'He just had some scratches. But he was freezing to death, I think.'
'So you saved his life.'
'I think so. Yeah.'
'I had no idea you were a heroic puppy-saver,' said Mike. Charlie couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Then Mike smiled, and Charlie decided that he wasn't.
'He isn't a puppy,' Charlie explained.
Charlie noticed Jessica rolling her eyes. He was screwing this up. He never should've agreed to this torture.
'I just meant that if he was a puppy I probably wouldn't have been able to save him. It's good that he had grown up.'
Charlie wasn't sure if that explanation helped things or not.
'Why the name Kutter?' asked Gary.
'It's my grandfather's name,' Charlie lied, as he'd planned in case anybody ever asked him.
'Kutter Stanlon?'
'Yes.'
'That's a pretty bad-ass name.'
'Thanks.' Charlie took a long drink of his Cherry Coke, and then checked his watch. Alicia kicked him gently under the table. He thought he'd been more subtle.
'Do you have a picture?' asked Alicia.
'Not with me.' Charlie did have to admit to himself that he appreciated the way Alicia was trying to keep him involved in the conversation. Yeah, he'd rather be at home, but all things considered, this really wasn't so bad. If nothing else, this place knew how to make a good Cherry Coke--he hated the weak ones. He couldn't see himself joining his co-workers every single week...but perhaps once a month, just to be nice.
Maybe he'd try something new. Something he couldn't remember ever having tried before in his adult life. Maybe he'd ask somebody about themselves without any motive except to hear the answer.
'Do any of you own dogs?' he asked.
Mike owned a golden retriever named Zak who carried around a teddy bear, and a parakeet named Twitter who said three different phrases in German. Gary was allergic to dogs but owned goldfish, which he flushed and replaced on a regular basis so as not to disturb his daughter, who tended to overfeed them. Jessica desperately wanted a puppy, something that would stay small, but her apartment complex didn't allow pets. And Alicia had three cats, Wilson, Puffs, and Jagged Edge, each named by one of her children. Charlie hadn't known that she had children.
Three kids. Wow. Charlie had never expected to love a dog, but the idea of having a girlfriend with three kids was almost inconceivable. He was really glad that she'd declined his offer for coffee. He smiled to himself, thinking that this had been a productive social outing after all.
They stayed for another hour, with Charlie successfully carrying his fifth of the conversational load. Gary was the first to excuse himself, and everybody else simultaneously agreed that it was time to head home.
'Did you enjoy yourself?' Alicia asked, as they walked out of the restaurant and headed for their vehicles.
'Yeah,' said Charlie, surprised that he didn't have to lie.
'Join us next week?'
'I might.'
She didn't give him a kiss or a hug or any of the things that Charlie would've originally considered the only possible benefit from going out with the group--just a friendly pat on the arm. And Charlie was fine with that.
* * *
He picked out three Frisbees: a light blue one, a dark blue one, and a glow-in-the-dark green one. That way he'd have extras if any of them got lost or Kutter chewed them up to the point where it impacted their aerodynamics. When he got home, he let Kutter out of the basement, put on his leash, and ran with him to the park, at least for the first couple of blocks, after which Charlie walked fast while Kutter tugged on his leash and stopped occasionally to smell things.
The glow-in-the-dark Frisbee didn't glow worth crap, but Kutter was still able to catch it. Charlie tried to keep track of how many times he threw the Frisbees, until he lost count around twenty-eight and decided that it didn't really matter. This time, Charlie was amused to find that Kutter ran out of energy before him, although to be fair, Kutter was doing the vast majority of the running.
* * *
As Charlie lay in bed, with Kutter asleep at his feet, he suddenly realized that he'd forgotten to worry about the police returning based on new evidence against him. Odds were, he'd gotten away with his impulse kill. Though he never planned to do anything even remotely that reckless again, it was kind of nice to know that even when he had a huge lapse in his better judgment, he could evade arrest.
He got a great night's sleep, and dreamt about working in a dog biscuit factory.
* * *
The next evening, it was finally time for their steak dinner celebration. Charlie dragged his rarely used grill out into his backyard, applied a generous helping of lighter fluid because he enjoyed the whoosh of the fireball, and tossed a match onto the pile of charcoal. When the coals were ready, he brought out two thick New York strip steaks and tossed them on the grill. He liked his steaks medium rare. In the cartoons, dogs always ate raw steaks, but Charlie didn't want to risk Kutter getting worms, so he cooked the dog's steak medium rare as well.
Kutter whined and twitched and licked his chops over and over as Charlie cut his steak into small pieces. 'Chill out,' Charlie told him. 'I don't want you to choke.'
The dog, clearly unconcerned with the potential choking hazard, let out an impatient bark.
Charlie set Kutter's bowl on the floor, watching as the dog proceeded to gobble the steak down so quickly that it might as well have been a bowl of Alpo, considering how little time the food spent in contact with Kutter's tongue. Charlie elected to savor his own meal in a much more leisurely manner, and also enjoyed a side dish of a fully loaded baked potato. Because he was in a really good mood, and it was a celebration dinner, Charlie gave Kutter the last third of his steak.
* * *
'Shake! Come on, buddy, shake! Shake hands!'
Kutter never resisted when he shook his paw manually, but Charlie could never get the dog to put up his paw on his own.
'Shake hands, Kutter! Shake!'
He took Kutter's paw and shook it again, to demonstrate what the dog was supposed to do. 'Shake,' he said, looking into the dog's eyes. 'This is called shake.'
He let go of Kutter's paw, but kept his hand out. 'Shake, Kutter! Shake!'
Kutter preferred face licking over paw shaking as a means of greeting, but Charlie refused to give up. He didn't expect the dog to leap through flaming hoops (although that would be pretty cool) but sometime before the end of this year Kutter was going to learn how to shake!
'Shake, Kutter! Shake! Shake!'
Kutter lifted his paw. Charlie grabbed it and shook it. 'Good dog! Good doggie!'
Next up: Rolling over.
* * *
Charlie found himself speaking to Mike, Gary, and Jessica about non-work-related matters. Only brief, trivial conversations about pets, television shows, and prior night's meals, yet he enjoyed the contact. The next Wednesday, he went along for drinks, even though Alicia couldn't go because of a prior engagement. They talked about their favorite movies, and Charlie made a list of things he needed to rent on DVD.
