Summary:

“What makes him your best client?” Kip asks.

“He’s nice, his dog is well behaved, the apartment is insane, and he has a very set schedule. It’s not a daily gig, it’s kind of random. You have to stay at his place in the Upper West Side a few times a week, but again, the apartment is amazing. He’s some kind of athlete? So the schedule is also nuts. But he gives, like, six months of dates in advance.” Maria answers.

A set schedule of dates works for Kip, who is, these days, trying to make his own schedule.

“And,” Maria smiles wide, “I think you’ll like him.”

That beatific expression will come back to him, five days later, when he meets Scott Hunter for the first time.

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Kip Grady is a PhD student who takes a side-gig walking Scott Hunter's dog. Along the way: the precarity of academia vs hockey; keeping something good at arm's length despite an innate desire for safety and love; gratuitous metaphors about both.