Induction

Daphne, our seven pound Yorkie, jumped up on the back of the sofa and wagged her stubby tail in greeting. She really was an adorable little thing. Her coat was a steely-blue and tan color. I often joked that she had little-old-lady hair. I kept her fur cut short so she didn’t overheat in the Florida sun when we played outside. She looked up at me with little brown eyes the size of small grapes. That’s all it usually took to get whatever she wanted from me. I totally got the phrase puppy dog eyes after we brought her home from the pet store. She was the real head of the household at Chez Rossi. What Daphne wanted, Daphne got. God forbid we tell her no; she would throw a temper tantrum and stomp her paws like a toddler. And she was stubborn. Lately, I had to add the word now to the end of commands, or she would just stare at me smugly. For some reason the now scared her into action.

I gave Jake the stink-eye. “Not even close. The only thing I saved were patients having to expend energy by walking their asses to the bathroom. Cleaned up a lot of crap. I’m dead tired and have aches and pains in areas I didn’t even know existed.” I grabbed my back and walked hunched around the sofa. I put on my best pathetic voice and hobbled over to him. “I need a hug to make all the pain go away.”

Jake leapt back so fast I thought he was going to fall through the glass coffee table just to get away from me. “Ew, you touched poop? Don’t come near me until you’ve taken the mother of all showers and boiled all those germs off you!” I forgot to mention that my husband is a total germophobe. He wouldn’t come near me even if I’d only been sitting in a classroom talking about disease. It was actually adorable, and I loved chasing him around the house after class just to mess with him. But, alas, he was right; who knew what disgusting things hitchhiked a ride home with me?

“Geez, Jake. You should just put yourself in a bubble and get it over with.” I gave him an exaggerated eye-roll and headed for the bathroom.

I took a long, hot shower and put on an over-sized tee shirt that had seen better days. Dragging my feet as I walked through the room, I sat down on the bed to brush my hair and made the mistake of leaning back to get comfortable.

I jerked awake the next morning stiff from falling asleep in the upright position and a long string of drool sliding down the left side of my chin. I flopped onto my side like a beached whale to discover Jake’s side of the bed was still made. It took all of two confused seconds for realization to dawn on me, and I let out a chuckle. He was so skeeved-out by the poop germs that he never came to bed.

Spying the clock on his nightstand, I jumped out of bed. I had plans to meet Kat at 10:30 for mani-pedi day. The clock read 10:02. I was so screwed. I figured since I had fallen asleep right after showering, I could just toss on some clothes and be done with it. The theory was sound… until I went to brush my teeth and caught a glimpse in the mirror. Not only was the hairbrush still in my hair, it had created a glorious rat’s nest. My hair had seen a wide spectrum of colors over the years. Currently, it was red. Cognac, according to my long-time hairdresser, Dee. The color, combined with my fair skin, made my blue eyes pop.

While I dug the hairbrush out, I eyed myself in the mirror. As all women do when they come in range of a reflective surface, I turned sideways and patted my stomach to see how fat I was. I had to admit, all the time spent on my feet running between patients had done wonders for my waistline. Gone was the pooch that had plagued me for the last two years. Instead, my tummy was flat. Of course, I had no illusions that it was toned by any means, but I would gladly take flat over pooch any day.

Jake was sitting at the kitchen table with his laptop when I emerged from the shower. The smell of fresh coffee wafted over to me and I sighed with pleasure. “God, I love you. Have I told you that you are truly the best hubs in the world? Girls all around are jealous that such a perfect specimen exists. And you’re all mine. Seriously, how did I get so lucky?” Immune to my thinly veiled, good-natured bit of sarcasm, he looked up at me with a mischievous smile on his face.

“So, you want to get lucky eh?” He waggled his eyes at me lasciviously. “I can make that happen.”

“No time. It’s girl day. And I’m late, as usual.”

“Fine, but you’re missing out on this perfect specimen.” He got up from the table and walked toward me. His cockiness was not unfounded. Jake was one of the most attractive men I’d ever laid eyes on. He was my sexy, doe-eyed, Italian stallion. I usually gave him a hard time about his facial hair, because he often sported a five-o’clock shadow. While the scruff only added to his rugged good looks, it was itchy when we kissed. He was about six inches taller than me and his body was muscles in all the right places.