EPISODE 10 — We Ain’t Done
The bus ride home was quieter.
Not sad — spent. The good kind of tired, like after a long day’s work. Rex slept across two seats, medal still around his neck, snoring. Buddy the Second snored in harmony from Tank’s lap.
Denise sat beside Cole, her head on his shoulder. “You did good today, hon.”
“We did good,” Cole said.
At the diner, Marco had left the lights on. Somebody’d put a banner across the door: WELCOME HOME, HEROES (AGAIN).
They filed in — the whole bus, plus half the town that’d been waiting — and Marco started cooking, and Denise started pouring, and the corner booth filled up like it always did on Tuesdays.
Only this time, there was a medal on the table. Two, actually — Cole had hung his around Rex’s neck next to the dog’s own, “for safekeeping,” and Rex was currently trying to eat them both.
Tank raised his coffee. “To Duke,” he said.
“To Duke,” the diner answered.
“To Rex.”
“To Rex!”
“To Buddy,” Tank added, scratching the shepherd’s ears. “Both of them.”
“To Buddies,” Denise said, and everybody drank.
Later, when the crowd thinned and it was just the booth — Cole, Tank, Denise, two dogs asleep head-to-head under the table — Cole looked at Rex’s gray muzzle and said the thing he’d been thinking all day.
“Well, old son,” he whispered. “Looks like we ain’t done after all.”
Rex opened one eye. Sneezed. Went back to sleep.
Outside, the night was clear. Inside, the coffee was hot. And in the corner booth at Harlan’s Diner, a veteran and a biker split the last piece of pie —
— while two war dogs dreamed, side by side, of Tuesday.
THE END ❤
