Leo grabbed them like they were made of solid gold. Ten minutes later, he was at the checkout, the pugs staring back at him from the conveyor belt. "Going somewhere fun?" the cashier asked, scanning the tag.
They were ridiculous. They were loud. They were the only pair in his size.
The next morning, as the sun rose over the marina, Leo stepped onto the deck. Maya looked at his legs and burst out laughing. "Are those... pugs?"
The employee didn't even look up. "Aisle 14, back wall. Next to the clearance snow shovels."
Leo hadn't been swimming in three years. His old pair of trunks had mysteriously "shrunk" (or he had expanded), and he’d spent the last hour hearing the same soul-crushing sentence from every store clerk in town: "Sorry, those are seasonal. We won't have them until June."