A little later, back at home, Triple-D were all upstairs, hovering around their speedy (and slightly older) brother. Destiny, who was laying on his back, shifted her big doe eyes to Delgado's face and exclaimed, "I'm just so proud!"

  Dallas, who was on Delgado's right, followed this up with "You nailed it out there," and Deja Vu (on his left) added, "Like a big boy!"

  With his whole face still ablush, Delgado sheepishly responded to this patronizing with "Uhh, r-right. Sooo... I guess I should be gettin' ready, huh?"

  He promptly made a swift dash downstairs to the bathroom (except he took the lift this time). Once he got in there, he was just about to close the door, but he quickly brought that rush to a screeching halt when he saw his three glittery diva triplet sisters standing in the bathroom right in front of the door!

  "Perfect!" Destiny exclaimed, holding a round, hot-pink fur brush.

  "You're already here!" Dallas added, holding a glittery, hot-pink nail file.

  "Now we can get started!" Deja Vu cheered, raising up two hot-pink blow-dryers.

  Delgado nervously gulped, as the well-weaning (yet still somewhat creepy to him) smiles on the glittery triplets' faces made it perfectly clear that all three of them would take great pleasure in what they were about to do to him. He started backing away, only for the diva triplets to grab him by the collar and start dragging him over to the bathtub. They promptly got a bath prepared, removed his wheelchair, forced him into the tub, and started scrubbing and shampooing him all over.

  "Cleanliness is a major factor in attractiveness," Destiny pointed out as she was rinsing their sporty brother with the shower head. 

  Once they were done with that, they got the blow-dryers on him, while Destiny had his freshly-cleaned fur brushed (and also fixed up that cut in his ear that had always driven her crazy). "Good to see you're not a tongue-flapper," Dallas commented as she noticed how he was keeping his mouth completely shut, to which the speedy, sporty pup responded, "Yeah, I've never really been a fan of flapping my tongue in the wind. Just leaves my mouth feeling dry."

  "Oh! That reminds me," Destiny exclaimed, "we have to make sure that your smile looks dazzling!"

  As Dallas and Deja Vu turned their blow-dryers off, Destiny went up to Delgado and said, "Now let's see those chompers!"

  Delgado flashed a full set of pearly-whites in a smile that exuded confidence concealing nervousness, and as the heart-wearing philanthropist scanned through it, she finally declared, "Not bad. Of course, we could give them an extra brushing. Y'know, for extra-fresh breath."

  They got him hooked up to the tooth-brusher, and as he was rinsing his mouth out, Destiny directed, "FYI, one thing that you should never do on a dinner date is slobber on your food!"

  "There's also the super-sloppy way you always tear into your food," Dallas added, "and it just splatters everywhere."

  Once they got that teeth-brushing out of the way, Dallas and Deja Vu both clutched each of Delgado's front paws and were just about to get the pawdicure started, but then Dallas got a little feel of Delgado's paw pads and commented, "Your paw pads feel pretty rough."

  She turned over the paw she was holding, and seeing her do this, Deja Vu decided to do the same. Both immediately saw that their sporty brother's paw pads were completely covered in thick, rough calluses. This sight prompted Dallas to turn over to Destiny (who was choosing a color of nail polish) and called, "Destiny, we've got a callus alert!" 

  "Ooh! They feel like sandpaper!" Deja Vu added as she felt the pads on the paw she was holding.

  Hearing this, Destiny came over and saw the calluses on Delgado's paw pads. "OMD, there is no way you are holding her paw with those pads!" 

  She grabbed a container of paw balm, applied some to both of her energetic brother's paw pads, and started rubbing it in. "Now while waiting 15 minutes for the pads to soften, you two can get started on his pawdicure."

  "What are you gonna be doing?" Delgado inquired, to which Destiny cheerfully answered, "Why, selecting a color for painting your nails, of course!"

  "W-W-What?!" Delgado stuttered in shock, "Guys can't have painted nails!"

  "Tsk, tsk, tsk. You know, Del," Destiny chided, "that's the exact kind of toxic masculinity that's guaranteed to turn a girl off." 

  "Besides, Dante has painted nails," Dallas argued while filing down his claws, with Destiny clarifying (while still looking through nail polish colors), "They're indigo and deep purple," and Deja Vu adding, "his two favorite colors!"

  "Wait, really?" Delgado commented, "I always thought his favorite color was black."

  "Anyway," Destiny stayed, trying to get back on topic, "you've got to take this seriously and make Rosalind feel like the most special girl in the whole world, because if you don't-"

  "-then she's just gonna see me as a total jerk-slash-loser for as long as both of us live?" Delgado was quick to finish, to which Destiny responded (in a dissonantly cheerful tone of voice), "Exactly!"

  Before much longer, Dallas finished filing and buffing, looked up towards Deja Vu, and said, "Well, I'm done. How's your side?"

  Deja Vu looked down at the nails she'd been working on, then looked back up and cheerily replied, "Short and shiny!"

  "Ooh, just in time!" Destiny exclaimed, "I've found the perfect color of his nails: fiery red!"

  She immediately rushed up to her slightly older brother with a shiny bottle of red nail polish (plus a bottle of base coat) and got started on painting his claws as Dallas and Deja Vu each kept his paws from fidgeting. 

  Once she was done, she declared, "Now while we wait, how about we start choosing an outfit?"

  "Oooh!" Dallas briefly gushed, "I've got that!" She quickly rushed out of the room, and Destiny rushed over to Delgado and started holding his paw still in Dallas' place. 

  After a while, the diamond-wearing glamour-girl strutted back in with DJ (who appeared to be hide-holding something) at her side and proudly announced, "It's ready!" With that, DJ confidently held up a black tuxedo vest with matching shorts and an attached red rose boutonnière (that was actually made of velvet). "Special delivery from Dawkins!"

  The other three pups immediately turned over to look, and upon seeing it, Destiny and Deja Vu were both speechless. Then Delgado commented, "Doesn't that kinda seem like a bit much?"

  "Nonsense," Dawkins refuted from another room, "I left out the top hat and bow tie, didn't I?" This witty comment elicited some giggles from the glittery diva triplets.

  Once DJ cued for them to stop, he pawed the outfit over to Dallas and got Delgado's wheelchair (which he'd cleaned while Dawkins was sewing and prepping the tuxedo), and they, along with Destiny and Deja Vu, started getting their hyperactive, handicapped brother into the tuxedo (with the waist strap of his wheelchair acting as an aesthetic belt). Once they got the whole thing on (along with throwing off his usual black sportswear stockings in favor of a couple of short, paw-covering black socks to prevent damage to the pawdicure), Delgado immediately curled himself back up and sighed, "Thank Dog that's over."

  "Almost," DJ responded, "just one last thing."

  The music-loving pup started leading his speedy, wheelchair-bound brother out of the bathroom and right to the end of the hallway. "Alright, what we're gonna be going over here is posture. Maintaining good posture is an excellent confidence-booster."

  "Does that mean balancing books on my head?" Delgado was quick to inquire, to which DJ replied, "I'd say that part's kinda optional. Personally, though, I'm not a huge fan of it. I prefer to just keep my body like this: head high (without turning up the nose, of course), eyes forward, shoulders back, keep your ears outta your face, and top it all off with a smile!" The musical prodigy pup then demonstrated by flashing his own set of pearly-whites in a smile exuding both class and genuine confidence. "Got that?"

  "Got it," Delgado replied, and he immediately started mimicking his somewhat older brother's posture, following him across the hall. 

  All the while, however, both his front legs- no, his whole body- felt so shaky and unsteady, as though all of his bones had been reduced to jelly. DJ quickly noticed this when he turned over to Delgado to see how his wheelchair-wearing brother was doing. Upon seeing the current situation, DJ promptly thought to himself, This looks like a job for Deepak.

  Suddenly, as though by some kind of magic, the small yin-yang pup appeared on the scene (right behind DJ) and chimed in his usual soft, gentle voice, "You called?"

  Understandably, this immediately took DJ by utter surprise. "D-Did you just read my mind?!?"

  "Never underestimate the power of meditation," Deepak explained before going over to Delgado, who was still too caught up in his nervousness to even notice that Deepak was there. 

  The zen pup raised up one of his paws (all of which softer than soapstone pillows and gentler than a hummingbird's wings), placed it on one of his wheelchair-bound brother's shoulders, and started gently massaging the area that his paw was on. In only a matter of seconds, Delgado could feel his nerves easing and his tensions dissolving. With that, Deepak wordlessly disappeared. 

  With his first-date jitters eased, Delgado continued strutting across the hall with some reinvigorated confidence. Obviously, it wasn't long until he reached the end. Once he did, DJ proudly declared, "By Dog, I think he's got it."

  Shortly after, Delgado felt totally ready for the date, when Triple-D came up to him with a powder-blue cloth-bag. "What's that?"

  Destiny then pawed it over to him. "Just a little gift for Rose."

  Then Dallas held up a cologne bottle and spritzed some of the contents onto Delgado. "Rosewood and rose. Rugged yet romantic."