Chapter 2My Unwilling Muse

Gavin was pissed.

After the haircut, he stormed out of the salon and thrust the pink hair clip back at me. "Take it."

I looked at him—clean-cut, striking, looking like he belonged on a billboard—and couldn't understand what he was so moody about. But if he wanted to give me the cold shoulder, fine. I wasn't going to chase him.

The gated community was quiet at night. We walked home with enough distance between us to fit an entire freight train. He marched ahead, while I lingered behind, distracted by the shadows.

"Psst! Hey, sweetie. Come here, babies."

A perfectly clean Tortoiseshell cat and a scruffy, mud-caked Samoyed were huddled near a hedge. One looked like a long-time stray; the other looked like it had been dumped an hour ago.

In the world of strays, the rule is "finders keepers."

My luck was peaking. I was going home with a full set of pets. The Samoyed’s tail started whipping like a helicopter blade, and the cat began rubbing its face against my leggings. I let out a giddy laugh that echoed through the quiet street.

Gavin stopped. Without the hair in his eyes, he looked like a high-end model just standing there in his overcoat.

"Why are you moving so slow?" he asked, his voice stiff.

I tilted my head, pretending not to hear. "What was that? You're too far away, I can't hear you over all this cuteness!"

He took a few long strides back toward me, looking ready to snap, but then he saw the animals. His eyes lit up.

He reached out to pet the cat. I swatted his hand away.

"This cat belongs to me."

He tried to pet the dog. I blocked him again.

"The dog is mine, too. Priority of discovery. Know your laws, Gavin."

His lips thinned. He struggled for a comeback for a solid ten seconds before finally catching on to my game.

"We’re married," he blurted out, his face flushing. "Community property!"

"Oh? So we're married now?" I drawled, leaning into the words. "Funny. I didn't think married couples walked half a mile apart on their way home."

He tried to argue, but he just ended up flustered and red-faced. The System really picked the wrong person for a "healing" story. I wasn't here to heal him; I was here to win.

The Samoyed—who I decided to call Cooper—was shedding enough fur to make a new dog.

I was crouched in the bathtub, exhausted from scrubbing him, while Gavin was having one of his "episodes" upstairs. Usually, when he hit a low point, even my badgering didn't work.

Dog hair was flying everywhere. I screamed for him to come down and help, but he ignored me. Then, the floor became a soap-slicked death trap. My left foot slipped, my right foot stayed put, and I landed in a brutal, accidental split on the marble tile.

"Mother—!" I let out a string of curses that would make a sailor blush.

Finally, a head poked out from the second-floor railing. Gavin’s eyes searched the room. "Sandy?"

I couldn't even answer. The pain was so sharp I couldn't breathe. Cooper paced around me, whining and nudging me with his wet nose.

Gavin finally panicked. He sprinted down the stairs in his socks and burst into the bathroom.

"I think... I think I broke my hip," I wheezed.

He didn't hesitate. He reached down and lifted me into his arms. Gavin might have been mentally ready to die, but I was currently facing a physical expiration.

3:00 AM. The orthopedic wing of the hospital.

Gavin looked haggard, sitting in a plastic chair with a giant white dog sitting at his feet (the nurses let it slide because the hospital was empty). I was tucked into a bed, my leg elevated and casted.

"Ow..."

I’ve always been a wimp when it comes to pain. The tears started leaking out. But every time I took a shaky breath, it pulled on the muscles near the injury, making it worse.

"Gavin, please... tell me a joke. Anything. Just make me stop crying."

He stared at me, paralyzed for a second. Then he pulled out his phone, frantically Googling, and started reading aloud with the most robotic, serious voice I’d ever heard:

"A man is walking in the woods in winter. He finds a frozen snake. He feels bad, so he puts it inside his shirt to warm it up. The next morning, the man puts a sign on the tree that says: 'No Shitting Under the Trees.'"

The room went silent. I stared at him. He stared back.

Then, a laugh erupted from my chest like a thunderclap. Which, of course, hurt like hell.

"Ow! Okay, okay... I’m good. I’m stopping."

Gavin looked genuinely confused. "I don't get it. Why is that funny?"

I wiped my eyes, grimacing through the pain. "The 'snake' was a frozen... never mind. He picked up a frozen turd, Gavin."

"Oh."

He went silent. Three minutes later, a loud, genuine bark of a laugh filled the room. This time, it wasn't me.