Puppy Love

Chapter 2

Amelia

"Two months ago you were ready to marry him and now you're moving to Seattle, I just don't get it."

"I told you already; it's complicated," I say, hoping the short answer will signify that I don't want to talk about it. But let's be real; it's Derek.

"Define complicated," Derek pushes me.

I sigh and drop the box of my belongings in the middle of my new apartment. "The 'I don't actually love you' kind of complicated." Derek furrows his eyebrows and stares at me disapprovingly, as usual.

"Then why did you agree to marry him?" he further queries, folding his arms across his chest, "And why did that suddenly change after you came here two months ago? Are you having an affair?"

"I'm not having an affair!" I exclaim, placing both my palms against my forehead as I huff in frustration. Weirdly enough, the mention of the word affair brings up a memory of the stranger I met at the vet clinic yesterday. Odd. "I just finished my fellowship, my life is finally starting, and I realised that I didn't want to get married to James."

"Get married to him or get married at all?" he provokes me, which makes me roll my eyes dramatically.

"Could you leave me alone for at least a week?" I ask him, "I don't pester you about your stupid relationship with your child bride."

"Meredith is not a child, Amy," he says.

"Yeah, she just looks like one," I quickly answer him, knowing the comment would upset him.

He smirks and sighs, then nods. "Fine, I'll leave you alone." I know it's not permanent, but at least for now he'll stop bugging me.

After another hour of unpacking boxes, Derek finally leaves and I'm left alone with Riley, who already has his lead in his mouth, begging me to take him for a walk so that he can he explore the new environment. He whimpers for effect, knowing that it'll make me crack.

---

The park is well populated but quiet, at least compared to the one back in LA. It's quite bigger too, because within ten minutes of letting Riley go, I can no longer see or hear him clearly. The small, medium and large breed dogs are separated by relatively low fences, which is a wonderful idea in my opinion. Riley's just turned one, so we're in the medium breed section. He's blended in with the other smaller huskies and, from this distance, I can't tell which husky is mine. Because he's not causing trouble, I decide it's not too urgent to find him as yet and walk over to a shady tree and sit under it. Seattle is hotter than I thought it would be, but maybe it'll get colder in September.

Two minutes into being lost in my thoughts, I hear a dark voice from behind the tree that makes me basically jump out of my skin and grab my chest. "This is my spot, you know." When I look over to the other side, I see the guy from yesterday at the clinic, lying down flat on the ground in a pair of sunglasses, with a magazine resting on his chest.

"Are you kidding me?!" I exclaim, keeping my hand to my chest, feeling my heart thumping beneath it.

"About scaring you half to death?" he seeks to clarify, "Or about this tree being my spot?" His hands are behind his head, acting as a cushion between it and the grass. He's looking at me upside down now.

"You nearly gave me a heart attack," I say, trying to get my pulse to return to normal.

He chuckles and sits up. "Sorry." He scoots across to my side of the tree and takes a seat next to me as he looks out at all the dogs playing in front of us.

"Sure you are," I grumble, although I'm a little happy to see him, only because he's the first 'kind of' friend I've made since coming here, who isn't already friends with Derek.