Rudy pulls the Fiesta up along the grass in front of my house. He keeps the engine running because starting it is sometimes an issue.

All I can think to say is: “Well then.”

“Yep,” he says.

We’ve already said enough. He manages a quick, strained smile, and I climb out of the car. The Fiesta sputters a few times but doesn’t quite stall, and it picks up speed as it drives away. I walk across the lawn in pretty much the same way. Rudy was actually super cool about it, much cooler than I thought.

It’s kind of weird to think of your best friend having something like that over you. Not that I think he’d ever use it. How many embarrassing things do we know about each other by now? But then it’s weird to think of keeping something like that from your best friend for months, of either lying to him or avoiding the topic.

I’m not second-guessing that. I know why I did it: It’s embarrassing as hell, and I really did want to bury it forever. I bet everyone has at least one thing they’re taking with them to the grave — some bad thing they did or thought. It seemed like this could’ve been mine, if I could’ve waited them out, or if they just would’ve let it drop. Frickin’ Mars, man.

JR’s face pops into view in the window of the kitchen door. He’s looking straight at me with eyes so round and wide that it’s like he’s trying to hypnotize me. Maybe he is. You are getting sleepy…. You are getting me biscuits…. You are letting me out the back door before something bad happens….

As I reach the door, he starts whacking the glass with his paws, like phantom high fives. I open it quick before he breaks anything and remember at the last second to wedge my body into the gap before he can squeeze past.

He gives ground as I enter the kitchen, and before I can even close the door, he’s shooting through the house, heading for the back door. As I swing the door closed behind me, I see something blue hanging off the inside doorknob.

I make a mental note of my own to come back and take a look after I let JR out. He clearly has some pressing needs right now. I open the back door and he launches himself out into the yard. I leave it open so he can come back in on his own and head back to the kitchen.

The thing on the doorknob is just a few nylon straps, circles and lines connected by a couple of metal rings. There’s a Post-it note stuck to the door next to this thing and I lean down to read it. The note says: Put this on if you walk him!

It’s a frickin’ muzzle. It’s a bad idea in so many ways. One, I’m not really sure he’d let me put it on him; two, he’d hate it; and three, what do you think when you see a dog with a muzzle on? You think he’s dangerous. You think he has to wear it or he’ll bite. It reminds me of The Silence of the Lambs, one of those movies that’s always on some channel late at night, the scene where they put the mask on Hannibal Lecter. And it’s not true, either — well, it is for Hannibal, but not for JR. People just have to not be stupid around him and he’s fine.

I crumple up the Post-it and let the muzzle drop back against the door. I turn around and JR is right there. I jump like eight feet. It’s not because of him: I’m still thinking of Silence of the Lambs.

“Scared me, boy,” I say.

I sort of wonder what he’s doing back so soon and why he’s standing here, but I think I know. I turn around and look at the window on the kitchen door again. There are nose prints on it, and not just the ones from when I got home. He’s been looking out the window all day.

“You missed me, huh?”

Apart from that one trip to Brantley last week, this is the first time we haven’t spent the day together, at least in the same house. I look down at him and he looks up at me. And then it’s like: What the heck, I’ve already said so many embarrassing things today, what’s one more?

“Missed you, too,” I say.

JR doesn’t say anything, just stands there, waiting for his biscuit.