank offered.

“Tis so?” Mrs. Fisher said brightly. The kids all started begging me to tell them when the puppies would be born. “Can you tell us?” “Please!” “Will it be today?”

I gave Hank a dirty look. “It’s only my first year of studies,” I hedged, feeling my face heat. “I haven’t gotten to work with any dogs who are giving birth yet.”

“Oh, please!” came the general chorus.

“Oh, please, Sloane?” Hank blinked at me with big blue eyes.

I was going to kill him. I was going to choke him to death slowly with sour cream apple pie.

I felt like a hundred percent phony as I stood up and dragged my ass over to that dog. The amount of actual exposure I’d had to real live animals was sort of humiliating for a vet student. In fact, I’d probably spent more time with Grinch today than I had with any other dog. It wasn’t my fault that my parents never let me have a puppy or a kitten—or even a gerbil. It wasn’t my fault I was raised in the city. I
loved
animals. At least I thought I did.

I knelt down by Mitsy. I let her sniff my hand, which she began to lick after half a second. Like the Springfield’s pack, this was an extremely well socialized dog, and thank God for that. I really didn’t need to be emotionally scarred by being bitten this early in my career.

I looked up into Hank’s eyes, and those of the brown-haired little boy peeking over his shoulder. I put my hand gently on Mitsy’s rounded stomach. Wow. I could feel them. I felt around carefully. I could
feel
the individual pups. That was amazing.

I smiled big at Hank. I focused, trying to count the number of puppies. I thought I felt five distinct forms, but the way she was laying, there were probably a few on the other side. The little boy stared at me over Hank’s shoulder with a solemn expression.

“Will it be today?” the little girl who’d spoken up earlier asked again.

I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but the pups still seemed a bit high up on the mother. I carefully lifted one hind leg and looked at her vulva. It was swollen and pooched out, but it was dry. Wouldn’t there be some fluid if she was close? I gave it my best guess.

“I don’t think it’ll be today,” I said. “But soon.”

“Maybe they’ll come out on Christmas! Like baby Jesus!” one boy of about five said.

Hank and I looked at each other and laughed.

*             *             *

Sloane

We ended up with eight pies that we loaded into the car. The Fishers waved good-bye as we pulled out.

I groaned, really feeling those two pieces of sour cream apple and the rich cream that was in the coffee. “God, we’re going to be so fat when we go back to school. We can save gas and have your dad just give us a shove. We’ll roll there.”

Hank laughed. “We can freeze a couple of pies and take them with us to eat later.”

“So how do you know the Fishers so well?”

Hank shrugged. “Mom. She’s really into the local organic movement. She helped a few Amish farms set up their CSA programs and did a website for them. Do you know what that is?”

I shook my head.

“People pay a fee at the start of the season, like a subscription fee, and they get a box of produce every week. Anyway, we used to come out every week during the summer to help the Fishers pack the CSA boxes. So we got to know them really well.”

“Your mom is bad-ass cool. You know that, right?”

Hank blinked in surprise. “You think so?”

“Of course. She seems young for her age, hip. And she’s into some interesting stuff.”

“Yeah. Anyway….” He glanced in the rearview mirror at the pies. “Once Stan shows up, he’ll probably eat a pie or two by himself.”

“Stan?”

“My best friend,” Hank said with certainty. He didn’t meet my gaze but stared straight out the windshield. It still felt a little like a challenge.

“Okay. I take it he doesn’t go to PSU?”

“He’s at Youngstown State.”

“What’s he like?”

“What do you think?” Hank huffed. “He’s my best friend. Obviously, he’s awesome.”

I felt a twinge of jealousy. I had no reason to be jealous, but it was strange to hear Hank say the words ‘best friend’. He was pretty much a loner at college. He got along fine with most of the guys in the frat house. They all did the ‘yo’ thing when they saw each other, and some of the older guys called him ‘baby bro’ because of Micah. But he didn’t really hang with anyone that I’d seen. Whoever Stan was, he appeared to have Hank’s loyalty. I couldn’t help but wish I had a smidgen of that sauce myself.

“Hey, I know you were trying to torture me with the dog thing, but it was actually interesting,” I said, artfully changing the subject. “I’ve never felt an animal that was so pregnant. Or a human, now that I think about it.”

He shot me a look as we slowly rolled over an old stone bridge. “You were good with her. Nice rug-side manner.”

“And she didn’t talk,” I added.

“True.”

“She did not complain about her weight gain or self-diagnose herself off the web. Yay, dogs.”

“On the downside, she can’t name a puppy after you,” Hank pointed out.

“I can live with that.”

*             *             *

When we pulled into the Springfield’s, there was a strange car in the driveway. It was a souped-up pickup truck in metallic red. Hank yanked Micah’s hybrid into a spot and was out the door before I could even frame a question. He ran toward the back door like an eager puppy. Then he seemed to catch himself and strolled toward it with an even more exaggerated swagger than usual.

The door opened, and a guy our age came out. He was big—as tall as Hank, muscular, and carrying a good extra thirty pounds besides. He looked like a weight-lifter or pro wrestler. He had a short buzz haircut and a full beard.

What was it with Pennsylvania men and facial hair?

Although I found Hank hot the first time I’d seen him, and, well,
obviously
still did, something about this new guy set my teeth on edge. He reminded me of a mean junkyard dog—powerful and giving you no warning before he’d just lunge for your throat.

Of course, I might have been predisposed to dislike this guy, whom I was guessing was Stan.

I got out of the car and grabbed four of the pie boxes from the back. I watched as Hank and the stranger greeted each other. There were no hugs this time, only a fist bump.

Feeling wary, I headed for the house with the pies. The guy looked at me for a second, checked me out rudely, then looked back at Hank with a quirked eyebrow as if to say
What the fuck is this?

“Oh, hey,” Hank said in a gruff voice as I walked by. “Stan, this is Greg Sloane, a guy from our frat. He’s staying with us over Christmas. Sloane, this is Stan.”

I forced a smile. “Hi. I’d shake hands but…” I lifted the stack of pies slightly.

“Hey,” Stan said without even looking at me.

Nice to meet you too.
I went inside.

Hank carried in the other boxes a moment later, and yelled something to his mom about going out. He was excited and didn’t seem to register his mom’s reply that we were decorating the tree that night. He dropped off the pies and was out the door again. He and Stan took off in Stan’s truck.

I guess Micah was right. Hank wouldn’t be around all that much. It was stupid, but I felt… yeah. Like I’d been dumped for a better friend.

I looked down at Grinch, who was sitting as close to me as he could without actually leaning on my legs. He stared adoringly up into my face, a freakishly long tongue lolling out of his mouth.

“I would never abandon
you
like that, would I,” I said in a baby-talk voice. “No, I wouldn’t!”

         ~9~

Hank

“WHERE we goin’?” I asked as we left Main Street behind. It was bitchin’ to see Stan again. But it was a little weird too. Talk about a blast from the past—we’d been best friends through high school and right up until I left for college. Since then, I hadn’t seen much of him. We’d hung out last Christmas, but he’d spent the summer in Ohio. Driving around with him now in his truck was giving me a serious case of deja vu.

Stan tapped the steering wheel restlessly. “There’s a party tonight at Matt Gibbon’s house. Til then we can hang at mine if you want. Or… ya hungry?”

I rubbed my stomach. “Nah. We just picked up pies, and I had a few pieces. But if you want to get something, I’ll go along.”

“Not me. You know my mother. She’s been shoving food down my throat since I got home.”

I did know Stan’s mother, and I could well imagine.

“Wanna work out?” Stan asked.

“Hell yeah. I need it. But I didn’t bring my gear.” I was wearing jeans and a thermal shirt and farm boots. Not the best for training.

Stan reached over and hit my arm. “You can borrow some of mine, douchebag. Might be big on you, though.”

“Shut up.” I hit him back.

“What with your baby muscles and all.”

“Fuck you. I’ve put on two inches in my chest since September.”

“Yeah? We’ll see about that, Arnold. Hey, what’s that fairy doing at your house anyway?”

The question hit me low and fast, like a sucker punch. I looked out the window. “Micah invited him. He’s just a frat guy who didn’t have any place else to go for Christmas break.”

“So you have to put up with his pansy ass all break? That sucks, Dude.”

“Sloane’s okay.” I felt a wave of guilt, like I should be defending Sloane harder. Stan always had been crass about stuff like that. He didn’t like guys who looked effeminate or sensitive in any way. Stan didn’t even know Sloane really
was
gay, but he definitely had that slender, metrosexual, Euro thing going on, and that was enough to make him a ‘fairy’ in Stan’s mind. It bothered me a lot more than it used to. But I kept my mouth shut. There was no point getting into a beef about it.

“We’ll have to dig my weights out of the garage,” Stan said. “My mom turned the spare bedroom into a sewing room this fall. But she said I could still use it over break, I just need to get the weights out and put them back in the garage before I leave.”

“Well, let’s go to my house, then. My stuff’s all set up.”

Stan snorted. “Three words, Dude.
Fag
,
fruitloops
, and
food
.” Stan cracked himself up, chuckling at his own cleverness. Fag was obviously Sloane. Fruitloops—that’s what he called my parents because they were hippies. And he always complained about the lack of snack food at my place. His mom kept a whole cupboard full of Ranch Doritos and gummy bears and Oreos and all kinds of shit my mother would never allow in the house.

I was getting pissed off, and this time I couldn’t be quiet. “You know, you don’t even know the guy. And it’s insulting when you call my parents that.”

“Dude!” Stan threw me a
what the fuck?
look. “You’re the one who started calling them that in high school!”

“Yeah, well, I might have said it once or twice. That doesn’t mean I like hearing you refer to them like that. How would you like it if I called your parents names?”

“All right! Chill!” Stan looked annoyed. “Geez, what crawled up your butt and died?”

“Forget it.”

“I’m just saying they’re weird, right? You know that.”

Your mom is bad-ass cool. You know that, right?
I heard Sloane’s voice in my head, and I didn’t like the comparison. But what the hell did Sloane know about being a guy in Podunk, PA? Nothing. And Stan was right. I guess I did have a bad attitude about my parents in high school. I couldn’t blame my best friend for parroting what I myself had said.

“Well at least dragging your weights around will be a good workout,” I huffed, changing the subject.

Stan reached over and put his hand on my shoulder. “Hey, it’s good to see you, H-man. Lighten up, okay?”

I felt a surge of the warm and fuzzies. “Sorry. Guess I really need that workout.”