Dani wasn’t looking for anything. Not a sign. Not a stranger. Certainly not conversation. The walks were about Arlo—his energy, his routine, his sharp blue eyes scanning for trouble and something to chase. That morning had been long and sour, like most lately. So when Arlo pulled her toward yet another stranger hovering by the edge of the park trail, she sighed, already annoyed.

He was crouched next to a scared-looking dog tied loosely to a bike rack. Not touching, just sitting there, speaking softly enough that Dani couldn’t hear him. Arlo froze, stared, then—without warning—sat down beside him like they'd done this before.

“Yours?” the guy asked, glancing up. His voice was calm but tired. Not sleepy. Worn.

Dani nodded, tugging the leash. “Yeah. He does this thing where he pretends I’m not the one holding the leash.”

The guy smiled—just a twitch of it. Then turned his attention back to the dog beside him. That was it. No small talk. No clever remark. And yet Arlo refused to move.

It kept happening. In different ways. Different places. Sometimes near the coffee truck parked by the library. Once on a rainy afternoon in front of a thrift store neither of them meant to stop at. Arlo would catch sight of him—Owen—and pull Dani straight into whatever moment he was in. Always calm. Always distracted. Like someone who had grown used to standing just off to the side of things.

Owen didn’t ask questions. He didn’t flirt. He didn’t seem to notice that their meetings were odd or recurring or quietly intimate in a way that crept under Dani’s skin. He just was. Present when he was there, and then gone again.

She was used to people trying too hard. Or not trying at all. There was something frustrating about Owen’s quiet presence, about the way he talked to dogs more freely than people. He never pried, never joked about her stubborn hesitance, never tried to “read her.” And maybe that was what got to her. The way he didn’t push. The way he never seemed to expect anything from her.

They sat on the curb for a while. Not talking much. Arlo had wedged himself between them with the self-importance of someone who thought the world turned slightly in his orbit. Dani scratched behind his ears, mostly to keep her hands busy.

Owen was watching a kid in the distance throw tennis balls for a pit bull with a lopsided grin. He wasn’t smiling, exactly. But there was something soft in the way he watched—like he understood what that moment meant, even if it wasn’t his.

He spoke again, not looking at her. “Some dogs… they just know when you need them.” He paused. “People usually want something when they’re nice. Dogs don’t.”

Dani let out a small breath. She wasn’t sure if that was meant for her or not.

“Is that what you think I’m doing?” she said, more bite in her voice than intended. “Being nice to get something?”

He turned, blinked like she’d pulled him out of something private. “No. You’ve barely even looked at me.”

Dani glanced down at Arlo, whose tail twitched once in sleep. “He’s friendlier than I am,” she said. “And smarter, usually.”

“He chose me first,” Owen said, voice easy. “So I guess I’m flattered.”

Dani tried not to smile. She hated how easy he made that sound. Like it wasn’t weird, this whole... whatever it was. She didn’t like how quickly he could disarm her without even trying. Without knowing it.

She stole another glance at him—his scuffed boots, the way his fingers absently fidgeted with the label of his water bottle. Not performing. Not pressing. Just... there.

There was something about him that didn’t match. On the outside, he looked like someone who might’ve skipped town a few times. Slept on couches. Burned bridges. But there was a steadiness to him that felt older than it should have, like he’d seen more than he let on. Like kindness had cost him something.

“Why were you at the shelter?” she asked, surprising herself.

He shrugged. “Started volunteering when I was a teenager. Gave me a reason to leave the house.”

A shrug, a glance away, like he didn’t want to hand over the rest of the story. Dani knew the look. She’d used it herself.

She didn’t ask more. He didn’t offer. But it stuck with her.

Still, something about the way he said “gave me a reason to leave the house” stayed with her long after they walked away from the curb that evening. It felt like a slip. Like a sentence with something sharp underneath it.

She didn’t know the version of him that existed before now—before the dogs, before the calm voice and careful eyes. But she could feel it sometimes, under the surface. A kind of practiced stillness, like someone who had learned not to take up too much space.

She noticed the way he crouched when greeting animals—low, patient, never reaching first. Like he expected not to be trusted. Like he didn’t mind waiting.

What she didn’t know—what he didn’t tell her, and maybe never would unless she asked just right—was that when Owen was a kid, nothing he did ever seemed to matter in the right way.

If he cried, it was too much.
If he didn’t, it was not enough.
If he tried, he was trying too hard.

So he stopped trying for people. And instead, watched animals. Strays under porches. A neighbor’s cat that hissed at everyone except him. He didn’t know why they liked him. He just knew it was the only time he didn’t feel wrong.

He hadn’t planned on volunteering. Not at first. He just went to the shelter to drop off an injured bird once, bleeding from the wing. Thought maybe someone else would take care of it better than he could. That was when he met the man.

No name offered, not at first. Just this old guy with rough hands and a face that looked carved out of sidewalk grit. He grumbled something about not holding the bird like a soda can and took it gently from Owen’s shaking hands.

“You care too much,” he muttered, not kindly. “That’s your problem.”

Owen had frozen.

The man gave the bird a once-over, wrapped its wing. “Don’t get attached. Most people just make it worse.”

That was it. That was the whole conversation. But when Owen came back the next day—just to check—the man put a broom in his hand and didn’t say much else. And that was how it started.

Years later, Owen still didn’t know why the man had let him stick around. Maybe he saw the same quiet ache in him that Owen saw in the dogs. All Owen knew was that the silence in that place made more sense than anything else in his life.

He never told Dani that story. Not directly. But when she looked at him—really looked—on those strange little park-bench days, she noticed how his kindness wasn’t performative. It wasn’t soft, either. It was tired. Worn-in. Like it had been broken a few times and patched together by someone who never expected it to be seen.

When Arlo finally stirred from his nap and stretched out lazily, Dani clipped his leash back on and caught his eyes, watching Owen as much as Owen was watching them.

“You and this dog have a funny way of showing up when I’m not expecting it,” she said softly, more curious than confrontational.

Owen looked over, a slight smile tugging at his lips. “Seems like he likes me more than he lets on.”

Dani raised an eyebrow, half amused, half cautious. “Yeah, maybe he’s the smarter one.”

Owen laughed quietly, and Dani felt a flicker inside—a quiet question she wasn’t ready to answer.

They went in opposite directions, but she kept glancing over her shoulder longer than she needed to. Arlo trotted ahead like he knew something she didn’t. Like he’d been planning this all along.

Later that night, when she told herself she needed to get up early and stop walking the same damn path every day, she also caught herself thinking, What if we do?

And then, What if we don’t?

And she didn’t say it aloud—not even to Arlo—but some part of her had started to look for him. In the corner of the park. By the bench near the bakery. She told herself it was just a pattern. Just curiosity.

But when Arlo’s ears perked up a block before she would unknowingly run into Owen again, she didn’t tug Arlo back right away.
Not this time.

She looked forward to their encounters. Cautiously hoping it would happen again.