Carly pushed a chunk of carrot around her nearly empty bowl, pretending to consider the question, before saying, “Dogs. You?”“When I was a kid, Mom had a giant orange cat, this big constantly shedding fur ball with beady eyes and a wicked swipe. He always behaved when she was in the room, but when she wasn’t…” Dane shook his head. “I’ve got more scars than I can count from that monster, and I could never do anything about it, or she would have freaked out, so definitely dogs.”She laughed. They’d spent the whole meal trading forced-choice questions. He preferred Coke over Pepsi, hot over cold, and adventure vacations over beach-lazing. He liked his books in paper, his music with an edge, coleslaw on his hot dogs, and mustard-based barbecue sauce over slow-roasted beef.As if everybody in the universe didn’t know “barbecue” meant tomato-based sauce on pork.“Potato salad,” he said. “Chunky or creamy?”Before Carly could open her mouth, the answer came from above.
