Chapter Text
It’s Terry Junior’s idea to get a dog. His parents are doing that thing they do now sometimes, where they’re arguing without arguing.
“I just think a regular exercise routine would be good,” his mom says.
“Maybe I’ll train up for a marathon,” his dad says. Terry Junior thinks it’s supposed to be a joke, but his mom doesn’t laugh, and he doesn’t either, and his dad’s smile goes a little crooked.
Terry Junior stops poking at the salmon on his plate. “We should get a dog. Dad can take him for walks and stuff. That’s good exercise, right?”
His parents exchange a look.
Terry Junior gives all the reasons they should get a dog, copied out of a book he got from the library and a few suggestions from friends. Dogs need routine, which means everyone in the house needs routine, and walking a dog every day and playing fetch and stuff seems like more fun than doing whatever his mom was going to suggest.
It turns out it’s easier to convince them to get a dog than to actually get one. The animal shelter just has a bunch of Chihuahuas and other tiny yappy dogs, which nobody likes. Then his mom does some googling and finds this Petfinder site.
They end up on the couch together, Terry Junior in the middle between his parents, clicking through pages of dogs that live two hours or less away. There are all kinds of dogs, some that Terry Junior has never even heard of mixed in with regular ones like labs and huskies.
They’re about twelve dogs in when his mom laughs at the picture that pops up.
The dog’s weird-looking, with huge eyebrows, a gray beard, and dark eyes. He looks like someone’s grandpa who’s going to talk to Terry Junior about boring stuff, though the website says that he’s an adult and not old.
“He looks like a little old man,” his mom says, echoing his thoughts.
His dad smiles as he fiddles with his reading glasses. Terry Junior can tell his dad already likes the dog for making his mom laugh. His dad reads, “Ron is a miniature schnauzer. Knows how to shake hands. Likes the park. And he lives an hour away.”
“That might be worth a trip,” his mom says. She tilts her head, smiles at Terry Junior. “But Terry Junior should get a say. What do you think?”
Terry Junior squints at the dog. It’s not the one he would’ve picked, but when they look up schnauzers, he reads that they’re “high energy” and “protective of their owners”, which sounds good to him. He nods. “Yeah. He might be cool.”
“It’ll be like adopting my grandpa Thad,” his dad says, because sometimes his whole family agrees on something.
“We should look at the other dogs,” Terry Junior says hopefully. “Just in case.” Really, he just likes looking at all the pictures, but it’s probably good to have a backup plan. Or a backup dog.
They spend the rest of the night looking at dog photos and making fun of some of the weirder names.
Who names their dog Snookums?
Terry loses the rock, paper, scissors match that determines who gets to meet Ron. It’s not a problem, since it just means he gets a front-row seat to Terry Junior’s practice scrimmage instead, but he tells Samantha to send him a lot of cute photos.
She sends a Found the apartment! text but no pictures. Maybe Ron makes a better impression in pictures than in real life.
He starts idly scrolling through Petfinder again, checking to see if the backup dog they agreed on is still available, when he hears a yell from the field. He looks up in time to watch Terry Junior slip between the defenders and shoot.
“Yeah!” Terry yells, watching the beautiful arc of the ball. He knows it’s going in even before the goalie lunges too slowly. The ball hits the back of the net with a satisfying sound, as sweet to Terry’s ears now as it would be in a real game.
He gives Terry Junior a thumbs up when Terry Junior looks over at him. Then he texts Samantha.
Hey honey, were we barking up the wrong tree with the schnauzer?
It takes a few minutes before his phone buzzes in his pocket. Long story, but no dog. I’ll tell you all about it when I get home. Love you!
At the end of practice, Terry Junior makes a beeline for him, one of his teammates trailing close behind.
“Hey, Mr. Harker,” the kid says. Terry thinks his name is Nick, though it could be Nathan. He flips his hair out of his face and grins. “TJ promised me dog pics.”
Terry smiles back. “Sorry, I don’t think Terry Junior’s mom and the dog--” What’s that thing the kids are all saying these days? “--vibed.”
“Please don’t use slang, dad,” Terry Junior says, shaking his head as Nick shrugs and says, “Sucks.”
“Maybe we can all drive out to visit the next choice,” Terry suggests.
Terry Junior goes from looking embarrassed at his excellent grasp of preteen lingo to looking a little excited but trying to play it off in front of his friend. “Yeah, that’d be cool.”
“I wanna meet your dog when you get him,” Nick tells him.
“We’ll have a welcome party,” Terry says.
“Hell--” Nick checks himself with a sideways glance at Terry. “Heck yeah, man.”
Terry tries to resist. He does. But the pun escapes him anyway. “Or maybe I mean a paw-ty?”
Both kids groan.
Terry pulls into the driveway. The house is dark except for the front porch light.
“We beat her home?” Terry Junior asks.
“Guess so,” Terry says. When he checks his phone, he sees he’s missed a text that tells them to go ahead and get a start on dinner. He looks up from his phone and gives Terry Junior a smile. “Looks like we’ll have to fend for ourselves. What are you in the mood for?”
“No fish,” Terry Junior says immediately.
Terry laughs with a twinge of sympathy. He’s always been a fan of seafood, but having it twice a week feels like a little much, even if it’s what the doctor ordered. “Okay, kiddo. I think we’ve got ingredients for chicken stir-fry.”
Terry’s dropping dried apricots into the rice when they both hear the front door open.
“Smells good,” Samantha says, leaning against the kitchen door frame and smiling at them both.
Terry sets the dried apricots aside and goes to her. He clasps her around the waist and tugs her gently into the kitchen. “Give us five more minutes and it’ll even be edible. So no go on the dog?”
She dissolves into giggles, dropping her head to his shoulder. The edible joke was pretty good, if he says so himself, but not enough to warrant the laughter that makes her stomach jump against his fingertips. “I don’t even know where to start,” she says, the words muffled against his shirt. “There, um, wasn’t a dog.”
“Let me guess,” Terry says, grinning because her amusement is infectious. “The guy tried to sell you a possum?”
“Or a very big cat?” Terry Junior suggests.
“Or a short man,” Samantha says, her lips twitching.
Terry blinks. “Come again?”
“There wasn’t a dog,” Samantha repeats.
Terry keeps blinking. “Yeah, I got that the first time. So had he already been adopted--” He stops when Samantha shakes her head. He’s close enough to see her visibly bite her lip, obviously trying not to laugh again.
“No,” she says. “It-- he--” She stops and shakes her head again. Then she frowns and sniffs the air. “What’s burning?”
Both Terry and Terry Junior turn to look at the stovetop. “The rice!”
The rice is mostly salvaged, minus some burned bits at the bottom of the pan that go straight into the trash. Terry debates the likelihood of more burned food and pauses the Ron conversation until they’ve got food on the table.
They’re all sitting down before he says, “So no dog.”
“Yes,” Samantha says. “No dog.” She touches her wine glass but doesn’t drink, rubbing her thumb against the stem. “Actually, there was never a dog. Ron was trying to make new friends, you know, which is just so hard when you’re working full-time.” She gives Terry a look like she expects him to agree, but doesn’t wait for a response before she adds, “And he couldn’t find a friend finder app, so he used Petfinder.”
“....Mom,” Terry Junior says. “That sounds creepy.”
Samantha looks a little offended. “He’s not creepy! He’s funny.”
“I think you met a serial killer.”
“Terry Junior,” Samantha says, frowning at him. “We raised you better than that. He’s a very nice man.” She turns a look of appeal on Terry, who’s still trying to process everything his wife just said.
Terry clears his throat. The guy’s ringing all sorts of alarm bells, but at least this feels like a weird story Samantha can laugh about with her friends. “Ah. Well. Sounds like an...interesting guy.” He’s aiming for neutral, but Samantha seems to take his words for agreement, because her face lights up.
“Yes, he is!” She laughs again. “We talked for two hours about dogs and which one would hypothetically be the best spouse. He obviously chose the schnauzer, but I think I made a pretty good case for Newfoundland. My cousin had one as a kid, and he was really sweet. And then we tried to make a quiche together--”
“A quiche?” Terry Junior says. He twists in his chair and stares where the calendar is pinned to the fridge. “Mom, it’s April 3rd, not April 1st.”
“I know what day it is,” Samantha says, giving him a warning look. Then she brightens again. “Oh, he gave me his number so he could tell me how the quiche turned out! And he lives close to that new bakery I was thinking of checking out, you know the one that's just a little too far to visit on a whim?”
Terry studies his wife’s face as she speaks. Normally the excitement in her expression would make him smile, but instead he’s worried. He agrees with Terry Junior about all this. Not that he thinks this Ron guy is a serial killer, but he certainly doesn’t seem normal. And the whole Petfinder versus friend finder app explanation sounds fishy.
“I’ll come with you,” he says.
Samantha gives him a pleased smile. “Great! I think you’ll like him. And the bakery has pistachio macarons, your favorite. The doctor said you could treat yourself every once in a while.”
Terry makes a noncommittal noise at that.
Later, after he’s washed the dishes, read another chapter of Holes with Terry Junior, and brushed his teeth, turning over the thought of this Ron guy in his head the whole time, he hears Samantha laugh from the bathroom.
“What’s so funny?” he asks.
Samantha slides into bed, closing the vast distance to press a kiss to the corner of his lips that tastes faintly of her favorite mint mouthwash. “I was just remembering what Ron said when I asked him for an explanation.”
“What did he say?” Terry asks, curious.
Samantha’s eyes crinkle at the corners. When she answers, she pitches her voice slightly lower. “I told you I knew how to shake.”
Terry laughs despite himself. “Yeah, okay, that's pretty good,” he admits. He hesitates. This guy still sounds pretty weird, but Terry will check him out himself this weekend when they drive up to the bakery. He trusts Samantha’s ability to read people, but sometimes her compassion clouds her judgment.
“Glad you made a friend,” he says at last.
“Me too.”
“Turn left,” Samantha says a second before the GPS tells Terry in a British accent to turn. As he obeys both, she sticks her head out the window and smiles. “Wow, the photos don’t do it justice. The owners really transformed it.”
“They sure have,” Terry agrees, looking at the building. It’s hard to remember how it had looked as a hardware store. Now there’s dark blue and white paint, and a sign in the shape of a lavender macaron with the bakery’s name in a cursive mimicking of white frosting. Hopefully the macarons are as good as the bakery’s new design.
“Ron’s already inside,” Samantha adds.
“Right,” Terry says. He drums his fingers against the steering wheel before he turns off the car.
When they get inside, Terry glances around. Samantha had given him a vague description: short, glasses, mustache. He doesn’t see anyone like that, just rows of desserts and pastries and an inside as colorful as the outside.
“Hello. You must be Terry,” a voice says at his shoulder.
“Holy shit!” Terry says, a little louder than he means to. The woman behind the counter gives him a bland smile that means she’s annoyed. He smiles apologetically at her before he looks down.
He understands Samantha’s description now. Ron Stampler’s face is swallowed up by coke bottle glasses, a mustache, and a wide smile. There are some crumbs caught in his mustache, and he has a crumpled piece of paper in his hand. When Terry tries to read it upside down, he sees that it’s just his and Samantha’s names.
“Ron!” Samantha says, sounding pleased. She touches Terry’s arm, smiling up at him as she makes the introductions. “Terry, this is Ron. Ron, this is Terry.”
Terry instinctively reaches out for a handshake, only for Ron to blink at his hand like he doesn’t recognize the gesture. Before Terry can pull his hand back, Ron takes it and gives it a quick shake.
“You do know how to shake,” Terry says, remembering the joke that had made Samantha laugh.
Ron nods earnestly. “Yeah. My dad always said that handshakes can make or break you when you meet someone. So I practiced a lot. Um. On door handles because my dad-- but I think I did okay. The food here is pretty good. I was trying the samples.”
Terry’s absorbing the quick words when the woman behind the counter says, “Great, someone ate all the samples.” She shoots him a dirty look, and he tries to silently convey that he didn’t even know about the samples. He doesn’t think she gets it.
“I always try them,” Ron says cheerfully. He hums to himself, nodding again. “I guess you could call me Ron Sampler.”
Samantha laughs.
Okay, Terry will admit the guy’s got jokes.
“Any recommendations?” Samantha asks.
“Um, the blue ones were good,” Ron says vaguely.
Samantha and Terry look at the sample tray. There are no blue desserts. Another glance around at the displays shows that Ron could be talking about macarons or cupcakes.
“Well, speaking of samples, the website said they sold sample boxes, so I thought I’d buy one and we could try some of the flavors,” Samantha says. She gives them both another smile and heads to the counter, leaving Terry to try and not be obvious about staring at Ron.
So far he’s not pinging Terry as dangerous. Weird. Definitely weird. But not serial killer levels of weird.
“So,” Terry says. He hunts for something to say. “See the game last night?”
“What game?”
“Uh,” says Terry, who has only a casual interest in basketball and not much else and was banking on the fact that there’s always a game on to talk about. “Never mind. Let’s grab a table.”
“Okay,” Ron says agreeably.
They sit down. Ron just looks at him, either content to sit in silence or assuming that Terry's going to keep moving the conversation along.
Sports were a bust, and Terry's mind is temporarily blank. Samantha’s much better at small talk than he is. “...Got any hobbies?” Other than making up a fake dog on Petfinder to meet people, he doesn’t say.
“Oh, I have a lot of hobbies,” Ron says, straightening a little in his seat. “I watch a lot of birds. And um. I have been learning how to cook, if cooking’s a hobby. Maybe it’s not? It’s kind of a job too, just not my job. I work at a store. I’ve got a lot of cookbooks right now. Samantha helped me with the quiche, which was really nice of her. I tried making another one, but I forgot the milk so it was kind of a cheese pie instead of a quiche, you know? It didn’t taste too bad though. Do you like quiche?”
It takes a second for Terry to follow, his comprehension a sentence behind Ron’s words. Then he sighs. “I used to,” he says ruefully. The new quiches he and Samantha make with skim milk and fat free cheese just aren’t as good.
“What do you do?” Ron asks. He still has the crumpled piece of paper in front of him. He starts crumpling it more. “Hobby-wise, I mean. Or your job. I think Sar-- Samantha told me, but I forgot.”
“I’m an accountant,” Terry says.
“Right. I knew it had something to do with numbers. Or letters.”
“Most jobs do,” Terry agrees, amused.
“Most jobs do what?” Samantha asks as she sets a box down on the table.
“Involve numbers or letters,” Terry says. He stands up and pulls out her chair, watching as Ron starts to stand up, pauses, and then sits back down again. “Find some interesting flavors?”
“I think so,” Samantha says. She opens the box and it looks like she’s got half the colors of the rainbow inside. “Pistachio for you, red velvet for me, and then I went adventurous with Lychee Raspberry Rose, Lavender Lemon, Fudge Brownie, and Key Lime Pie.”
Ron leans towards the box, his eyes narrowed behind his glasses. “Terry, you’re, uh, a, a numbers guy. If there’s six flavors and twelve macarons and three of us, how do we split it all up, ‘cause these macarons look ready to get macked by me, Ron.”
Samantha laughs again. “I told you he was funny.” She’s smiling up at Terry, her attention focused on him, so it’s only Terry who sees Ron’s reaction: the startled little jump, the owlish blink, and the pleased flush in his face as he stares at Samantha like no one’s complimented him before.
Terry was smiling at the pun, but now he fights the urge to frown. Samantha might think she’s made a new friend, but if this guy has a crush on her, they’re both going to end up disappointed. He’s still trying to figure out how to handle it when Ron looks up at him.
Ron’s surprised smile grows. He widens his eyes behind his glasses, giving Terry a half-questioning, half-happy look like he’s asking for confirmation that she actually said he was funny.
It’s a guileless look. Terry doesn’t read jealousy in the guy’s expression. Maybe Ron really is just as excited to make a friend as Samantha is. Terry hopes so, anyway, for both their sakes.
He smiles back at his wife. “You did,” he agrees. He looks down at the macarons as he sits back down. It’s actually an interesting little math problem. There’s probably a way to split each macaron into three and make it come out evenly to get everyone an equal piece of each flavor, but the macarons are so small it’ll be tricky to do. “How about this? We split each macaron in half, everyone gets to try a piece, and then after we’ve figured out our favorites, we’ll buy another box.”
“I think that’s a good plan,” Samantha agrees.
“I’ll buy the next box,” Ron says.
Terry enjoys the taste-testing. It’s been a while since he’s had a dessert that isn’t low calorie and low sugar, which pretty much defeats the purpose of dessert. Plus Ron’s just as expressive eating the macarons as he is getting complimented.
The lavender lemon macarons end up being the least favorite of the group, but Ron jumps up with an order for pistachio and key lime pie for Terry, red velvet and lychee for Samantha, and fudge brownie and key lime for himself.
As he heads to the counter, Samantha says, satisfaction in her voice, “I knew you’d like him.”
“He’s--” Terry stops at the cashier’s incredulous voice.
“You’re paying with that?”
They turn and watch Ron set down a roll of coins, the kind you take to the bank for a deposit. “Gee, I’ve got another around here somewhere,” he says, rummaging around the pockets of his pants.
Terry chuckles. “He’s an interesting guy,” he admits. It’s the same thing he said the other night when he’d first first heard the Petfinder story, but this time he means it in a good way.
Maybe she hears the difference in his voice, because Samantha beams. “It’ll be nice to have a friend who’s not one of Terry Junior’s friends’ parents or work friends, you know? Not that they’re all not good people, but….”
“I know exactly what you mean,” Terry says.
“Here you go, ma’am!” Ron says, putting another roll of coins on the counter.
Terry Junior greets them with a cheerful, “So, is he a serial killer?”
He’s not sure how he expects his parents to answer. Okay, he’s expecting his mom to frown at him. He just can’t decide if his dad will say yes or no or maybe no but he was trying to catfish his mom, like an episode of that Catfish show Terry Junior watched at Nick’s house.
He definitely isn’t expecting his dad to grin and say, “Well, I hope not, since we invited him over for dinner next week.”
“...What?”
His dad looks a little sheepish. “I think you’ll like him.”
Terry Junior stares at them both, but they both look serious. “Did he hypnotize you? Is this a cult thing? Are we joining a cult? Mariah’s mom’s sister joined a cult, she told us--”
“No, he’s funny,” his mom says.
“Jeez Louise,” Terry Junior mutters under his breath.
His mom gives him a sharp look.
“I’m sorry,” he says, squirming on the couch, “but, like, he pretended to be a dog! On Petfinder! He was trying to catfish you or something, Mom, and I don’t--”
His dad chuckles. “Catfish? Dogfish, you mean.”
Terry Junior groans. “He’s gonna kill us.”
“Here, distract yourself from your inevitable demise with some macarons,” his mom says dryly.
They’re pretty good.