Chapter 26

Jeff looked down at his nails, hiding a smile around faked nonchalance. “Oh, well, maybe I hadn’t asked yet. But you know what they say, ‘no time like the present.’ After all, they also say, ‘love identifies a man,’ and here we are trying to get to know you and your little fur baby, so we might as well jump right in.”

“Nobody says that,” Leo said, interrupting before Jeff could go further. “You know, Fig, I would have expected an idea like the pool noodle from Jeff, but not you. Seriously, well done. How did you think of that?”

Fig looked at each of them in turn, nodding. “Thanks. But I stole it from the Internet. Funny goats are a thing these days—”

“So, Gordy,” Jeff broke back into the conversation. “You aresingle, right? How’d that happen? Cute guy like yourself in such a big ol’ city as this?”

Gordy breathed out a strained laugh. “Oh, I, uh…Yeah. Yeah, I’m single. You know how it is, sometimes we’re just waiting for the right thing to happen.”