8. Wren
WREN
The drive out to the fairgrounds takes twelve minutes, and I spend eleven of them rehearsing what I'll say if Rowe asks me how I am.
Fine.
Good.
Long morning, but I'm fine.
By the time I turn onto the gravel access road, I've practiced the word fine enough that it's lost all meaning.
The carnival looks different in daylight than it did in the slanting evening light yesterday. The Big Top is fully erected now, red and cream stripes dominating the horizon. I’m curious to see what it looks like at night.
I park beside the same patch of crushed grass I used yesterday and sit with my hands on the wheel for a long second.
You did the job. You did the job right.
I repeat Paige's words under my breath. Once. Twice. Then I grab my kit off the passenger seat and get out.
Rowe's already walking toward me by the time my boots hit the gravel.
I don't know how he knew. The lot isn't fenced on this side, and my car isn't anything special, but he's coming from the direction of the animal trailers with that quiet panther walk, hands tucked in the pockets of dark jeans, his henley sleeves pushed to the elbow.
I see the scars on his forearms in the daylight and look away fast.
“You came,” he says when he stops four feet from me—a careful distance.
“I said I would,” I reply casually.
The corners of his mouth quirk up, and I can feel myself blushing. I clutch the kit strap.
“How's Peanut?” I ask, hoping to distract him.
“Better. He used the hand to grab a grape this morning.”
“Good. That's good.”
We stand there. The wind lifts the hair at his temple, and I notice for the first time that he has faint silver threads running through his hairline.
He clears his throat. I startle and start walking.
“This way,” he says, falling into step beside me, still not close enough to touch.
Not that I'm thinking of touching him.
Because I'm not.
Really.
We pass Cole, who is sharpening a knife on the steps of the same trailer as yesterday and doesn't look up.
“Doc,” he says anyway.
“Cole,” I reply.
Rowe makes a noise I can't quite decipher. It could be a grumble, or it could be a laugh.
I'm glad to step out of the sun and into the monkey tent. Pip and Squeak chatter from the rafters the second the canvas drops behind us, and Peanut—curled into a fleece-lined basket on a folding table—lifts his small head and blinks at me with sleepy interest.
“Hi, baby,” I murmur, setting the kit down. “Look at you. Sitting up like a person.”
Peanut chirps.
I crouch and get the syringe ready. Rowe stays back, hands in his pockets, watching me work.
“Can you hold him for me?” I ask without looking up. “Just like yesterday. Side to me.”
“Yeah.”
He steps forward, scoops Peanut into the crook of his elbow with a tenderness that makes my heart stutter and turns so the capuchin's flank is presented to me.
I work fast—pinch the skin, slide the needle in, depress the plunger, withdraw. Then I press my thumb against the spot until I'm sure there's no more blood.
“Good boy,” I tell Peanut, who didn't even flinch. “Good, good boy.”
I cap the syringe, drop it in the sharps bin in my kit, then reach for the swab to wipe down the injection site. That's when I notice my hand is shaking.
It's not a lot, but it's there. I steady it against the table edge and surreptitiously take a calming breath.
When I look up, Rowe is watching me.
Not Peanut. Me.
“What's wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing,” I answer too quickly.
“Wren.”
The way he says my name does something to my knees. I focus on Peanut, stroking my thumb over the fur of his temple.
“Long morning,” I say. The rehearsed line. “I'm fine.”
“You're not,” he counters.
“I am.”
“You're shaking.”
I curl the offending hand into a fist on the table.
“It's nothing. I'm fine. I—” My throat closes. I clear it. “Maybe I should check on the others while I'm out here. If that's alright.”
He doesn't move for a beat. Then he settles Peanut back into the fleece basket with the same care he used to pick him up and straightens.
“Wren.”
“Please don't.”
The words come out before I can stop them, and they sound rawer than I meant. I press my lips together.
He goes still.
“Okay,” he says quietly. “We can check the others.”
He turns toward the flap. I follow, gathering the kit, blinking hard because my vision's getting blurry.
We make it ten steps into the sun before he speaks. “Who hurt you?”
I stop walking and stare at the tamped-down grass between my boots.
“It's not—” I start. “It's nothing like that. It's nothing.”
“It's something.”
“My boss is an asshole. That's all.” I shut my eyes. Open them. “Sorry. That was… I shouldn't have—”
“It's fine.”
Something about the expression on his face makes me open my mouth again.
“He overheard me telling our tech, Paige, about—” I gesture vaguely at the fairgrounds because I can't very well tell him my boss caught me gushing about him. “About yesterday. The animals. Coming back out today. And he—he lost it.”
Rowe narrows his eyes. “Lost it how?”
“Just…” I huff. It catches in my throat, and I have to clear it. “He said the practice can't afford for me to be out here. That a bone bruise on a primate's wrist doesn't warrant five follow-ups. That you're—” I stop, my eyes going wide. “It doesn't matter.”
“That we're what.”
It’s flat. It's not a question.
Me and my big mouth.
“It doesn't matter, Rowe.”
“That we're what,” he repeats. The tone of his voice lets me know that he's heard it all before.
“Transient scammers,” I say to the grass. “Quote unquote. A freak show that won't pay an invoice over thirty days. Said I should have told you to put an ice pack on Peanut and call a vet in the next town.”
Rowe doesn't say anything, and the silence hurts more with every passing second.
I start talking again because if I stop, I'll cry, and if I cry in front of him, I'll have to drive home and quit my job out of pure mortification.
“And the thing is that I know what the standard of care is.
I know what I'm doing. I'm a good vet. I am a good vet.
I've been a good vet for six years. And he stood in the reception area and made me feel like a…” I wave my hand like I can grab the right words from the air.
“Like a child who'd snuck off to play with the carnival kids when she was supposed to be doing chores.”
I stop. Close my mouth. Try to breathe through my nose like Paige made me do earlier.
Rowe is very still next to me.
“And the worst part,” I say, quieter, “the worst part is I corrected him. Once. I said they called us, sir, you took the call, you sent me. And the look on his face. Like I'd—” I shake my head. “I don't know why I'm telling you this. I'm sorry. This is—you don't need to—”
“Wren.”
I look up.
He's not looking at the Big Top anymore. His sorrowful eyes are on me, and there's something behind them now. His cheekbones are sharper because of the way his jaw is set.
“What's his name.”
I blink. “What?”
“Your boss. What's his name.”
My stomach does a small uncertain flip. “Why?”
“I'd like to know,” he says too casually.
“Rowe.”
“Just to know.”
I press my lips together. I'm not sure if I should give him the name. I'm also not sure why I'm hesitating.
“Dr. Vance,” I finally say. “Howard Vance. He owns the practice.”
Rowe nods once.
“He's wrong, by the way,” he says after a moment.
“About what?”
“All of it.”
I let out a sound that's not quite a laugh, surprised by the dryness of his tone.
“And what you did when you corrected him,” he continues. “That wasn't wrong either.”
I wipe under my eye with the heel of my hand, hoping it looks like I'm rubbing out a speck of dust.
“Sorry,” I say. “Again. This isn't your problem.”
“You're not a problem.”
I don't know what to reply to that, so I don't reply anything.
“Caesar,” I say instead. “I want to see Caesar. And Brutus. And I should check the swelling on Domino's fetlock you mentioned yesterday. And—”
“Wren.”
“Yeah?”
“Take a breath.”
I take a breath.
It shudders out of me, but it's a breath.
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. Caesar first.”
He nods. Starts walking.
This time, when he falls in beside me, I notice he's closer than yesterday. Not touching. Not even close to it. But the careful foot of distance has narrowed to maybe ten inches, and the back of his hand swings near mine as he walks, and neither of us says anything about it.