The Good Boy by Theresa Schwegel Page B

does.
    Above them, in the garage window, a light goes on. Joel didn’t hear the roll-up door or the side door, either, but somebody must’ve gone inside, tripped the motion detector.
    “Butchie, platz! ”
    The dog obeys the German command immediately, his underside grounded all the way to his chin, eyes the only things raised, waiting for the next cue.
    “Bleib,” Joel whispers, and Butchie stays put as Joel climbs up the side of the cage and over the top to look through the window.
    In there, on the other side of the squad, he sees the back of McKenna’s head: she’s at the workbench, but Joel can’t see what she’s up to.
    She’s definitely up to something, though, because she’s not the kind of girl who fixes things.
    Joel dismounts and goes around to wait for her at the side door, which is cracked open, key in the lock, the motion light casting a thin shining line across the yard.
    When the light goes out—it’s on a timer—he hears McKenna say, “Fuck!” but without the usual spirit. She fumbles at the door, hiking up her pajama pants so the bottoms won’t drag while also trying to get the garage locked.
    Joel smells her perfume and he remembers when she just smelled like McKenna and maybe soap and she didn’t use all that scented lotion and fruity lip gloss and he wonders if that’s the way her brain is now, too, complicated by a million extra things.
    It must be. Because once she locks the door she turns and runs up to the house and she never notices Joel even though he’s standing right there.
    Like he said, it happens a lot.
    He could call after her—and scare the bejesus out of her, because for at least a second, she’d think she was caught—but then she’d be mad at him. She’d want to know what he was doing out here. And even though he wasn’t doing anything and she was definitely doing something, she’d accuse him of spying, and she’d turn it all around on him the way girls do, and who knows if she’d turn it over to the authorities in the house. A single satisfying gotcha doesn’t outweigh that risk.
    Besides, when Joel heard her talking to Zack, it sounded like she knew about Felis Catus. And she tried to sound like she didn’t care. If she wants to be like that—and to become a girl people only talk about—then there really isn’t much left to say.
    As McKenna mouses back into the house, Joel goes back around to the run, and Butchie is still waiting for his next command, his tail the only thing going.
    “Aw, Mr. O’Hare,” Joel says, crawling back into the cage, “you’re a good boy. Braver hund. ”
    Behind Butchie, what used to be Joel’s fleece blanket and what used to resemble a dog bed have been worn down, slept and slobbered on, clawed around to the dog’s comfort.
    Joel says, “C’mon, puppy,” and scoots back to curl up on the blanket. It smells like Butchie’s feet do sometimes—like a vacuum cleaner bag—kind of dusty, and rubbery, and somehow warm.
    Butchie sniffs his way toward Joel, then circles to flank him lengthwise, sharing his body heat and also expecting to get his butt scratched.
    “Okay, boy. Okay.”
    Lying there, petting him, Joel notices a buzz in the air. It could be right overhead or coming from blocks away: a constant back-and-forth of cars, or the long flight path of a plane. Or maybe just the earth on its slow, massive turn.
    He’s sure Butchie hears the same buzz, his superdog ears splayed back. He probably knows exactly what it is. He probably knows a lot of things exactly; Joel’s reminded of the fortune he got in his cookie the last time they had Chinese takeout: Those who do not speak know better. He gave Butchie the cookie.
    Joel feels a chill, pulls the edge of the blanket over his legs. Butchie gets up and turns around, settling on his side, his head above Joel’s. He raises a paw, an invitation to snuggle up to his warm belly.
    Joel nestles there and his head goes up and down with the dog’s breaths and after a while he