Philautia || Amour Éternel Series BOOK ONE ||

Eleven - SHANNON

"Hey, Jared in the studio?" he asked, passing a bank of computer towers. He had to tug Trio away from sniffing a large bunch of wires tied together on the floor.

Dai, one of Jared's employees, looked up and squealed. "PUPPY!!!!," she yelped, leaping from her seat and launching herself toward Trio. "Ohmygodhe'ssocute!" she shrieked in excitement.

Trio wriggled at the end of his lead, his hind end and front end going in completely opposite directions. His tail whipped around like a windmill and he did his best to lick every inch of the young woman's face clean off.

"Dai - Jared. Where is he?" Shannon asked again.

The woman looked up at him as if she had just seen him for the first time. "Yeah. He's in the studio. Don't get your panties in a wad." She looked at the dog. "Can I keep him up here?"

He shook his head. "No. There's too much shit up her for him to get into. I'll let him run around the sound stage. Trio, come on."

He led the dog through the house and down a level to the recording studio. The lights were off and he heard noise coming from the sound stage next door so he pushed the large door open. Several Adventures employees were moving gear around the open space, the noise of casters echoing up to the high ceiling. Shannon noted that the two-story garage door was closed and he let Trio run off, dragging the leash behind him.

The puppy made a beeline for Jared who was sitting in an overstuffed armchair in the far corner, laptop on his knees and cell phone in one hand. He looked up just as Trio jumped onto his knees, pushing the screen of the laptop downwards with his head.

"Dammit, Shannon. Control your dog," Jared grumbled immediately, lifting his computer before any other damage could be done. He stood up and nudged the dog away from him with a foot as he placed his laptop safely on the table next to him.

"Sorry," Shannon replied. "I didn't think he'd get over here so fast," he admitted as he caught up. "He's only got three legs."

"Well if you can't control him, I don't want him over here anymore," Jared huffed. He looked over Shannon's shoulder. "Hey! Not over there, Ben! The outlets aren't strong enough to handle all three of those at the same time."

The technician sighed and pushed the sound cart across the floor.

"He's a puppy, Jared. I don't know what the big deal is," Shannon said, following his brother as he walked through the room.

"The big deal is that there is thousands of dollars worth of equipment in this room and I don't want him pissing or chewing on it and fucking it up," Jared answered.

"I wasn't going to just leave him at my place," Shannon said, frustration boiling up inside of him. His brother was obviously in a mood of some kind; he wasn't usually so mean to dogs. People, he'd curse out until he was blue in the face, but he rarely took his frustration out on dogs. "It's not fair to him."

"What's not fair is what he's doing to that chair right now," Jared replied dully before disappearing from the sound stage.

Shannon looked over and saw Trio humping the leg of the chair eagerly. "Trio - no! Stop that!" he said, rushing across the room and grabbing the dog's leash. He led the puppy into the studio after Jared.

"He doesn't come in here unless you're holding him," Jared warned without looking away from the mixing computer.

Shannon grumbled and picked Trio up. "I came because you said you wanted to rehearse for the tour. Why are you in the studio?"

Jared ignored him for a minute as he typed something out. "I do want to rehearse for the tour. I just had a moment of inspiration." He stood from the rolling chair and clapped his hands. "Let's get started. I had Kyle set up your tan kit. He said it's the one we're traveling with." His eyes fell on Trio. "You're going to put the dog somewhere else, right?" he asked.