As he dressed for Mrs. Kloswick’s dinner party, Nick was glad he had had a call from Jesse, checking on how Clyde was doing after the skunk episode. He would have been nervous about meeting Mrs. K.’s niece, Angela, except Jesse had assured him both he and Denny had been through this. They’d discovered Angela to be a very nice young woman who found her aunt’s attempts at matchmaking amusing. So, as he tied his tie and applied gel to his hair, he found himself in a good mood. He hadn’t seen Jesse since the night they had spent together on the patio with the dogs, and he missed him. He again assured himself those feelings were based strictly on friendship and nothing more.
“Well,” he said to Clyde, who sat in the doorway of the bathroom watching the proceedings, “do I pass muster?”
“Woof,”
