Take a Chance On Me

Chapter 3 Heart of Glass

If Emma had been alarmed at the sight of Thomas Tobin in a suit, then how could she describe what she was feeling now, seeing him sprawled out in a waiting room chair with disheveled hair, unshaven face, and worried eyes, his powerful legs sticking out of a pair of loose shorts, his broad shoulders and chest draped in a washed-out rugby shirt ripped at the elbows and splayed open at the collar?

Stunned was a good word. Like a doe in the high beams. Like a dieter looking into The Cheesecake Factory display case. Like the love-starved woman she was, looking at the most delectable serving of man she'd ever seen.

Thomas raised his eyes to the door. He scrambled to his feet, tucked Hairy into the crook of his arm like a football, and waited for her to reach him.

The journey across the waiting room played havoc with Emma's sympathetic nervous system. Her mouth went so dry she was afraid she'd dehydrate while her hands were so wet she had to wipe them on her sweatshirt.

She came to a stop and slowly raised her chin. Thomas hovered over her, his blond head lowered, his eyes wary and waiting. "Hey, Emma," he said in a husky whisper.

A bolt of hot lust spiked Emma to the floor through the cork soles of her Birkenstocks. Just a simple two-word greeting in that raspy male voice and she was toast. A goner.

Hairy began to squirm.

"He's got to pee." Thomas began to walk away but suddenly turned and peered at Emma, like a man double-checking the door lock before leaving on vacation. He narrowed one eye. "I'll be back."

Emma wheeled around to watch the Terminator stride out the door, noticing how long his legs were, how much taller he was than her, how much bigger, and how if she wanted to she could reach her arms straight out and they'd be the perfect height to grab on to his tight butt.

She blinked hard and shuddered. What was she-insane? Why the hell did she drive out here-to torture herself? She must be ovulating.

"Your boyfriend's been real worried about his little dog."

Emma spun back the other way. She hadn't noticed there was anyone else in this room, in the world! But an older couple sat on a pair of yellow vinyl chairs just a few feet away, and the woman smiled sadly at her.

"My boyfriend?" Emma was trying to force the haze from her brain. It was one in the morning. She was tired. She was crazy. She was ovulating-how was she supposed to carry on a conversation?

"I'm sorry. Your husband, then?" The woman produced a brave smile and Emma could see she'd been crying. The man had been crying, too.

Emma sank down into the chair next to her. "Actually, I'm the little dog's vet. I'm here to-" She stopped, unsure how to finish and aware it wasn't important anyway. She reached for the older woman's hand, thin and dry in her own. "Why are you here tonight?"

The woman's chin began to crumple and her lower lip trembled. "Leonora-she's our Shih Tzu-didn't come in from the backyard after Letterman."

"I knew right then…" The man lowered his eyes and shook his head. "She always comes in after Letterman."

"She got out under the fence again," the woman said. "We called and called, then went out searching and found her by Frederick Road. There's so much traffic there."

"Do they have her in surgery now?"

She nodded. "The vet already told us not to keep our hopes up. There was a lot of…" The woman's voice broke and she began sobbing. Her husband's arm went around her and he completed her sentence.

"Internal injuries, you know."

Emma knew all too well what happened when a Shih Tzu met a Subaru. She gripped the woman's hand while she cried.

She'd seen countless people grieve for their pets over the years, from macaws to Mastiffs. When a pet died, the sense of loss was profound, pure, and uncomplicated. The intensity of the bond between animal and human would forever awe her.

"I know the vets here will do whatever they can to save Leonora." Emma made eye contact with both the woman and her husband. "But when an animal's injuries are so severe that there's no chance for any quality of life-I'm afraid the most humane thing to do is to stop the suffering."

The man nodded grimly.

"She must be a very special dog," Emma said.

The woman's back straightened and she smiled. "Oh, yes! Leonora's the most wonderful dog we've ever had! She's our third Shih Tzu-only two years old."

The husband reached for his wallet and flipped it open. "Here she is."

He placed a worn brown wallet in Emma's palm, open to a professional studio portrait of a happy little ball of gray fluff. She couldn't help but smile.

"She's a cutie-and I bet feisty, too. Shih Tzus can be a real handful."

The couple began to laugh in agreement, just as Thomas returned.

Emma watched him pass silently through the door and stop, posing like a Viking god in Nikes with no socks, his trusty wheezing sidekick tucked against his side.

Thomas scanned Emma's face, dragged his eyes to where her hand grasped the old woman's, then locked his eyes on hers.

And it happened.

Emma inhaled sharply. Time slammed to a halt. Tectonic plates shifted. Because Thomas Tobin just grinned at her.

He obviously tried to suppress it, but the smile lasted long enough to make his eyes glitter like Christmas tree tinsel and create two deep, heart-stopping dimples at either side of his mouth.

No, this was not exactly the way she'd always imagined it would be-and she'd certainly pictured herself better dressed for the occasion-but who was she to complain?

Emma Jenkins had just officially been swept off her feet.

There was something way too intimate about this, he decided. It felt foolhardy. Dangerous.

It must be because it was the middle of the night, and as he'd seen often enough, the night could conjure up a false sense of intimacy between complete strangers.

Why else would he be sitting in an empty diner drinking coffee and eating blueberry pancakes with a woman he hardly knew, listening to her share details about her life? Why else would he be lulled into telling her anything about his own life? He'd never do that sort of thing in the daylight.

Day or night, in fact, Thomas couldn't remember ever having a conversation like this with a woman he'd just met. He and Emma had been all over the map in the last two hours-college, family, hobbies, work (he'd managed to be sufficiently vague about his job so far), and now she was laughing nervously and explaining that just when she'd decided to separate from her husband, her best friend out in California died and left her kid to Emma to raise.

She tucked a shiny section of hair behind an ear, wiped a drop of coffee off her upper lip with the tip of her finger, and he couldn't take his eyes off her even if he wanted to-even if she had a kid and was on the rebound from a divorce. He simply couldn't stop looking at her.

He'd decided she was more than pretty-she was beautiful. Her hair was thick and straight and fell loose over the top of her shoulders and gleamed under the light fixture above their booth, browns and golds and reds moving in waves, almost as if her hair was alive, breathing when she breathed.

Her eyes were the most delicate blue he'd ever seen. It struck him as ridiculous, but her eyes reminded him of the fuzzy zip-up baby thing he bought for Jack when he was born. Pam put Petey in it when he came along two years later, and the color kept getting softer with all the washing. He remembered how his nephews had felt solid but fragile tucked into his arms, how sweet they smelled after a bath, how new.

Thomas tore his gaze away and stared out the dark window, his heart beating too fast, his chest hollowed out with a sudden sense of emptiness. He looked at Emma again, because he had to.

Her lashes and brows were an almost-black brown, a strange and striking contrast with her light, sleepy eyes. Her nose and cheeks were splattered with faint freckles. As she talked, he studied her mouth, the slight crooked overlap of her two front teeth that struck him as intensely sexy, the way her dark red bottom lip was plumper than the top, the little dip at the center of her upper lip that disappeared when she smiled-which seemed to be all the damn time.

He knew she wasn't wearing lipstick-there wasn't a trace of it on the rim of her white coffee cup. She wasn't wearing any makeup at all, in fact. No fingernail polish. No jewelry. No perfume, just a baseline floral scent that probably came from her shampoo.

She was all natural. All real. And he'd like to rub his hands all over her.

"So, financially, it was a total mess. We invested in the practice as a couple and I guess he deserved his piece, but now I'm in debt up to my armpits and carrying a good portion of the patient load we used to share. Some of the patients did follow Aaron to Annapolis, though."

Her voice was rich with occasional low tones that sounded soothing to Thomas.

"Do you see him often?" he asked.

Emma shrugged. "I saw him Monday-at the lawyer's office. We signed the divorce papers." She waved a hand as if to clear the air. "And occasionally we talk on the phone about cases because we're the only two behaviorists in the region right now. It's kind of a new field-only thirty board-certified practitioners in the country."

"Do you miss him?"

She grimaced, then nodded. "Sure. Sometimes a lot, but there were things that I…" she looked away, not finishing her thought.

Thomas waited. He knew exactly what was coming next.

Emma turned back and smiled. "It was for the best. Let's just leave it at that."

Now that was a surprise. It was clear that this Aaron guy was a real dick-head, but Emma hadn't said one bad thing about him. Nothing. He'd assumed the name-calling was about to start. He'd prepared himself to hear Emma's particular take on the standard male offenses: he was a player; he was unable to communicate; he was a lying, cheating idiot; he did nothing but watch televised sports; he used me as a sex object.

But all Emma had done so far was smile and recite the essentials: they met in an undergraduate zoology course, dated through college, lived together all through vet school, got married in residency, and planned to build a practice and a life together.

Then it fell apart.

The fact that she'd spared him the gory details was so grown-up-and showed such a sense of basic decency-that it was damn near startling.

"What's your little girl's name?" he asked.

Emma's face blossomed with the most perfect smile Thomas had ever seen. "Her name is Elizabeth -we call her Leelee. She's twelve, and she's the smartest and bravest kid on the planet."

The intensity of her response-of her love-startled him. It embarrassed him. He looked away.

That's when he noticed the flutter of a pointy pink ear under Emma's elbow, the only indication that Hairy had accompanied them. The dog had been perfectly silent, tucked down into the well of Emma's baggy sweatshirt, nestled up just below her breasts, sleeping against her belly.

He swallowed hard. Damn dog-how'd he get there first?

"And what about you, Thomas?" Emma tilted her head and grinned, her heavy hair swirling with the movement. "You haven't said much about your job, but right now I've got to tell you, I'm not buying the consultant story. I'm thinking Secret Service, maybe. I can just see you skulking around the White House Rose Garden whispering into your lapel."

"My lapel?"

"Yeah, you know, 'Sector Four Clear, sir!'" She tossed back her head and laughed, her eyes closing in enjoyment.

Thomas took another swig of his coffee and stared at her, amused, then suddenly annoyed. What was he doing here with this woman? He should say goodbye right now, before he spent any more time with her, before he started thinking crazy thoughts. Before he started liking her.

Besides, he was going to be dragging if he didn't get at least a couple hours of sleep. In just five hours he had one of those Saturday-morning "bagel bashings" at the office. Shit. And he had a match later in the afternoon. Shit. He was thirty-seven years old-way too old to stay up all night and then try to play rugby. It was a sure way to get himself killed.

Those were real good reasons to call it a night. But he couldn't. He wanted to look at Emma's smile, hear her laugh, fantasize that maybe she was as decent as she seemed. He needed to live the lie just a little longer. Maybe just a few more minutes.

"And what makes you say that, Emma?" He watched her hand go unconsciously to Hairy's head, where she caressed the dog's little Don King clump of hair.

She had the sweetest hands, tapered and smooth and sure. He remembered the sight of her with the old couple in the waiting room, so kind when the vet broke the news that their dog had died. Her voice had been comforting and soft. She'd held the old woman's hand.

"I'm an animal behaviorist, Thomas, and human beings are animals just like Hairy, here. So I've gotten pretty good at reading people."

You and me both, babe, he thought. "Like you're reading me now?"

She gave him a Mona Lisa smile and tilted her head. "A lot of times I have to start with the pet owner before I can help the pet, so yes, I've been observing you."

"And how do you do that?"

Emma grinned at him again. He wished she'd stop doing that because her grin had a hypnotic effect on him, making him feel like he was falling down some kind of spinning vortex.

"Mmm." Emma leaned back in her booth, still cradling Hairy against her. "Have you ever read any Agatha Christie? Do you know the character Miss Marple?"

"I think so."

"Well, when I was a kid, I couldn't read those books fast enough-I just inhaled them one after another. And the thing that intrigued me the most was how Miss Marple could peg a person just by watching their mannerisms."

Thomas was starting to sweat a little. They had more in common than she could possibly know. "Really?"

"Facial expressions. Body postures. Tone of voice-all the indirect ways people communicate with each other. Sometimes the words being said and the posturing taking place are at opposite extremes-but it's the indirect communication that always tells the truth." She shrugged softly, still stroking Hairy. "As it turned out, I ended up being the Miss Marple of the dog and cat world-an expert in animal communication-which never relies on words."

As she spoke, Thomas analyzed how he was sitting. He tried to relax his shoulders and listen attentively but not too enthusiastically. He mentally calculated the position of his hands, eyebrows, chin.

She laughed again, her powder-blue eyes glittering. "But don't let me scare you, Thomas."

Vortex time again. Thomas lowered his eyes to Emma's baggy Penn sweatshirt in an effort to avoid her gaze. That turned out to be a mistake, because her body nearly screamed out that she was soft and round and female and within arm's reach. The arch of her throat was graceful. Her wrists were small and elegant. He could see her substantial, firm breasts move with each breath. If she was trying to hide, she'd failed. Maybe it was impossible to hide something so lovely.

Just then, Emma reached under the shiny fall of hair to rub the back of her neck and roll her head around. Thomas peeked up to watch, and began to imagine what it would be like to cup her head in his hands when she did that, maybe while she writhed beneath him, moaning his name.

He needed to regain control of this conversation, which should not be a problem, since it was his forte.

"I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not a Secret Service agent or a spy or anything even remotely glamorous. I'm just a lawyer who specializes in human resources-your basic paper pusher."

Emma narrowed her eyes and Thomas could see the doubt behind the pretty blue irises-she wasn't falling for it. This woman was beautiful, sweet, funny, and smart as hell. Thomas was afraid he might be hyperventilating.

"Uh-huh. Just like it says on your new-patient questionnaire." She took a sip of coffee. "So, do you like your work?"

Thomas shrugged casually, trying not to picture the last few times he'd posed as a killer for hire. He tried not to see the pimply seventeen-year-old who gave him six dollars in change and a PlayStation II game to kill his chess team nemesis. Or the guy who needed his wife's fifty-thousand-dollar life insurance policy to buy a Camaro with a sunroof and drive his new girlfriend to Disney World. Or the housewife who got down on her knees in front of his chair and began to unzip his pants, saying she didn't have the money for a hired killer but knew another way she could pay him for his services.

Emma's question echoed in his ears-doI like my job? Sure he did-what's not to like? He prevented the loss of human life. He got scum off the street and behind bars. And the dozen or so people in the world who knew how he made a living told him he was at the top of his game.

"I absolutely love my job."

"And what do you like best about it?"

"The people," Thomas said. "I get to meet fascinating people."

"Of course." Emma took another sip and peered at Thomas over the rim of her cup, clearly amused. "So do you have your own company or do you work with a group?"

Thomas remembered that she was wearing shorts with that sweatshirt and that she had nice legs-not particularly long, but strong and smooth and shapely. No chicken legs on this woman. She said she rode horses-he could picture it. He could picture her riding a lot of things, like the front of his hips.

"A group. We all have our specialties."

"And what's your specialty, Thomas?" Her mouth quirked up provocatively.

He felt a warm tingle shoot through his extremities, hitch a ride along his spine, and settle with a thud in his groin. He had to struggle to recall the details of his standard cover story. "Uh, whatever the situation calls for, really. But mostly I deal with downsizing decisions."

"You axe people." It wasn't a question.

"So to speak."

Emma's eyebrows went up. "You're the guy they call in to do the boss's dirty work. A hired gun."

At that pronouncement, Thomas laughed outright, a sound that shocked him as much as it did Emma. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed like that. It was so loud it woke up Hairy, and the dog's pointy little face popped up over the edge of the table and he yawned.

"That's exactly right, Emma. I'm a hired gun."

She frowned at him. "God, that sounds perfectly awful. No wonder you're so grumpy. I'd be in a bad mood too if I had to do that for a living."

Thomas rubbed a hand over his mouth to wipe away his smile. "Yeah, I guess I'm a little rusty at being the life of the party. My best friend tells me that I've been about as much fun as nail fungus lately."

She laughed, reaching across the table to touch Thomas's fingers where they clasped his coffee cup. She stroked him.

Thomas stopped breathing. He stared down at his fingers under hers, his flesh changed yet unchanged, jumping from the contact yet perfectly still. He hadn't wanted her to do that, had he? He hadn't somehow asked her to touch him using some kind of damned indirect communication, had he?

Emma probably touched everyone-the old woman in the waiting room for instance-and it didn't mean anything special. He raised his eyes from their fingers to her face, and he nearly groaned at the tenderness in her expression. She couldn't possibly know how long he'd gone without this. She couldn't possibly know how much he wanted her.

Dear God-he wanted her.

Emma pulled her hand away and leaned back again, meeting his steady gaze. Her face was the loveliest thing he'd ever seen. He really needed to get the hell out of this restaurant.

"Nail fungus?" Her smile was full of mischief. "You do know there's a cure for that, don't you?"

Oh, God. Hell, yeah. He knew exactly what would cure him.

"So what's the whole story of how you ended up with Hairy?" she asked. "I'm just dying to know about the 'flamboyant' guy and why he gave you his dog."

Thomas cringed and finished off his coffee with one big gulp, looking around for the waitress. She was perched on a red vinyl stool at the empty lunch counter, her nose in a romance novel. "He was a friend," he answered, willing the waitress to look his way. She didn't. "He died and I took Hairy."

"And do you plan to keep him?"

When Thomas turned back to her, Emma was waiting for him. Her gaze was direct-no judgment, no criticism, just curiosity.

"I can help you find a home for him if that's what you want to do," she said.

Thomas stared at the top half of Hairy's face, now visible over the edge of the tabletop. The dog's perfectly round eyeballs looked as if they could pop from his bony skull at any, moment. But at least he wasn't wheezing anymore. Emma had been right about that-it was the cigar smoke. Back at VetMed, Hairy got a steroid shot and Thomas got a lecture about smoking cigars around the dog and a hundred and twenty-five bucks later they were merrily on their way.

"… because I know a nice woman in Richmond who might be willing to… "

Thomas was halfway listening to Emma, halfway looking at her breasts under the sweatshirt, halfway noticing how he was more than halfway hard just sitting across the table from her, wondering what the hell he was going to do with Hairy.

The dog was a train wreck. A disaster. And he didn't even like dogs, let alone ugly, shrimpy, psychologically challenged ones. And now he couldn't even smoke his Cohibas in his own damn house because the dog had respiratory problems?

What was happening to him? What was happening to his life? Why the hell was he even thinking about getting this woman into his bed when there was probably an eighty percent chance that she had some fatal personality flaw and about a hundred percent chance that she'd leave him as soon as she learned about what Nina so lovingly called his "defect"?

Your basic guaranteed catastrophe, right there.

And it was all Hairy's fault. If it weren't for Hairy, he wouldn't be sitting there in the middle of the night with Emma Jenkins, trying not to like her.

He wouldn't be looking at her sensual, soft body parts, trying to figure out how he could touch them.

He wouldn't have to be the heartless bastard who forces an orphaned puppy to live with strangers!

Damn the little mutant.

"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to see if there's someone interested," Thomas said with a shrug. "They'd be nice people, though, right? People who'd take good care of him?"

Emma smiled at him again. "Sure, Thomas," she said.

First off, Emma had never seen a paper-pusher built like Thomas Tobin. He might be pushing stuff around, but she was certain it was heavy stuff like punching bags and barbells and bad guys, not departmental memos.

The man had "law and order" written all over him.

And the story about the way he acquired Hairy? She knew he was leaving out a few crucial details-like how exactly the guy died and why Thomas felt obligated to take the dog home. Emma knew a massive load of guilt when she saw it.

And now Thomas was talking about his rugby team, and she used the excuse just to admire the loose curls of his short hair, the dark blond scruff along his jawline and up his cheeks, the smooth, golden skin below his eyes.

She'd grown accustomed to his appearance in the last three hours or so, enough that her blood wasn't beating against the back of her eyes like it did at first. Enough that she could breathe normally.

Biological imperatives aside, she was actually beginning to like the man-despite his best efforts. She liked that he was kind to a frightened little dog. She liked his rusty sense of humor.

And she was intrigued by how he tried to hide his smiles, as if joy was something he didn't want to succumb to in public.

She kept thinking about the other day in the exam room, when it felt like he was pulling her toward him and pushing her away at the same time. He was doing it again tonight. She could see him struggle with it when she held his gaze, and especially when she'd touched him.

No, Thomas Tobin wasn't a dullard, despite her first impression. But he was indecisive, conflicted-hardly an ideal psychological profile for whatever kind of cop he might be.

Emma wondered if it was just women who made him nervous. That seemed unlikely-a man as good-looking as Thomas surely had to develop razor-sharp instincts around the opposite sex simply to survive.

Maybe something had happened recently that made him question those instincts.

Emma sat hack to ponder these questions and enjoy the view.

"I'm getting kind of old for the game, really. Rollo and I are the senior citizens of our team." Thomas shook his head. "It used to be I was sore for the first half of every Sunday-now it takes me until Wednesday to recover, just in time to show up for practice."

"So why do you still play?"

The corner of Thomas's mouth twitched and he rolled the empty coffee cup between his palms. "I spend a lot of hours behind a desk, so I crave the physicality of the sport. I love hitting and getting hit, how it makes me feel alive. The game takes everything out of me, makes everything else disappear. It always has."

"Have you been hurt a lot?"

His eyes sparkled. "I've been beaten to a pulp more times than a redheaded stepchild, so after nineteen years there's nothing left to lose-believe me. I plan to play until they drag me off the pitch in a body bag."

Emma felt her eyes go wide.

"See this?" Thomas pointed to the semicolon above his right eyebrow. "Stitches here twice-damaged some nerves-you might see me squint every once in a while. My nose has been broken twice. I've had knee surgery, dislocated shoulders, other things. See my hands?" He spread his fingers out on the tabletop.

"The only time I can lay them flat or make a tight fist is in the off season. The rest of the time they're too busted up."

Emma saw a few swollen knuckles and two digits that veered off in strange angles. He actually seemed proud of all this.

"It sounds like a lovely hobby."

He cocked a golden eyebrow in amusement. "Flower arranging is a hobby. Rugby is one of the top four reasons to live."

Emma didn't miss the gleam in his eye. "I'd love to hear about the other three," she said.

Thomas abruptly looked away, and Emma watched him struggle with his response just as the waitress came by to offer more coffee. They both declined.

"I should probably get going," Thomas said, reaching for the check.

"This was nice. Thank you." Emma tried to hide her disappointment that their get-together was over. "It's been a while since I've been out all night." She noticed that Thomas didn't respond to that. "I'm kind of a night owl anyway. Insomnia sometimes."

"Really?" Thomas raised his eyes as he counted out bills. "What do you do when you can't sleep?"

Emma chuckled, recalling her lurid behavior earlier that night. "I mostly sit on the front porch with Ray and listen to the crickets and tree frogs."

Thomas's hands froze and a frown marred his smooth forehead. He kept his eyes away from hers. "So Ray is the guy you're seeing these days?"

Emma nearly snorted with laughter, but stopped herself out of respect for the pained look on Thomas's face. He really did like her! It wasn't just her imagination!

"Ray's an old, blind, three-legged Shepherd cross with a flatulence problem."

He did it again, Emma saw-he rubbed his mouth with one of his big hands to hide his smile.

"You know, I won't be offended if you let your guard down every once in a while, Thomas. You've got a killer smile."

He shot up from the booth and threw down a tip, then crossed his arms over his chest and looked around nervously. It seemed to Emma that it took everything the man had not to bolt through the door without her.

Once in the parking lot, Thomas jerked toward her, his face stern. He stuck out his hands. "I should probably take Hairy now."

"Oh! Sure." Emma unrolled the sweatshirt from around the sleeping dog and leaned closer to Thomas for the transfer. He reached in, accidentally pressing his hands on top of hers, his skin hot and rough.

"Would you go out on a real date with me, Thomas?" The question spilled from Emma without the tiniest bit of forethought, and she closed her eyes in embarrassment. She felt him reach under her hands to find Hairy, then pull away.

When she opened her eyes, he was staring at her, absolutely stricken.

Her heart fell to her feet. "Thomas?"

He was suddenly on her, cupping her face in one of his hands, rubbing his scratchy cheek against her smooth one. He ran his fingers through her hair and down the side of her neck, and pressed his body close to hers, Hairy squished between them.

Emma's heart pounded. She had to lock her knees to remain standing. What was happening?

Then Thomas put his lips against her ear and … oh, God! He flicked his tongue into the tender hollow underneath, then bit down sharply on her earlobe just before he whispered, "I can't, Emma. I'm not the man for the job. I'm so sorry."

Thomas stepped back, tucked Hairy into the crook of his arm, and jogged off toward his shiny, yuppie car, leaving her blinking in disbelief.

Her body buzzed with shame and surprise and the sizzling rush left behind by his touch, his tongue, his teeth, his voice. It suddenly dawned on her that Thomas Tobin's rejection was hotter than all the actual dates she'd had in the last year-combined!

Tears stung her eyes. She didn't understand! She could have sworn…but he seemed …he said…

Talk about words and actions being in direct conflict! Talk about abnormal men!

As the car pulled away, Emma watched Hairy jump up and press his little face to the glass as if to say goodbye. As the car turned, she got a look at the bumper sticker on the rear fender, illuminated by the first light of dawn: Life Sucks. Then You Die.

Uh-oh.

I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure you're an idiot when it comes to females. Why did you leave Soft Hands? Why did you rub up against her like that and then make her cry?

Turn around, Big Alpha! Turn around and go back! She's wonderful! She likes you! What's wrong with you?

Humans can be such fools.

Oh, quit your complaining. Yeah, I just pushed aside the towel and peed all over your precious car seat-and I did it on purpose.

Serves you right.