Josie spent a lazy Sunday morning by the pool reading and swimming alternately, eventually Allie and Ver woke up and schlepped outside looking a little sorrier for their night’s escapades.
“Ready for breakfast?” Josie called out as she picked up her towel from the lounge chair under the cabana.
“Only if it’s greasy,” Allie moaned.
“You know I don’t do greasy food, Allie. How about those Japanese pancakes, they’re like two-thirds air but really delicious.”
“Oh! What if I made those amazing guava drink things we had that time we were at that restaurant.” Anyone else might have been confused, but they’d been friends so long that it made complete sense to all of them.
“I have no idea if I have everything that was in those, but if I do, by all means.” Josie agreed as she walked into the house to start the pancakes and Ver walked to the bar in the sunroom to start digging for ingredients.
“Well, even if you don’t I’ll figure out something.” Ver looked at Allie who was just standing half in and half out of the house. “Sit at the bar, Allie, until you finish waking up, hon.”
Allie slumped into one of the tall bar stools that was right next to one of the doors between the sun room and the pool, with the door still open and a light breeze blowing, it was perfect March weather. The camera on the doorbell sent a notice to Josie’s phone just before it opened and Josie’s dog, Tux, ran through the house, greeting everyone quickly before realizing that the door was open and he decided to jump in the pool. Steps behind him was a tall, clearly former military man who was holding a leash with a collar still attached.
“Damnit, he does that to me every time.”
“Josh, you’re supposed to be the dog trainer, but I think you’d be a little bit more trainable than he is – you know he’s going to duck his head right as he hits the door so that the collar goes over his neck. He literally does it every time. Why do I even pay you?” Josie smirked. She was clearly amused by the dog’s antics. “But you get to dry him off before we all slip on the floor and break something.”
Josh whistled and Tux came trotting up and just inside the threshold of the sun room. “NO!” all of the girls yelled as the Malinois shook scattering water all over the floor. Josie shot Josh a death look and he managed to look sheepish. “I’ll clean up the floor too,” he groused. Josie looked at the athletic dog and raised an eyebrow, Tux sat up and begged making them all laugh.
“Well, damn, that pays every time.” Josie took a small treat and threw it at him. As usual, it bounced off his nose and rolled away and he went in search of it.
“Do you want to join us for brunch, Josh?” Ver asked more than a little hopefully.
Josie’s eyes snapped to Ver who had eyes only for Josh. Was Josh the real reason Ver decided to stop playing around, Josie had introduced them to each other about a month ago. “Interesting”, she said under her breath while tripling the batch of pancakes she was mixing up.
After breakfast, Josie kicked everyone out of the house to go to their own homes so she could work. Logging into her laptop, she worked through a proposal, a couple of project updates she owed her clients, and entered her monthly billing to invoice her clients. She worked so long on re-working one project plan that she didn’t realize it was already quite late when she was nearly done. Instead of making dinner and messing up the kitchen again she decided to go out for dinner. She whistled for Tux, startling him awake, since he’d been resting near her feet, grabbed her keys, and they went out to rustle up food.
Half way down the street she decided to eat at the bar from last night. They had recently extended their offerings when they opened a patio off the main room and now had several decent options for dinner, so taking a left toward the bar, she nixed the option of just bringing food home.
Elizabeth Dennis Writes 