Breaking the Rules: The Honeybees, book 1 (7 page)

“You’re not even supposed to
like
broccoli,” I sighed, and went to search “can dogs eat broccoli?” on the Internet. It wasn’t harmful, but I vowed to be more careful with other foods, for both Taco’s sake and my own.
 

I hadn’t realized when I’d adopted Taco that getting a dog would require babyproofing the house, and I certainly wasn’t in the habit of considering before I left the house in the morning what might be destroyed while I was gone. I was grateful that I was such a tidy person, but this required a whole different type of thinking.
 

But no matter how naughty he was, it was comforting to have a dog, and Taco and I had continued to bond over the weeks he’d been with me. He’d helped me through crying bouts, watched me rearrange the furniture to try to make it less awkward not to have a couch, and had been with me when Matt had come by for his mail and a few stray items he’d left around the house. Taco had barked at Matt, which made me smile even as I told him to hush.

I was also grateful to have someone to go on runs with. I was dedicated about running every morning, but it certainly didn’t hurt to have someone wagging his tail into the bed and staring eagerly up into my face as I opened my eyes for the first time in the morning. He was always eager to exercise, always happy to see me, and always in a good mood. That was more than I could say about most humans, so it didn’t take long before I could no longer picture my life without him.
 

Which is why I felt so unsettled by Devin’s revelation that Taco was his dog. Had been, past tense, I corrected myself—there was no way I was giving him back to his previous owner. All good feelings about Devin had dissolved as soon as I’d realized that he wanted to take away from me the creature who had helped me through such a difficult time. And I just couldn’t wrap my mind around how someone could not search for Taco, could let him run away in the first place, and then think he had a right to get his dog back.
 

Sorry, buddy, but that just wasn’t how life worked. Taco was mine now, and I was taking good care of him—even if I was still learning how to be a dog owner.
 

But I met Devin in the park the next day, as promised. His eyes had the same bleary half-asleep look that they’d had each time I’d seen him this early in the morning, and without meaning to I found it endearing. Come to think of it, he even seemed a little asleep still when we met for the 9 a.m. Saturday workouts, though he always perked up quickly once the workout started.
 

“Hey there, Paco!” he said, his face breaking into a grin when he saw Taco, and he tackled the excited dog with a full-body pat. “Hi Sophie, how are you? Get enough sleep?” His voice was not unkind, but it distinctly lacked the jovial, joking tone that he’d used with me in the past.
 

“I slept very well,” I said, thinking about how quickly I’d drifted off after trying out the rubbery purple vibrator for the first time. Embarrassed as I was to own such a thing, Caroline had been right: it did the trick.

I had expected that we’d start right in with a run, but Devin started playing with Taco instead, bouncing back and forth in front of him and landing with hands on his half-crouched knees while Taco went crazy, running back and forth around him.
 

He was good with him, I thought, but playing was only one facet of being a good dog owner, and he’d have to do a lot better than that if he was trying to prove to me that he deserved to have Taco back. Not that I’d consider it anyway. I was still irritated with Devin and not feeling particularly generous toward him right now.

“Why are you crouching like that after you jump?” I finally asked Devin, as much because I felt awkward just standing there while the two of them played as because I was actually curious.
 

He looked up at me as though he’d forgotten I was there. “It’s dog play behavior,” he explained. “You mimic the way dogs play with each other. See how he keeps getting down low on his front paws, like he’s bowing to me? That’s the signal dogs use with each other that they want to play.”

“Oh!” I said. “That makes sense. I thought he was just stretching when he did that.” He was like a dog himself, I thought, the way he bounded back and forth between people during practice, wanting to be friendly with everyone. And the way he made running a game. I remembered Devin doing a cartwheel in the middle of our run the first time I’d met him, and felt a quick pang of regret that things had gone south with him.

“Nope, it’s him communicating.” Devin continued bouncing back and forth in front of Taco a few times as the dog went wild, then abruptly shifted into going through a few commands with him. Taco looked confused at first, but was soon on the same page, sitting and lying down and shaking hands as though he did it every day.
 

“I had no idea he could do all that!” I said in amazement, and Devin cracked a quick smile my direction.
 

“Ready to run?”
 

I nodded gratefully, and Devin called to Taco, who had bounded away to investigate a squirrel, to follow them. We headed out on one of the trails leading away from the running store, and I breathed in the early morning air. This was my favorite time of day. I couldn’t understand how some people could sleep through it and get up only at the last moment before heading to work. Then again, I supposed I was lucky that I’d always been a morning person.
 

We wound our way around the park, and I hoped he wouldn’t try to talk to me while we ran.
 

He did, though, of course. “So what do you do with yourself when you’re not running or stealing people’s dogs?” he asked.
 

I bristled. “I’m a kindergarten teacher,” I said carefully. At least this sharp teasing was better than outright anger.

“Oh yeah?” he said. “So you’re pretty into fingerpaints and alphabet blocks?”

“It’s fun,” I said. “There’s not as much pressure as with the older kids to focus on one subject at a time, to work toward tests, to stay on task all the time. With the little ones the schools still understand that play is part of learning.”

“I’ve always thought it was a shame that kids are forced to stop playing in school when they get older,” Devin agreed. He seemed like he played all the time, I realized. He seemed like his whole life was play, to an extent.
 

“And what about you?” I asked. “What do you do?”

“You mean to make money, or what do I do in life?”

“Both,” I said with a smile.

“During the day I do marketing and social media for a startup. The rest of the time I try to get outdoors. I’m a bit of an adrenaline junkie.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

“Well, I like to go rock climbing, surfing, skydiving…”

“Skydiving, huh?” I said. The mere thought of skydiving terrified me. Way too dangerous. “I think that’s one thing I will absolutely never do.”

“Never say never,” he said with a grin.

“How did you get into that?”

Devin hesitated for a moment, as though trying to decide whether to say something, then continued matter-of-factly, “When my girlfriend dumped me a few months back, I distracted myself by getting my skydiving license. For a while I thought I might even work taking people on tandem jumps.”

“Oh, I—I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “About your girlfriend.” So he wasn’t dating a perfect Les Etoiles waitress after all. At least not anymore. Why did it give me satisfaction to hear that he was single when I was so clearly not interested in him?

“It was for the best,” he said. “I just felt like I needed to bring some spontaneity into my life when she left.”

The statement struck me. That was exactly the opposite approach I was taking to Matt leaving. I wanted nothing more than to get my life back in order, back to the stability I needed.

“Did it work?” I asked.
 

“You mean did it help me get over her? Yeah, it did. It…I don’t know how to explain it, but it gave me a new perspective on the whole thing.”

Interesting
, I thought. It occurred to me that in a way, his approach was actually very similar to mine—I had decided to take on a new hobby, running, and he had decided to take on a new hobby, skydiving. Both had had the intention of getting over our exes, but our logic on the way was completely different, with me wanting to find stability and him seeking the opposite.
 

And then my mind was off, thinking about Matt. It was still strange to come home and not have him there. I missed him in the evenings when I started to make dinner. He’d just been there for so long that it was odd not having him there. I was usually the one to cook, but often he’d help too, and I didn’t mind cooking on my own. He’d emerge from his bedroom when it was time to eat, and we’d have dinner together, and afterward would play a board game or he’d head back into his room for more video games.
 

That was all he did, I realized. He just played games all the time. When I was honest with myself, Matt and I hadn’t even spent that much time together in recent years, but it was still comforting to have him around, to know that he was there with me in the house. That he was mine. That I had a counterpart, someone to count on if I needed him.
 

He was so different from Devin. I tried to imagine Matt going skydiving, but the thought was laughable. He’d love to skydive, I thought—but only if it were in a video game.
 

He’s kind of boring
, I realized. That’s his only hobby. I’d never thought it before, maybe just because we’d been together for so long and so I hadn’t spent much time analyzing our relationship in a while. It always just was what it was—but in comparison with Devin, he seemed flat.
 

Not that flat was always a bad thing, though. I reminded myself that that’s why I’d liked him—he was stable. He was predictable. I could count on him.
 

“So why didn’t you end up working at a skydiving facility?” I asked.
 

He shrugged. “I finished the training, but I was too nervous I’d hurt someone. It’s different when it’s just you, you know? I knew I was being safe, but it’s still a risk, just like anything. The thought of my mistakes hurting someone else…I couldn’t do it. And then I got offered the marketing job, so I let it go. It’s still a hobby,” he added. “I love it. I go every chance I get.”

By the end of the run, Devin certainly wasn’t back to his original, jovial self that he’d been before discovering Taco was my dog now, we’d settled into a comfortable rapport and he seemed invigorated to at least get to spend time with Taco. He was so different from anyone I’d ever known—he took risks, he was unpredictable, he craved adventure—so different from me. Yet, to my surprise, I discovered that I enjoyed spending time with him despite the confrontation we’d had the day before.

Back in the park where we’d started, we stretched and I put Taco back on his leash.

“Bye, Paco,” Devin said wistfully, patting the dog one last time before we parted ways.
 

“Taco says bye,” I said, playfully emphasizing my name for the dog. And then Devin flashed me that goofy grin, the one I’d been longing to see return, the one I thought was gone forever once we realized Taco had been his dog. It was a grin that made shivers run up and down my body, that made my insides turn to jelly, as much as I told myself to stop, to be reasonable.

And my good mood lasted all the rest of the day.
 

The next day, my school’s principal called a staff meeting after work.
 

“I have some bad news,” Ms. Mayfield told the teachers gathered around the room. “Mr. Jones, the art teacher, is quitting at the end of the semester, and we’ve decided not to replace him.”

Not to—
what?
I thought, alarmed.
 

“While I appreciate the value of an art education, we just don’t have the funds right now to hire a new teacher. I do understand that you all use that time for planning, and your students will be going to an extra session of alternating music or gym for one of the weekly slots they’d normally be going to art, but they’ll remain in the classroom for the other.”
 

The teachers around the table groaned thinking of their disappearing planning periods, but my first thought was of my students. I thought of Angelina, my star pupil, and how much she loved going to art class, how proud she was when she got back to my classroom and showed me her work.
 

“They have to have art,” I protested. “They need it.”

“You’re welcome to incorporate art into your lessons,” Ms. Mayfield said. “I know many of you already do. But there’s nothing else I can do.”

I left the meeting shocked and upset. Angelina would be devastated.
 

But as I sat on the bus on the way home from work, I became determined. I wanted to give these students the best possible education I could, and that included an art education. If they couldn’t go to art class anymore, I’d bring art to them.
 

Matt had offered to pay rent on his part of the house for two months after he moved out—until the end of our lease—and the end was coming up. I’d been loving living alone, and had been putting off finding a new place because I didn’t want this period to end. I loved having the freedom to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, and I loved this house despite its memories. Moving was a pain, and roommates added a wild card to the mix: maybe they’d be great and we’d enjoy each other’s company, but maybe they’d bring chaos into my life. Maybe they’d come home late and drunk and be loud while I was trying to sleep. Maybe they’d eat the food I’d been planning to bring to work with me for lunch. Maybe they’d even steal from me.
 

And then there was the other matter, the one that, truth be told, was a bigger issue: having a roommate at my age made me feel like a failure. I knew it was common for almost-twenty-eight-year-olds to have roommates, but I felt like I’d progressed past that point. I’d been living with my serious boyfriend of six years. I should’ve been moving forward with my life, to marriage and maybe a family, not backward, to living with a roommate.