Chapter 12：Wrapping my head around it (1)

Puppies and Pop turned out to be an adorable, fairly large sized cafe with both regular chair and table seating as well as a raised seating area with tables people can sit at. The decorations were bright and colorful, reminding Anna that bright and varying colors are excellent for early development in mammals. Upon seeing the scattering of people and puppies everywhere through the glass storefront, it's everything Anna can do to not squeal in delight and run at them. Instead, she forced herself to wait patiently while Alex guided her in, a bemused smile on his face.

They stepped up to the counter right away. It's the middle of the day, but not quite lunch time, so there's no line. The woman manning the register appeared to be a warm, motherly type. Her neat black hair is tied off in a dark red ribbon in a low ponytail that's trailing over her left shoulder. The wrinkles that Anna saw in her face all came from laughing. That, Anna thought, was a very good thing. She didn't spend much more time paying attention to the woman, though, because her eyes were constantly drawn back to the puppies that were rolling around the place with their over-sized paws and short, tiny little bodies.

"I'll just need you two to sign these and we'll get you set up at one of our raised seating areas," the woman said, calling Anna's attention back to the arrangements. "The first page is just an agreement that you won't sue is for any harm you may sustain with us and the second is consent to follow the rules here." She slid two pages and a pen each to Anna and Alex for their perusal and signatures. Since Anna hadn't been paying attention to the conversation, she gave both papers a quick look before signing them right away. The first was a fairly standard contract to not sue for injuries sustained in the property and the second was some fair and square pieces of information for how to handle the puppies - things like not sharing human food with them and to let them smell you before you interacted with them. Basics for dog care and cuddling!

With both sets of papers carefully accepted and filed away, the motherly woman smiled at them before gesturing for them to step through the push-door next to the counter. It was too heavy for the puppies to press, but light enough for people to move through.

"Let's get you settled in that back corner, shall we?" she said cheerfully as she neatly stepped in between puppies and shifted furniture. "There's a call button at the end of the table and menus against the wall. The puppies are sweet and curious little things. They'll come to you all on your own, so just relax and get comfortable."

"Thank you," Anna said politely, neatly stepping out of her shoes and sliding them into a cubby. She crawled onto the raised seating area and found a comfortable looking spot. There was an impossible amount of cushions and plushies here for the amount of puppies this place had. The lack of smell told her that the staff here must be diligent and clean frequently.

"Thank you," he told her. Although his expression was bland, his tone was gentle, so the woman thought he must be shy and simply nodded before returning to her spot at the front.

Alex took off his shoes and placed them in a cubby as well. When he turned to settle into his spot opposite Anna, though, he realized she'd already attracted a few of the braver, more curious puppies. The small creatures had taken notice of them as soon as they'd come in, but even Alex hadn't expected them to move so quickly, naive and secure in their safety.

He sat, choosing to simply observe the events before him.

Before him, Anna was purely delighted, her glee obvious in the tilt of her mouth, the way her eyes were squinting in joy, and the energy that was practically bursting from her movements as she looked at the two comers, a small black Labrador and what looked like a golden ball of fur that he thought was supposed to be some tiny version of a golden retriever.

Anna had already held her fingers out for them to sniff and now was ruthlessly putting them with both hands, rubbing at the tops of their heads with her thumb and running her fingers over their ears.

Alex silently lit a candle for the puppies' dignity in his heart.

"Oh my gosh, they're beautiful," Anna cheered. The black lab's nose was scrunching up, as though it didn't know what to do with the sheer amount of energy Anna had.

In all honesty, Alex didn't blame the puppy. It seemed to be as startled as he'd been when she'd first appeared before him. The golden retriever was shamelessly nudging closer for more attention.

"Oh my!" Anna cooed at the puppies. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy? Yes, that's right! You are! You!" She'd relinquished the black lab who took his opportunity to awkwardly crawl under the table to nose at Alex's knee. He let it smell his fingers before gently petting it even as he watched Anna pick up the golden retriever puppy and set it in the cradle of her lap.

"I take it you like this place, then?" he said, feeling the edges of his mouth quirk up in a small smile. Her happiness here was pure in the way that all glee wrought of small, fluffy animals was.

"I do!" she blurted out right away. Then, a slight blush filtered onto her face. "Sorry," she apologized abashedly. "I didn't mean to ignore you."

Alex took an inordinate amount of pleasure from her suddenly shy expression. "It's alright," he told her, showing her a gentle smile. "I brought you here so you could enjoy yourself, after all. There's no reason to be embarrassed about it, but I'll admit I didn't realize you liked puppies so much."

"I told you in the car," she protested quietly, obviously still embarrassed. "They're just really cute and soft and nice to touch."

Countless things went through Alex's mind at this statement. Replies ranged from 'I could say the same about you' to 'So am I' and more. He forced himself to say none of these horrendously inappropriate things, however, and only said to her, "I think there's always at least one thing everyone chooses to take comfort from."

"Oh?" Anna's reply seemed to be thoughtful as she looked down at the puppy she was stroking. Then, her beautiful hazel eyes turned to meet his obsidian orbs and she asked, "What do you take comfort from?"

He was startled by the directness of her question. His hands froze as he simply stared at the brave woman that sat across from him. Alex only came back to himself when the puppy nudged at his fingers, demanding the return of the gently petting fingers. "I don't know what to say," he admitted. "I've never really thought about it."

"You've been alive for a really long time, though," Anna pointed out, using her nails to scratch behind her puppy's ears. "Surely there are things you like?"

"There are many things I enjoy," Alex said slowly, "But not many I find comfort in." He didn't really like the idea that he didn't know what comforted him. After six hundred years of life, you'd expect him to know himself better than that. Perhaps his single-minded search for his deceased wife had limited his understanding of himself.

"That's normal," Anna agreed easily. Her expression had returned to a passive, considering look. He wondered what was going through her mind. "But you should put some thought into it. I like my phone, for example, but I don't feel comforted by it. It's not what I'd go looking for after a long day."

"Have you owned pets before?" Alex asked curiously.

"I didn't," she replied, a tinge of regret in her voice. "But I always wanted one. I'm allergic to cats and Laura's allergic to dogs. We thought about fish or birds, but they're not the same and then our parents died and we ended up never getting anything at all. We were too busy raising each other to even consider raising an animal. It just didn't seem like the responsible thing to do, you know?"

That was entirely understandable. Alex nodded without hesitation. "It sounds like you handled the difficult parts of your life quiet well."

"I think we could've done better," she said wryly. "How about you? Any pets?"

He wasn't sure if they'd talked about this before, but shook his head. "None for me." Was that deja vu?

"Did you ever want one?"

"No," he said simply. He'd been too lost in his own mind when one might have helped and it didn't make sense, after, to get one.

"Then what did you do when you felt bad?" she asked innocently.

Alex grimaced. "I drank. I was," he paused, looking for the correct word, "A reprobate. I drank, I philandered. I gambled. I did many things I am not proud of."

"That's in the past, though, right? I'm sure you didn't do that the whole time," she objected, shaking her head. The flickers of gold in her eyes reflected warm light.

"I didn't," he admitted. "When I realized that it wouldn't solve anything, I stopped and just kept going. It didn't make much sense to waste time on things that wouldn't help me to achieve my goals."

"You stopped?" Anna frowned. "You didn't… I don't know, you didn't try doing something else instead?"

"In times of great distress, I might sleep," Alex said thoughtfully, "There was a period during which I found great stress relief in small bouts of violence. I would find objects or places that no one wanted or needed and simply destroy them."

"In other words," Anna spoke bluntly, "You're repressed."