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Mid-morning, Rylan's phone dinged to let him know someone was looking for him.









And with that, he pulled up his contacts to look for another name. Hopefully, someone who texted in a legible manner.

And then his phone was buzzing again with the incessant virtual pokes of an overly excited father.

Fidget knew almost before Autumn came to say hi that she was there to... well. Say hi. He let out a breathlessly excited wuff when he saw her, running to the fence with tail swinging crazily behind him.

"HI!" came his bark. "Hi hi hi hi hi omg hi you smell like flowers wow. I love flowers. This is so cool. This is the best thing ever!"

Whine whine whine. He was so happy. He stuffed his nose into her face and sniffed her all over.

Inside the house, Rylan heard his phone ding again, saw the message and peered out his window to his dog fidgeting wildly beside Autumn.

"What's he saying?" He asked, yanking open his front door and giving Autumn a wave. Clearly something excited.

Rylan answered with his own laugh, clear and bright. "Sounds about right," he said.

Fidget, meanwhile, went slack-jawed at Autumn's response. He froze with one paw held up, eyes wide with wonder at the human who had spoken back for the first time in his life, and... WOW!

"YEA! YEA, FLOWERS," he said, exploding back into action and bouncing all around her in his excitement. "I love flowers I won't pee on them promise!!"

And then he went running up to Rylan, wagging his entire butt and begging for a pat. "Hi boss! This is great! You are the best thing ever!"

Clearly, in Fidget's world, everything was the best thing ever, but it was as genuine a sentiment as any could be.

"Hey bud!" Rylan grinned, giving the Dalmatian a hearty pat. He looked up at Autumn, a veritable essay of questions forming in his head. What had he not wanted to ask the dog? If he had Autumn's ability to talk to animals, he would all day at it. The idea of being able to get to know the dog as a functioning, conversing being was so beyond awesome, he could scarcely even imagine it.

"Where do I even start?" He said, shaking his head. "Uh... How about whether I've been taking care of him right? And what his favorite thing to do is?"

Rylan's grin was so wide it would've fallen off his face if it could. "You hear that? You're the cutest ******** thing ever." And he wholeheartedly agreed too.

Fidget wound himself once around his human's legs, and then sprinted back to Autumn. "Flowers!" He yelped. "Flowers! Can you tell boss he's the best thing ever! I'm happy all the time, and, oh, and..." He paused to think, head tilted to one side as dogs were apt to do, and he sat his butt down because the thought required so much concentration. "I like those runs with the bicycle and the people, and oh yea. I see so many new things!"

"I don't think I could say no even if I want to," Rylan answered with a laugh. "Oh, can you ask him how much he understands? When I talk to him." If Fidget could have understood everything he said, he would've traded his entire house and more. As it was, he wanted to know how much the dog already knew.

Just then, his phone buzzed again.

Rylan looked up from the texts, grinning. "So I know him as well as I'd hoped," he said. That was a relief. To be fair, Fidget wasn't a terribly difficult character to judge.

"Some!" Fidget said excitedly. "He says I'm a good boy! That's called a ball! He likes to 'watch TV' sometimes. And he's worried sometimes. But I don't know why." The dog looked a little sad at that, but he'd bounced back in the next moment with, "Oh and food! I like the... what's it called. The 'chicken.'"

By then, Rylan had successfully replied to his Pop and had slid the phone back into his pocket. "We should probably head over soon, before Pop has a panic attack wondering if I'm actually going to show up and... 'look at his wood,'" he said, drawing quotes in the air with his fingers.

"Let's do it," Rylan said with a grin. He let out a low whistle and pointed to the house, into which Fidget dashed with classic enthusiasm. "We'll be back in a bit, buddy."

As they climbed into his truck, he said, "So the surprise is, my pop got a shipment of marblewood in from central America, and as far as I know, it's a pretty exotic wood. Not easy to work with, but real pretty."

He pushed the truck into drive and let it roll out of the driveway, nice and smooth. "And my dad is making ratatouille, which is why they wanted us to show up for lunch."

"I..." Rylan reached for more words to describe the marblewood, but quickly exhausted his options and settled for a shrug. "You know what, pop's the expert. I just parrot what he's told me and hope it's good enough."

All he knew was, somewhere in their shed, there was an ugly wooden duck or other that pop had made from marblewood once upon a time, and now he was off-the-charts excited about finally getting his hands on more.

"Pretty much," he nodded, steering the truck through the streets. "I grew up here. Went to row for Washington in college, enlisted right after graduating, and did that for a few years before I came back." A pedestrian crossed in front of them, and he sat patiently waiting for her to pass. "Part of me thought I was done with the sleepy little town thing, but after Iraq, it just seemed like a much better option. Course, now with all this stuff going on, I'm starting to think maybe I was better off in Baghdad."

But he said it with a grin. They were all on the edge of something, something possibly really bad but he didn't know any other way of approaching it. It was exciting at lesat, though in a good way or bad, he had yet to find out.

"You?"