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It was finally spring, and above freezing in New York. The snow had melted, trees were starting to bloom, and the grass was turning from brown to green. It was a Saturday morning, and the sun had just started to rise as Harvey pulled out of the driveway. He was on his way to Connecticut to pick up a surprise for Sloane and Jude, but this wasn’t the typical surprise that he’d pick up for his kids. He’d usually come home with surprise black and white cookies from their favorite local bakery, a cake pop from Starbucks—anything that he’d come across that screamed Sloane and Jude—this was even bigger—life changing, he’d argue.
Harvey was picking up their new puppy, a golden retriever puppy. After the holidays, he and Donna had many conversations about adding a puppy to their family. It might be a little ridiculous to think their four-and-a-half-year-old and two-year-old needed a puppy—but it felt like the right kind of crazy, especially for the Specters. Both of them had done their research, found a reputable breeder located on a farm in Bethany, Connecticut—a little over an hour drive from their home in White Plains. They’d put a deposit down on a puppy a few weeks ago, but Harvey requested that he be able to choose the puppy once he saw them in person—the breeder agreed.
Now here he was, driving north on I-95, coffee and a bacon, egg, and cheese on an everything bagel in hand, a dog bed on the passenger seat with a new blanket and a couple of toys to pick up a puppy for his family. He takes a sip of his coffee, a vanilla latte, which Harvey wouldn’t admit was his coffee order. He glances over at the passenger seat, where the new dog bed and toys are, as he places the coffee back in the cup holder. He smirks as he thinks about Sloane and Jude running towards him as he walks into the house with their new best friend. He was only about 20 minutes from the breeder’s farm, and as he got closer, he got a little more nervous—anxious. He thought a few times on the drive if he and Donna were really crazy for this—two toddlers and a puppy—some would say that’s a recipe for a disaster, but he’d thought about the smiles and the giggles from the kids, and that anxiousness went away.
When he arrives at the farm, he turns off the main road onto a dirt driveway. The driveway is long—about a quarter mile—that Harvey wonders if he’d made a wrong turn, but as he starts to wonder, a farmhouse comes into view.
Harvey smiles when he sees the red farmhouse and barn on the expansive property. Horses grazing in the grass in a fenced-in area near the barn, along with a large chicken coop. Once he reaches the farmhouse and barn, he shifts the SUV into park and steps out onto the dirt driveway, and is quickly greeted by an older man with gray-white hair and beard jogging over from the barn.
“You must be Mr. Specter,” the man says as he jogs over to Harvey, his hand extends out to shake Harvey's hand. “I’m Ben. We’d talked on the phone a few times.”
Harvey shakes Ben’s hand. “Yes, of course—and it’s Harvey.”
“Harvey—ready to meet your puppy?” Ben says as he turns and walks towards the barn, waving his arm at Harvey to follow him.
Harvey smiles, then walks a few steps behind Ben. His heart was pounding out of his chest. Why am I so nervous? It’s just a puppy.
When they reach the barn, Ben opens the door and lets Harvey step in first. The barn is warm and has that signature farm smell. Harvey grimaces for a second when the smell hits his nose. Ben shuts the door behind him and walks past Harvey towards another door to a small room.
“I’ll go grab the puppies, and I’ll bring them out here to the pen so you can meet them and decide,” he tells Harvey as he opens the door to the room.
Harvey nods his head and waits, his hands in the pockets of his jacket. He looks around aimlessly in the barn. The wait felt like a lifetime, but it was only a couple of minutes, and Ben walked out of the small room with a puppy in each arm.
He places the excited puppies in the pen and looks over at Harvey. “These are the only two left available. A male and a female.”
Harvey walks over and enters the pen with the puppies. He gives Ben a wandering look. “Only two?” he says softly.
“Yeah, their eight brothers and sisters were picked up already,” Ben confirms. He points at the puppy, closest to Harvey’s feet, as he kneels to greet the puppy. “The darker red coat puppy is the male, and the light cream coat puppy is the female.”
Harvey starts to pet the male puppy, and his sister comes trotting over for some pets quickly after she notices her brother getting all the attention. He chuckles at the two puppies as they fight for his attention.
They seem bonded. I can’t leave one here without their brother or sister. They would miss each other—right?
Harvey stands up from the barn’s floor; he brushes the hay off his jeans as he stands. “I’d like to take both puppies home,” he says firmly.
Ben’s eyes widened. “Both puppies?”
Harvey gives a small shrug and looks down at the puppies who are tumbling in the hay as they play with each other. “I can’t take one and leave the other.” He sighs deeply. “I wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about the one that I left behind.”
Ben gave Harvey a nod as if he’d heard that same reasoning a hundred times before. “Alright—two puppies. Double the chaos,” he says with a laugh.
Harvey laughs with him, but inside, he starts to panic. Donna is going to be pissed.
***
After Ben and Harvey negotiate a new price, now that Harvey was taking two puppies home, Ben gives him some puppy food and other supplies, along with the puppies' vet records from the shots they’d already received. Harvey loads both puppies into the SUV, placing them on the dog bed in the passenger seat.
“Have a safe drive back home,” Ben says as Harvey gets into the driver’s seat. “Send us some updates on the puppies with the kids.”
“Thank you—and will do,” he says as he starts the engine of the SUV.
He drives slowly back down the dirt driveway to the main road that leads to I-95. He quickly glances over at the two sleeping puppies on the passenger seat. Donna being pissed is an understatement.
“What are we going to do with two puppies?” he mumbles to himself. He looks over at the two sleeping puppies again, curled up next to each other on the passenger seat. He smiles, thinking of Jude and Sloane with their new puppies, running in the backyard, giggling and screaming as the puppies chase them. He turns his attention back to the road and shrugs. “We have two kids—how hard can two puppies be?”
About 20 minutes into the drive back to White Plains, the puppies start wiggling in the dog bed, attempting to climb on Harvey as he drives.
“Okay, okay, we’re going to stop somewhere,” he says as he glances over at the puppies, pushing them slightly back into their seat in the dog bed.
He notices a sign for a McDonald’s off the next exit and decides it would be a good place to stop with the puppies to walk them and maybe let out some energy so they could sleep for the last leg of the trip.
The McDonald’s isn’t far off the exit. Harvey pulls the SUV into a parking spot far from the busy restaurant, near a grassy area, hoping the puppies would cooperate and go to the bathroom.
He shifts into park and looks over at the puppies. “Okay, you two. Let’s try to go potty and get some of those wiggles out.”
Harvey steps out of the SUV, walks towards the tailgate, and opens it. He immediately notices the puppies trying to jump over the seats to get to him. “Stay right there, you two,” he orders as he grabs the two collars and leashes that Ben had given to him before leaving the farm, then closes the tailgate.
He walks over to the front passenger-side door with the two collars and leashes, opens the door to the puppies, and pushes them back slightly so they wouldn’t jump out. He clips a collar and leash to each puppy and carries one under each arm. He walks over to a grassy area and places the puppies down, hoping they would go to the bathroom, but they immediately turn their attention to Harvey, climbing onto him and pawing him for pets. Harvey decides to try to walk with them, but that was easier said than done. One puppy plops in the grass as the other tries to run after a squirrel, nearly pulling Harvey’s arm out of its socket.
After a few attempts at getting the puppies to walk on their leashes, they finally cooperated. Now Harvey sat at a picnic table, holding on to both leashes as the puppies played with each other in the grass, giving them a few more minutes before they went back to the SUV and drove the rest of the way home.
Harvey smiles as he watches the puppies play, tumbling on top of one another, one nipping the other's ear playfully. He truly felt he’d made the right decision by taking both of them, but the closer he got to home, he wasn’t so sure Donna would feel the same.
“How am I going to explain this to Donna?” he asks himself out loud.
As if on queue, Harvey’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He quickly adjusts his hold on the leashes so he can pull his phone out. He glances down at the screen before answering and smiles. There on the screen, Donna’s name flashes with a picture of her with Jude and Sloane. The picture was taken by Harvey a few weeks ago at a local coffee shop that he and Donna frequented. Sloane and Jude were bickering over who sat on Mama’s lap. Sloane had the signature Specter scowl at her brother, her brows furrowed, her lips pouted, her strawberry blonde curls rustled even though Donna tamed them with product that morning, her mouth covered in chocolate from her chocolate croissant, Pooh in one hand as she was mid-swat at her brother. Jude was near tears, mid-cry or yell at his sister, trying to tell her that both of them could sit on Mama’s lap, that she needed to share Mama with him. And then there was Donna—completely glowing, not only from the mid-morning sun shining through the coffee shop window, but from motherhood—complete happiness. She had the biggest smile on her face—the complete opposite of their kids, as if she were trying to tell Harvey with her smile, This is the life we’ve always dreamed of.
He quickly slid his thumb over the screen to answer and held the phone to his ear. “Hi,” he says softly with a smile.
“Hi—are you on your way?”
“Everything okay?” he answers, slightly worried.
“Yeah—everything’s fine. We’re just wondering where you are. The kids keep asking me questions about where you went so early this morning. I think they’re mad that you didn’t take them with you—even if they don’t know where you went.”
Harvey smiles, thinking about Jude and Sloane relentlessly questioning Donna all morning. “Yeah—I made a pit stop at a McDonald’s so the pup—puppy could blow off some steam and hopefully sleep the rest of the way home.”
“Are you going to tell me which puppy you picked? Send a picture? Or are you leaving it a surprise for the three of us?”
Harvey bit his lip, thinking of an answer that she would believe. “I want it to be a surprise. Start thinking of some names because I have no idea what we should name them.”
“Them?” she answers, her voice slightly pitched.
“Now—Donna, it's a surprise if the puppy is a boy or a girl. Don’t try to be swift to ruin it.”
She chuckles. “I’ll see you when you get home. Love you.”
“Love you more. Bye.” Harvey ends the call and sighs deeply. “Shit,” he says as he looks down at the two puppies still wrestling each other in the grass. He stands up from the picnic table and picks up the puppies, one cradled under each arm. “Okay, you two, let’s go home and meet the rest of your family,” he murmurs as both puppies kiss his face.
Harvey loads the puppies back into the SUV. He takes off their collars and leashes and attempts to clean off their paws. It wasn’t too long after he started his drive back onto the interstate that both puppies were asleep.
Harvey sighs in relief. Thank god, they’re asleep, he thought. It wouldn’t be too much longer before he was home with the puppies, facing the excitement from Jude and Sloane, but also a pissed off Donna.
***
It had been quite the morning for Donna. Not only was she anxiously waiting for Harvey to come home and surprise their kids with a puppy, but she somehow had to keep that secret from her very noisy kids—and for much longer than she’d anticipated.
She’d just got off the phone with him, and he still had about a 40 minute drive until he was home with the puppy. She didn’t know how much longer she’d be able to contain herself from telling the kids—these kids were relentless.
Donna had snuck into their half-bath off the playroom to call Harvey—hoping Jude and Sloane were preoccupied playing that they wouldn’t be looking for her for the five minutes that she needed to talk to her husband. She slips her phone into her back pocket of her jeans, then opens the door to the bathroom to head back to the playroom. When she opens the door, she’s half surprised to find Sloane waiting for her outside the bathroom door.
Donna crouches down to be eye level with her daughter. She runs a hand through her mussed curls, pushing them out of her face. “What are you doing out here, Little Miss?”
Sloane looks up at her mama with her dark brown eyes that match Harvey’s, which she knows her mama couldn’t resist. “I hear you talkin’ to Daddy,” she says with a pout, clutching her Pooh closer to her chest.
Donna’s eyes go wide, slightly concerned that Sloane heard her whole conversation with Harvey. She picks her up from the floor and rests her on her hip. Sloane rests her head on her mama’s shoulder as she continues to clutch Pooh to her chest. “And what did you hear me say to Daddy? Hmmm,” she asks softly, trying to hide her worry that she heard something about the puppy, then presses a kiss to her daughter’s forehead.
Sloane lifts her head and looks at Donna, all serious. “You say, ‘I see you when you get home. Luv you.’”
Donna looks at her daughter, perplexed. “That’s it? You heard me saying bye to Daddy?”
Sloane nods. “I came here to go potty, but you in there.”
“Oh—Let’s go potty then,” she murmurs as she turns toward the half-bathroom.
***
It had been almost an hour since Donna talked to Harvey; he only had a 40 minute drive left when she’d talked to him. She’d just started making lunch for Jude and Sloane as they sat in the living room watching a movie, waiting for their lunch. Suddenly, Donna’s phone dings from the counter. She looks down at the display and quickly picks it up to read the message when she notices it’s Harvey.
H: “About to open the gate and pull in the driveway. Are you able to sneak away and meet me outside in the driveway?”
Donna raises her brow slightly as she finishes reading Harvey’s text, finding it odd that he wanted her to meet him outside. What is he up to? You’d think he’d just bring the puppy inside, she thought. She quickly types a message back to him; I’ll be right out. She looks up from her phone to Sloane and Jude on the couch, still focused on the movie she’d put on for them. She slips her phone into the back pocket of her jeans as she pads slowly towards the mudroom to put on her outside slippers, then slips into the garage and opens the garage door bay where Harvey usually parks his SUV to wait for him to pull up.
Donna stands on the threshold of the garage bay, her arms folded against her chest. She’s starting to get this feeling that something is up. She stands there for another minute or so before she notices Harvey’s SUV slowly moving up the driveway.
Harvey parks the SUV in the middle of the driveway, a little way from the garage. Donna smiles, starting to feel excited about the puppy again. She walks swiftly towards the SUV to meet him. When she’s about two strides from the SUV, Harvey jumps out, slamming the driver’s side door. “Sorry—I took longer than I thought. The puppies threw up when I was about 15 minutes away—,” he says without taking a breath and not realizing what he just slipped out of his mouth, rounding the SUV to the passenger side, barely acknowledging Donna as she walks towards him.
Donna stops dead in her tracks as she catches what Harvey just said. “Puppies?” she murmurs.
As she walks to Harvey at the passenger-side door, the two puppies jump up and lean against the door, fogging up the window as they pant. Donna jumps a little, startled by the two golden fluffy bodies up against the door and window when she’d only expected one. “Harvey—” she mumbles through her teeth as she focuses on the two puppies looking back at her.
“Oh—shit,” he says in defeat.
She turns towards him. Her arms folded against her chest with a knowing look that he’d better start explaining why there are two puppies.
“Care to explain?” she says as she moves her head towards the puppies in the SUV. It was more of an order than a question.
Harvey moves swiftly around her to open the passenger door to let the puppies out of the SUV. “I can and I will, but I think we have about 30 seconds before our little menace discovers us with her partner in crime.”
Donna rolls her eyes, her arms still folded against her chest. “Can I get the 30-second or less rundown at least?”
Harvey sighs, tipping his head back slightly, then lifting the female puppy into his arms. “There were only two puppies left, and I couldn’t leave one there alone—two is better than one, right?” he explains to his wife as he plops the puppy into her arms and catches her by surprise.
Donna raises her brow, but the puppy immediately kisses her face, making her smile and giggle. “Is that it?”
Harvey lifts the male puppy, who is a little rowdier than his sister, into his arms. The puppy starts aggressively kissing his face. “Pretty much.”
Donna looks down at the puppy in her arms. “A little warning would’ve been nice,” she murmurs, then smirks.
“I know, but—I didn’t exactly have a lot of time. And well, maybe deep down I knew you would be okay with it—eventually,” he explains while being attacked by kisses from the male puppy.
She chuckles. “Eventually—is that so?”
“I promise I’ll explain more later—and I promise I’ll make this work. But right now—I want to see our kids lose their minds over their new puppies.”
Donna doesn’t say anything at first. She reads him—as she’d always had. “Okay, later. But I swear, Harvey, this,” she says, then she gestures towards the puppies in their arms. “It's all on you.”
Harvey nods his head slightly, then kisses her cheek softly, and the female puppy kisses him, making Donna smile. “Promise,” he says softly against her cheek.
Both of them start walking towards the house. Donna looks over at the puppy in Harvey’s arms, then back at the puppy in hers. “So—who do we have here?”
Harvey chuckles. “I guess that would help to know who they are before we get in the house.”
“It would.”
“The puppy you have is a girl.” He adjusts the puppy in his arms. “And this one is a boy.”
Donna reaches to pet the male puppy; he aggressively kisses her hand. “Well, hello,” she says softly. She looks up at Harvey, “I guess you weren’t kidding when you said I needed to start thinking of names for THEM,” she teases.
Harvey chuckles. “No, I wasn’t. I figured we can figure out names with Sloane and Jude,” he says as he reaches to open the door from the garage to the mudroom.
“Great—Sloane will demand to name one, Pooh. And Jude, on the other hand, will have a list of at least 10 possible names for each and won’t be able to decide on one.”
Harvey chuckles as he steps into the mudroom, Donna following behind. “Very true. Now, let’s surprise our babies with their new best friends.”
***
Harvey walks slowly from the mudroom to the living room to find Sloane and Jude still focused on their movie; they probably didn’t have any idea that Donna had gone outside to meet him. Donna stood back in the mudroom with the other puppy. She and Harvey thought he should walk in first with the male puppy to surprise the kids, while they focused on the surprise of the one puppy, Donna would walk in with the other puppy to complete the surprise.
As Harvey gets closer to the couch, Sloane, sensing someone coming in the room, turns her head towards him and does a double-take when she spots the puppy in her daddy’s arms. She gasps, causing Jude to turn towards Harvey. “Oh my gosh—a puppy!” he yells as he jumps off the couch and runs towards him and the puppy.
Sloane leaps off the couch after Jude with a thud and toddles over to Harvey. “Puppy! Puppy! Puppyyyy!” she screams as she toddles as fast as she can with her chubby toddler legs.
Harvey crouches and puts the puppy down on the hardwood floor. The puppy slips at first, but then quickly trots to Sloane and Jude. Jude immediately falls to his knees on the hardwood when he is close to the puppy. The puppy jumps and places his front paws on his chest and licks his face as Jude pets him.
Sloane plops on the floor next to Jude and reaches to pet the puppy. He immediately turns his attention towards her, and he places his front paws on her chest as he did with Jude. Sloane nearly falls backward. She giggles and continues to pet him. “Hi puppy! Me Sloane. I luv you!”
Donna smiles as she looks on from the mudroom. She places a kiss on the puppy in her arms’ head. “Now it's your turn,” she whispers to the puppy as she walks into the living room.
She’s only a few steps from Sloane and Jude. They don’t even notice her and the other puppy; all eyes are on the puppy with them on the floor. “Who do you have there?” Donna asks, trying to get their attention.
Sloane and Jude whip their heads up towards her. Their eyes go wide when they notice the second puppy in their mama’s arms. Jude’s mouth opens, but no words come out. Sloane quickly stands up from the floor and toddles over to her mama. “‘Nother puppy!” she screams.
Donna laughs, then smiles as she crouches as Sloane reaches her. “It is another puppy, love.”
Sloane gently pets the puppy that is still in her mama’s arms; the puppy kisses Sloane’s nose, making her giggle.
Jude looks over at Harvey. “You got us two puppies?”
Harvey smiles. “I did,” he confirms, then kisses his boy’s forehead and lifts the puppy back into his arms. “And these puppies need names.”
Donna looks up at Harvey as Sloane continues to pet the female puppy. “Maybe we should take them outside first—before one or both pee on the floor from all the excitement.”
“The dogs or the kids?” Harvey jokes.
Sloane and Jude burst into laughter as Donna tilted her head at him. “The dogs. I’m hoping our human babies are fully potty trained.”
***
Sloane and Jude lead the way into the backyard. They step outside onto the patio, and Sloane runs towards the swingset on the other side of the yard, expecting the puppies to run after her. Jude turns towards the door where the puppies stood, a little too nervous to step outside.
Jude pats his leg, trying to get the puppies’ attention. “Come on, puppies! Come on!”
The puppies run towards him, knocking against each other. The male puppy tumbles to the ground and gets up again, and runs towards him.
Donna and Harvey both laugh as they step outside. They sit on the patio sectional that faces the backyard so they can watch the kids with the puppies.
Donna leans back into the one corner of the sectional, her legs folded under her. She looks out into the yard, watching Sloane and Jude chase the puppies around the swing set. She laughs as the puppies trip over their own paws, and Sloane follows suit. She looks over at Harvey, who is also watching. “So—names for not one puppy but two puppies you decided to bring home.”
Harvey turns his attention to Donna. “You’re never going to let me live this down, are you?”
“Nope,” she replies, popping the p.
“I thought we were going to have the kids decide on the names?”
“They can make the final decision. Because if this is anything like naming both of our kids, we’ll be here for a while.”
Harvey chuckles at the comment, thinking back when he and Donna were deciding on names for Sloane and Jude. He looks back at the kids and puppies in the yard, then back over to Donna. “I do have a name in mind.”
Donna raises a brow. “You do?” She picks up her phone from beside her and opens her notes app to start a list. “And what name would that be?”
“Duke.”
“Duke?” She looks at her husband’s face—reading him. “You’re serious.”
Harvey sighs. He adjusts in his seat on the sectional. “Duke was a name that I would’ve named a dog if I had one—if my dad actually followed through on it whenever I would ask for one.”
Donna scoots closer to him. She leans against him and rests her head on his shoulder. “I knew the reason you were so adamant on getting Sloane and Jude a puppy was that you wanted one when you were a kid, but you never told me that part of the story.”
“Well, the name Duke didn’t come until much later—when I was a teenager.”
“Keep talking, now I’m intrigued.”
Harvey rolls his eyes because he could already hear his wife’s response. “Duke is after the dog in the Bush’s Baked Beans commercials,” he admits, biting his lip.
Donna lifts her head, looking at him. “Seriously?” she says through her laugh. “The dog in the baked beans commercials.”
“Jim and Duke were inseparable. The true definition of man’s best friend.”
Donna laughs and rests her head back on Harvey’s shoulder as she types Duke into her notes app. “Okay, Harvey, Duke is on the list.”
“How about you? Do you have any better names?”
Donna starts to speak, but gets cut off when Sloane comes running towards them.
“Daddy! I have a name for the girl puppy!” she screams as she runs towards them, the puppies following her.
“You do? Let me guess—is it—Pooh?”
“No,” she says seriously, shaking her head. “I only have one Pooh.”
“Of course. That was a bad guess. Tell me—what’s the name?”
“Vivi!”
“Vivi? Do you mean Genevieve—like Madeline’s puppy in the books?” Donna asks her.
Sloane had been obsessed with the Madeline books recently, demanding Donna or Harvey read them multiple times at bedtime. Madeline had been one of Donna’s favorite books when she was Sloane’s age, and she introduced her to them a short time ago. She even bought Sloane her own Madeline doll, similar to the one she had as a child.
“Yep,” Sloane answers as she nods her head. “She look just like her in the book.”
Donna smiles at her daughter, then pulls her in for a hug and kisses her forehead. “Genevieve it is.”
“Yay!” Sloane yells, then turns and runs towards Jude, who is on the swing set. “Jude! I name the girl puppy! She, Vivi!”
Jude hops off the swing and starts to run towards them. “Can I name the boy puppy?! Because Lolo named the girl puppy!”
Donna and Harvey look at each other briefly before they both turn their attention back to Jude, who is now standing in front of them.
Donna leans forward and reaches for her son’s arm, and pulls him closer to sit between her and Harvey on the sectional. She lifts him onto the couch, and he scooches closer to his mama’s side.
Donna wraps her arm around him and holds up her phone with the other to show him the list of names, well, the one name on the list. “Daddy likes Duke. What do you think? Does he seem like a Duke to you, or can you do better than Daddy?”
Jude looks over at the puppies playing in the grass. Harvey tries to call them over. It takes a couple of attempts to get their attention, and they come running over. Both puppies leap onto the sectional, causing Jude to giggle.
Jude reaches for the boy puppy and pulls him closer, examining him. His brow furrows as he scans the puppy’s features. “Hmmmmm. I don’t know,” he gives the puppy another once over, then looks up at Harvey. “Daddy, why do you like the name, Duke?”
Harvey smiles at his boy. “Duke was a name that I always had in mind for a puppy—if I got one when I was your age. There was a golden retriever puppy named Duke in a commercial when I was growing up.”
“Can I see—can I see the Duke puppy?”
Harvey pulls out his cell phone from his front pocket and searches Google for a picture of Duke the Bush’s Baked Beans dog. He holds his phone out to Jude when he finds a decent picture of the dog. “See—this is Duke.”
Jude looks closely at the picture on the screen, then down at the puppy in his lap, then back up at the picture again. He smiles softly and looks up to Harvey. “He’s Duke.”
“Are you sure, buddy? You don’t have to name him Duke just because I like the name.”
Jude nods his head, then places a kiss on top of the puppy’s head. “He’s Duke, and he’s mine,” he confirms, then hops off the couch. “Come on, Duke. Let’s go play with Lolo and Genevieve,” he says as he taps his hand to his thigh and runs towards his sister and Genevieve.
Duke leaps off the couch and runs to catch up to his boy; his ears flap as he runs.
Donna and Harvey chuckle as they watch their kids with Duke and Genevieve.
Donna scooches closer to Harvey on the sectional. She wraps her arms around his as she leans into him. “How was that easier than naming our tiny humans?” she says softly with a laugh.
Harvey chuckles slightly, then kisses her temple. “I don’t know, but I think they’re perfect.”
Donna nods against his arm. “They are—both human and puppy babies,” she tilts her head up to him. “This doesn’t change the fact that I’m still mad at you for bringing home two puppies.”
He nods his head as he brushes his fingers up and down Donna’s arm. “I know—but it will work out, baby.”
Donna sits up and turns fully towards Harvey. “Oh, don’t try to sweet-talk me—I meant what I said earlier,” she says, sternly. “Duke and Genvieve—are all you. All of it.”
“I will research trainers tomorrow and make calls on Monday.”
She gives him a knowing look, then goes back to leaning against his arm. Harvey wraps his arm around her again and starts to brush his fingers down her arm as he did before, as they both look out to the yard to Sloane and Jude playing and chasing Duke and Genevieve around the yard.
“I love you, Harvey,” Donna says softly. She looks up to him, her head still resting against his shoulder. “Even when you do impulsive things like bringing two puppies home to our toddlers.”
Harvey chuckles, then tilts her chin up with his finger and kisses her lips—soft, not rushed. “I love you, too. And thank you for loving me—even in the hard moments—like bringing home two puppies.”
They stayed out in the yard for a little longer—it wasn’t long before Sloane came over, whining that she was cold. They went back inside with their two new additions to the Specter family. Donna, Jude, and Sloane watched a movie in the living room while Harvey made them lunch. And as for the two newest Specters—they immediately crashed, exhausted, on the floor of the living room in their new bed that Donna brought out that she had hidden in the closet. Harvey teases that they need another bed since he brought home two.
Harvey places two plates of chicken quesadillas on the island, along with two plastic tumblers of water for Sloane and Jude. He looks out into the living room at Donna on the couch in between Sloane and Jude as they giggle at the movie they’re watching, and both kids cuddle against her. He thinks for a moment—if someone had told him five years ago that he would be here—married, two kids—and now two dogs, he wouldn’t have believed it, but now—he can’t imagine being anywhere else.