Chapter Text
“Rudy let me in already! Come on man, I’ve been out here forever!” Louise yelled through the front door of Rudy’s small one level house. She doubted he heard her over what was probably about 5 dogs barking at the door. She rang the doorbell several more times before getting fed up. Trudging through the snow, she made her way around the side of the house. Using a pocket knife she shimmied the poorly held on back door open and stepped into the garage. The door between the garage and the house was in a permanent state of unlocked after Rudy locked himself out one too many times. Jessica had offered to teach him how to pick locks a few years earlier, but he refused.
Louise let herself into the house, greeted by two snarling dogs and three way too excited ones. The first two joined the excitement as soon as they saw five biscuits being pulled out of her pocket. After shushing them she took off her shoes and tiptoed into the kitchen where Rudy had his back turned to her.
“HI RUDY!” Louise shouted at the top of her lungs. Rudy let out a high pitched shriek and fell into the counter as he turned. Louise laughed as she bent down to give him the spare inhaler she carried with her.
“Louise! What did I tell you about sneaking up on me?” He wheezed between puffs from his inhaler. “And about breaking into my house?”
“I was standing out there for ten minutes yelling and ringing the doorbell. You couldn’t hear me because of them.” She said gesturing towards the dogs that had now surrounded them. “Get a better doorbell, man.”
Rudy stood up and dusted himself off before grabbing a container off the top shelf and handing it to Louise.
“Look at you! I can’t even call you regular sized anymore, you’re ridiculously tall!”
“I’m still regular sized, you’re just short Louise.”
“I am not short! This town is just full of freakishly tall people!”
“I’m sure that’s what it is.” Rudy replied.
“You know, as happy as I am that you learned not to take shit from people, I could stand to get less sass from you.”
“Never gonna happen.”
“Ugh. Speaking of sass, when’s Jessica getting here?”
“She called to say she can’t make it. Something about not being able to escape an entity known as Ira?”
“I remember Ira. She did not like me at all.” Louise paused before continuing. ”It’s probably for the best she didn’t come tonight though, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What’s up?”
“I kinda… like someone and I’m not sure what to do about it.”
“Wow, Louise I’m flattered, but I haven’t felt that way about you since high school.”
“Not you, idiot!” Louise said, punching his arm. “I’m serious. I don’t know how to tell him or if I even should tell him. I’m not all that excited to get turned down.”
“Why do you think he’ll turn you down?”
“We kind of have a history that didn’t exactly start well.”
“Who is it? Do I know them?”
“Kind of…”
“You know, if you tell me who it is I can help you a lot more.”
“Ugh, fine. Do you remember Logan?”
“Logan, Logan, hmm.” Rudy leaned on the counter. Louise considered telling him he was getting flour on the back of his shirt, but based on how much was on the rest of it she figured it didn’t matter. “Wait! Isn’t he the one…?”
“Oh noooo I was hoping you’d forget this story!” She said while pressing her palm to her forehead.
“He was wasn’t he? You tried to cut his ears off! Oh, Louise.”
“I didn’t try to cut his ears off, the one eyed snakes did. I just kind of asked them to. Besides, he stole my ears and told me he threw them out! What was I supposed to do?”
“Not try to cut his ears off? I dunno I’m not very good at confrontation.”
“They weren’t even going to do it anyways. I had to bribe Critter just to scare him. Anyways that’s not important. I seriously need advice here. And to know what’s in this thing, I’ve been holding it for like 20 minutes.” She said holding the container up. “And don’t tell me to just open it, last time I did that it was stool samples.”
“It’s cookies. They’re all the ones that didn’t look nice enough to bring to Shelter Day. I thought you’d like to bring them to your house for Christmas.”
“How can a cookie not look nice? It’s a fucking cookie, as long as it’s not burned or stepped on its fine!”
“People like stuff to be uniform, it looks professional. And we’re getting off topic again. How did he act when he saw you last? Did he seem mad about it?”
“Well no, but that still doesn’t mean he’d be interested in me.”
“But it’s still a good sign.” Rudy replied as he put the last of the dough in the fridge. His phone buzzed and he looked at it. “You want to help me bring Snoopy over to Jessica’s? She’s giving him to her uncle.” He asked, gesturing at the small beagle that was sitting at his feet.
“Yeah sounds good.”
“Awesome.” Rudy turned to the large sheepdog. “Alright now Beans, you’re in charge. Keep an eye on them while we’re gone.”
“His hair is covering his eyes, I don’t think he can.”
“He’s got this. I’m going to go start the car.”