Chapter 20: Leave It

I didn't see Bear run.

I only heard a deep bark from the back of the lot.

Then a woman screamed and a folding chair went over.

Brent's hand was an inch from my phone.

Something brown and heavy hit him from the side.

He went off the edge of the stage backward, still reaching, and Bear went with him.

They landed on the asphalt with a thud I felt in my feet.

"Get him off!" Brent shouted. "Get this animal off me!"

Bear had his teeth in the blue tie.

He wasn't biting Brent at all.

He just held the silk in his jaws, planted all four paws, and hauled backward with his whole body while Brent scrabbled at the knot.

The crowd came apart in laughter.

I looked for Holt, and found him at the far edge of the lot, exactly where he'd said he would be.

He stood behind the faded curb stripe with his empty hands open at his sides, and the leash lay on the gravel behind him.

His whole body was shaking from the effort of not moving.

He met my eyes across three hundred people.

He did not take one step.

I loved him so hard in that moment that I couldn't breathe.

"Bear," I called. "Leave it."

Bear let go at once.

He trotted up the stage steps with the tie hanging out of his mouth and dropped it at my red shoes, and sat down on my foot.

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