Free Belonging by Alexa Land

struggled to remain upright, I
fumbled with the cellophane wrapper, which was, of course, stuck to
the cheese (why would Jessie put it in his pocket?!) and finally
managed to dislodge some and throw it onto my grandmother’s marble
floor. The thing inhaled it like a vacuum and tried to go back to
my sneakers. I scraped a little more cheese off with my fingernails
and said, “Go get it, Chewbacca!” I threw it farther this time, and
the creature went after it while I turned and bolted up the stairs.
As I ran, I got the last of the cheese off the wrapper. The dog
(probably) came bounding after me and really tried his damnedest to
trip me in his quest to eat my footwear. Somehow, I made it to my
bedroom door and threw the last of the cheese before diving inside
and slamming the door shut behind me. The animal stood out in the
hall whining as I pulled out my phone and called my
grandmother.
    “Hi Johnnie, where are you?” Nana
asked when she answered.
    “Upstairs. Do you know there’s a
bear-wookie hybrid in the house?”
    “Do you mean Tom Selleck?”
    “Tom
Selleck? ”
    “The puppy! Isn’t he
sweet?”
    “That thing’s a puppy? What
kind?”
    Nana said, “The brown
kind.”
    I fought back a sigh (I found myself
doing that a lot around my family) and asked, “Whose is
he?”
    “Mine. I adopted him this
afternoon.”
    “My God, why?”
    “Why not?”
    I had to ask. “Why did you name him
that?”
    “Because he looks like Tom
Selleck.”
    “He really doesn’t.”
    “Sure he does,” Nana insisted. “Tom
Selleck is a total fox, and the puppy is such a handsome
boy!”
    “He is?”
    “Didn’t you notice?”
    “No. I was too busy trying not to fall
flat on my face while he was eating my shoes. Do you really not
know what kind of dog he is?” I asked.
    “He’s a mixed breed. Possibly part
Saint Bernard, and then something to give him that long hair. We’re
not entirely sure.” Nana swore and said, “I gotta go, my sauce is
about to boil over.”
    “Do you need help cooking?”
    “Nah. Dante and sweet Charlie are
helping me. You just keep playing with Tom Selleck.” With that, she
hung up on me. I shook my head and went to pick the cheese out from
under my fingernails.
     
    *****
     
    I ended up reading for a couple hours
after I got cleaned up, emerging when I heard the doorbell. The
house was completely still. Apparently the wookie was out somewhere
with the rest of my family.
    Chance Matthews stood on the front
stoop, looking a bit uncomfortable. He wore a long-sleeved shirt,
tie, and dress pants, his normally shaggy dark brown hair neatly
combed. “Hey, Gianni. Your grandmother invited me for Sunday
dinner, but she hung up before telling me what time to be here. Am
I early?”
    “Yeah, but that’s fine. We usually eat
at seven.”
    “Oh! Shit, it’s only five-thirty. I’ll
come back later.”
    “No, don’t go. Come on in and have a
drink with me so we can catch up. I haven’t seen you since the
cruise.” At Christmastime, Nana had gotten the whole family onto a
Hawaiian cruise and ambushed Vincent and Trevor with a surprise
wedding ceremony. Chance, who was a friend of Christian’s, had been
the photographer and I’d gotten to know him a bit during that week
at sea.
    “Well, if you’re sure I’m not
interrupting.”
    “You’re not at all,” I said as I held
the door open for him and he came into the foyer. “I was hiding in
my room because my grandmother adopted an incredibly rambunctious
dog. I guess they took it for a walk or something, since it’s not
attacking our feet right now.”
    I made us some cocktails and we
carried them into the living room. As we settled onto the couch,
Chance looked around and said, “This place is amazing. I knew Nana
was well-off, but damn. This is the most beautiful home I’ve ever
been in.”
    “It’s all very Nana,” I told him. The
living room was decorated around a huge Persian rug, picking up its
gold and deep red tones in the