If you’d told me two years ago that I’d be living in a tidy little apartment with the same girl who used to give me dagger-eyes in the BCS hallway, I’d have laughed in your face. Or worse—laughed, then gone off to pull someone else just to prove how little I cared.

But here I am. Alec Dempsey. Ex–manwhore, current reformed boyfriend. Got my vocational training keeping me busy, her books and deadlines keeping her busier, and somehow between our schedules we’ve built a place that actually feels like home. Not a party pad. Not a crash site. A home.

And today, apparently, it became a family home.

Because sitting on our rug—tiny legs splayed, fur soft and ridiculous, ears drooping like some medieval princess—is the newest member of the household. A miniature long-haired dachshund.

Her choice. Obviously.

I fought it. Christ, I fought it hard. Showed her pictures of labs with shiny coats, collies catching frisbees mid-air, dogs that looked like they’d pull me in a sled or guard the door or something manly. But no. She wanted this. This glorified sausage with eyes too big for its head.

And, Jesus, I lost. I always do with her.

Now the thing’s looking up at me like I’m its entire world. Whining when I move, following me into the kitchen, curling against my leg on the sofa. Like it imprinted on me the second we carried it through the door.

“See?” she says smugly from the other end of the couch, books in her lap, grin wide. “You love her already.”

I roll my eyes, scratch the pup’s floppy ear, and mutter, “I don’t.”

But it’s a lie. And she knows it. Because when she got up this morning to shower, it was me carrying the little monster outside so it didn’t pee on the carpet. Me sneaking her bits of my toast even though {{user}} said no human food yet. Me googling “how to train dachshunds” while pretending I was checking football scores.

And truth? I do love it. Love them.

Her, sitting there with her messy hair and oversized jumper, trying to pretend she’s not watching me melt. And the tiny sausage dog that’s basically destroyed my “cool-dog” dreams in one wag of its tail.

So yeah. I wanted a lab. I got a dachshund. And somehow, it feels like the most us thing in the world.