Dexter & Lacey: The First Encounter
#1 of Dexter & Lacey
Lacey's mother rested a large paw on her little shoulder and pushed her forward. "Momma, no!" Lacey said under her breath, careful not to yell. "I don't want to meet them, take me home, Momma, please!" She begged. Her mother hushed her. "Lacey, you are going to meet them and you are going to be polite or you will be punished, along with no supper," her mother said, glaring down at her daughter. Lacey immediately bowed her head, her ears inclining downwards and her tail between her legs as her mother shoved her forward towards the stranger wolf and her cub.
"Hello, I'm Cathy." Lacey's mother, a husky with gray fur and white accents along her nose and muzzle, had white paws and hands as well, which she extended to the brown and black streaked wolf. The wolf smiled politely and introduced herself as Loraine, smiling and reaching down with one paw to ruffle her son's fur. He was sitting on the pavement, a piece of green chalk wedged between his undeveloped toe pads as he drew squiggles and circles on the driveway. His tail wagged at the prospect of meeting new people, and he quickly dropped the chalk and jumped upwards. He was mostly black, with dark brown undertones and streaks along his ears which perked up in excitement.
"I'm Dexter!" He said proudly, smiling at both Lacey and her mother. Lacey avoided eye contact and murmured an introduction, her mother poking the back of her head.
"So, have you just moved in?" Cathy asked. Dexter's mother nodded and they began their typical nosy wolf mother chit chat, including their children's age, their husbands jobs, and the contents of the fridge. Dexter smiled at Lacey, but when she grimaced in response, he shrugged to himself and sat back down in the driveway with his chalk, tracing paw prints and writing his name over the pavement.
Lacey waited until the mothers were distracted before turning and bolting inside. She ran to her room on the second floor and hastily bolted to her desk, re-opening the book she had been reading before her mother had dragged her downstairs, and skimming the pages for the part she had been at. When she found the right page, she began reading, momentarily lost in her own world.
She suddenly looked up from her book, as she had heard a noise. She turned around to face her door, where she saw Dexter standing in the doorway. Her face immediately turned bright red, and she began to growl. "What are you doing here?" She exploded at him. Beneath his face fur she could see that his skin had turned a shade of red as well, not out of anger as hers was but out of embarrassment.
"I...I... he stuttered, his triangular ears tipped downwards, his muzzle parallel to his chest as he inspected his feet, moving from side to side uncomfortably. "I wanted to k-know if you'd come play with me." The words slurred together nonsensically, as if rehearsed...badly. Lacey put a paw between the pages of her book, letting it close as she stared at him over her shoulder. She raised a single eyebrow.
"Why?"
He looked slightly taken aback as he rubbed his two hand paws together nervously. This managed to make them more colorful, as they had been smudged with chalk, all the way up to his elbows in spots, his knees as well covered, as he had drawn dinosaurs and winged creatures across the pavement. He glanced up momentarily at Lacey, but her angry glare caused him to nervously glance down at the floor.
He shrugged. "I...I just thought you might like t-to play...with me?" The statement ended awkwardly in a question, and she lowered her eyebrows.
"Well, you were wrong," she said turning back to her book, The Mouse and The Cookie, and intently reading, or more staring, at a page.
Dexter stood awkwardly at the door frame, looking longingly at Lacey from across the room. "P-please?" She did not look up from her book or show any sign of recognition at his voice. "I...I'll...My mom made some treats..." Her ears perked up, but she stared unfailingly at her book. "You can have one..." he offered hopefully.
She closed her book, sighed, and looked up. "Well, I'll sit with you. But I'm gonna bring my book. And read!" she said with a touch of spite in her voice.
His tail wagged excitedly and he yelped, "T-think you!" He opened his muzzles as if to say more, but quickly closed it, as if afraid if he said too much she would change her mind. He ran inside her room, grabbed her paw, and dashed down the stairs and out of the house. 'Wait here!" he told her, pointing to the spot of grass next to his chalk sketching, and he turned and darted in the opposite direction to his new home. He returned, panting, within seconds with a biscuit in his muzzle.
He handed her the biscuit, and she turned away from him, nibbling on it with one paw, her book in the other. Behind her, Dexter sat back down in the middle of his masterpiece, picked up a piece of blue chalk and traced another tyrannosaurus rex (he didn't want the first to get lonely). He smiled happily to himself, humming a lullaby as he drew. Lacey was secretly glad that Dexter had dragged her outside, for the sun was shining warmly on her white fur. She smiled once she was sure he couldn't see and placed her book down in the grass, yawning. She stretched her limbs, reaching her front paws out to touch her foot paws, purring to herself. She turned over, watching Dexter work as she closed her eyes and curled up, resting her chin on her arm.
When Lacey awoke, her muzzle was buried deep in white fur that tickled her nose and right cheek. Her right arm was thrown over the furry white stomach that she had used as a pillow, and her left arm was tucked close to her, bent at the elbow as she chewed on her claws. She nuzzled her nose into the soft fur and, slowly realizing that, yes, this was a warm body she was lying on top of, she opened her eyes and looked up to see her face had been burrowed into the tummy of Dexter. His small, young body was on its back, Lacey tucked into his stomach, his paws pointing straight upward and kneading the air in his sleep. A small murr escaped his lips as his closed eyes twitched and he kneaded his paws in the air faster, apparently dreaming happily, his bare belly exposed. Lacey stirred and quickly bounded back from his stomach, immediately regretful that she did so, as the warmth of his fur and skin was comforting. She licked her lips and yawned, surprised at her own tiredness, until finally she decided that using Dexter as a pillow wasn't such a bad idea, and she petted his belly and flattened down the fur as she slowly rested her head, careful not to wake him.