New Additions

That's a puppy. Right there. In Mum's arms. Puppy. There's a puppy in the house. I'm not sure how to react to this. Mum has always said we can never have pets since she works with animals all day. I'd forsaken the idea of seeing any animal than a goldfish in the house. But that's a dog. That's a small dog. It's a corgi. It is a brown corgi. My mind is doing somersaults.

"Welcome... Back?" Rouge greets my mother with an undecided tone. I can empathise, this feels like a hallucination.

"Hello girls." My Mum says gleefully. "This is Ruby." She explains. Not the most pertinent bit of information, but to be fair, it was rude of me not to ask the name of an esteemed guest. Mum puts Ruby on the ground, who begins to sniff around her new environment.

I watch the dog wander around, not quite sure if this isn't a weird dream. "So... Ruby's here..." I prompt my mother, who takes a seat on the big chair, apparently in no hurry to explain the situation.

"She's Sapphire's, the one that was sick. problem being that she can't go back to the shelter until her course of drugs are finished, but we can't afford to keep her in care, so, she's staying with us for a couple of weeks." She finally clarifies. I get the message, don't get too attached... Apparently Rouge doesn't though. She's now on the floor rubbing the dog's belly. This is gonna end in tears.

"Rouge, you showed less emotion when I came out." I point out to her, as my sister continues fussing the pup.

"You never came out to me." She retaliates.

Okay, fair point, but it does remind me of a question I've been meaning to ask. "Oh yeah, how did you find out?"

"Please, I knew before you did. Pretty obvious." Rouge argues, still distracted by scratching behind the dog's ears.

"I guess. Oh well, I'm gay by the way." I snort as Rouge reacts with an overdramatic surprised face, before returning to giving Ruby all her attention. I've got business with Mum first anyway... "Speaking of, Mum? Elise's parents invited us all over for dinner... Tomorrow... And I may have said yes." I break the news to Mum, who's expression doesn't show amusement.

"I've been back for five minutes." She sighs. "Oh well, can't be helped, at least I don't have to cook tomorrow." Wow. I was expecting a bit more fire for that one... Maybe Ruby's a calming influence.

*

Okay, I'm not sure this is working out. I know my room's closest to the stairs but that doesn't mean my bed is her rest stop. When did she even learn stairs? I mean, I'm not kicking her out or anything, but come on, how does something so small take up so much space? My distaste for my new living arrangements is cut short by a video call on my laptop. Good, maybe Elise can relieve my frustrations.

"Hey Lapin, is everything set for dinner?" She asks, not bothering to hide the excited smile on her face.

"Oh, dinner's sorted, we'll be there." I confirm. "The big news is nothing to do with that though." I inform her. Elise's face is pure confusion until I rotate my laptop to bring her face to face with Ruby. The sound I hear would convince me someone was having an asthma attack if I didn't know better.

"Oh my gosh, who is this?" Elise coos, almost tearfully. Ruby seems to know she's being praised from the sound, causing her to sit up and look at me. I'm not Rouge, the sound isn't coming from me.

"Ruby, one of Mum's work friends, she's staying here for a bit, apparently on my bed." I conclude. I feel like my annoyance is obvious, but Elise is too enamoured with the furball to notice.

I turn the camera back to me. Come on. I'm cute too. "She's so precious, I want to snuggle her." My girlfriend continues. Oh sure, take the dog's side. "I spoke to Trish by the way, wanted to know if we were going to the Free Ride again this weekend."

"Aah, she wants a buffer to stop Skye getting too familiar." I realise, Trish's methods of dating reminds me of a kid being told to eat their vegetables, they know it'd be good for them, but they don't have the taste for it. "Yeah, I wanted to bring Rouge anyway, that way she can't keep avoiding Rob." I add. Rouge's dating methods remind me of an earthquake. It's a fucking mess.

"Aww, remember when she used to push you to make a move?" Elise chuckles. Honestly, that seems a while away, but it's usually the people who give the best advice that have trouble following it.

Part of me wants to mention my date plan, but honestly, progress has been slow, reservations are booked for next weekend, but money and transport are the issues. Rouge is helping with the first, I'm on the second. Turns out romance is a lot of logistics, it's not worth spoiling the surprise yet.

"Sounds like we've got a busy couple of days, sure you're not sick of me yet?" I joke.

"Pretty sure. You being the pretty, me being the sure." She answers with undue confidence. That was awful. I genuinely felt pained by that line.

"Please, never get chat-up lines from your dad again, that was terrible." I laugh. I guess it's not the worst if I'm laughing is it? It's like an anti-joke. We say goodnight and sign off. I should really sleep, if I can.

Mum comes in to get Ruby and lets me know Jasper's coming but Minnie isn't feeling up to it, sounds like she gets her morning sickness in the evening, so she's going to come here and dogwatch. I suppose that give Rouge less to complain about at least, but Minnie's conversation skills would have come in handy.

I know William's a softie, and Camille doesn't even speak English... But I still feel like there's so many ways this could go wrong.

I just don't know which one is most likely.