Tonight, I got in late. I worked a bit longer than I usually do this time of year, and afterward, since I work for family, I decided to accept my mom's invite to stay for homemade sauce. By the time I got home it was dark out, but I wanted to make sure Leah got her exercise for the day, because I didn't think Nick would have had time to walk her earlier in the afternoon while I was working.
We took off at a good clip up one of the streets in our neighborhood, which I use pretty frequently. Several blocks down, I noticed a man on the left side of the road, texting with his cell phone. I turned left on the block just before where he was standing, walked down to the next corner, hung a right, and then walked a little further before looping back around to head towards home down the same road I had started on.
As I approached where I had seen the man, I noticed he was still there, staring at his phone. Since he was now on the same side of the road as us, I decided to cross so that I wouldn't have to walk Leah past him. Oddly, shortly before I reached him, he crossed the street too - and started walking in the same direction that Leah and I were walking, so at that point we were essentially following him.
Leah pricked her ears forward and stared ahead at him worriedly, but I told her it was "okay," and then I slowed my pace a bit so we weren't too close to him.
A few houses down, he hung a left onto a property, and I figured he had went home - but as we got closer, I saw him standing behind some bushes that lined the road, still staring into his phone. He did not appear to be interested in us, and he didn't look like he was hiding behind them - he was just standing there, enraptured by the glowing screen of his electronics, so I figured it was safe to walk past him. After all, the bushes were in between us.
Leah saw him too, and kept glancing to her left at him as we walked by the property.
Next thing I knew, he came out from behind the bushes pretty fast and was walking right behind us. Leah and I both glanced back at him, and in his defense, he still didn't appear very interested in us, but he was also way too close for comfort. Before I could react, Leah turned full around, glared at him hard, and gave him two deep threatening barks. He stopped in his tracks and then veered away from us. I watched him as he crossed the road and began talking to someone who had been sitting in a parked car that I had not noticed until that very moment. Did he mean us harm? I'm not sure, I really don't think so - he seemed more interested in his phone than anything, and possibly, he never even noticed us until Leah warned him away.
On the other hand, who pops out from behind a set of bushes and starts walking behind a lone woman and her dog on a dark street? And why was that man parked there with his lights off on the other side of the road? That in itself was kind of strange, making me wonder, was that who he had been texting with? And had they been plotting something? Either way, it sure made me feel great that Leah had my back - and reminded me why I never walk by myself in my neighborhood without a four footed friend at my side.
---------------------------------------------------
My Novel's Progress: Current wordcount: 70,360
625a5770-7e94-4220-963d-e2d3970ce585|2|5.0