Chapter 8
Eight
Why do you use such sound logic and reasoning when I’m just looking for someone to be as overdramatic as I am?
—Nettie to Boone
Boone
She moved in later that night, and by the time I was lying in bed a couple of hours later, staring at the ceiling, I wondered if I’d made the right decision.
Separate rooms.
When we’d been in the same house, we’d shared a bed.
And now, she was moved in, and I was under the same roof as her, with her not in my arms like she should be.
I fisted my hands and pressed them both against my eyes, rubbing so hard that my eyes hurt.
This was torture.
This was utter torture.
I was…
A sound had me pulling my hands away from my face and listening hard.
I was fully expecting not to hear the sound again.
But there was another creak.
And another.
Footsteps moving toward my bedroom.
My breath hitched and stalled in my lungs as she came to a stop right outside my door.
She stayed there for a solid minute before she finally pushed inside.
Again, my breath hitched.
She shuffled across the wood floor, then stood beside the bed for so long that I almost asked her what was wrong.
But then she crawled into the bed with me and scooted underneath the covers.
Still, I didn’t move.
I almost felt like I was having an out-of-body experience.
She snuggled close, and for the first time since we’d gone our separate ways over two hours ago, I felt my heartbeat slow.
Everything was right in my world.
I wasn’t awake when she slipped out of the bed, but I was awake by the time the door closed behind her.
I glanced at the clock next to the bed and saw it was six-fifteen in the morning.
I smiled.
I hadn’t had that kind of rest in a long time.
Sadly, with my alarm clock about to go off, I decided to beat it.
Shutting it off, I headed to the en suite bathroom and turned the shower on full blast.
I stretched my arms up high over my head, then used the bathroom, washed my hands, and brushed my teeth.
By the time I was done, the shower was pumping out steam.
Stepping inside, I let the water saturate my hair and body before reaching out and getting a pump of the salon-grade shampoo that I always kept on hand for when Nettie finally came.
Since she didn’t use it all that much, I’d taken to using it, just on the off chance that she might come.
I wasn’t super fond of smelling like a fruit orchard, but the alternative was having eighty dollars’ worth of hair product just sit there.
When I was done in the shower, I got ready for work.
Jeans, long-sleeved henley, and thick socks.
Today, I’d be at the vet practice performing surgeries all morning.
Walking out of my bedroom in my socked feet, I headed to the coffee pot and turned it on.
I didn’t have one of those fancy-ass coffee machines.
Nope, I used a Mr. Coffee one that I’d taken from my dad when I first moved into my own place.
It made ten cups of coffee, and I usually went through three-quarters of them by mid-morning.
To say that I was addicted to the stuff would be an understatement.
By the time I was ready for work with my coffee in hand, Nettie still hadn’t emerged from her room.
I walked toward her door and pushed it open, finding her sitting up in bed staring morosely at the comforter.
“Hey,” I said quietly.
She jerked her head up, face lighting when she spotted me standing there.
I didn’t miss the way she lazily trailed her gaze up the length of my body.
I kept in shape. I knew that she appreciated the shape I kept.
“Do you want to come to work with me?”
She blinked.
Then her face cleared. “Yeah.”
“Let’s go.”
She got ready in fifteen minutes, and we were out the door and on the road with me being only a little bit late.
“What are you doing today?”
I glanced over at her quickly to see her practically bouncing in her seat.
“I have a C-section this morning on a Pomeranian,” I said. “And I think we have a bowel exploratory surgery from a Great Dane that ate a chicken bone. He has gut rot.”
“Oh, that’s sad. Are you going to be able to save him?” she asked.
“No idea,” I admitted. “Maybe if it’d been caught earlier?
Possibly. But with him not eating, and throwing up, and it being almost a week, probably not.
But the dog’s parents are pretty broken up about it because he was at a doggie daycare for the last week.
And they want to do everything possible. ”
“Hopefully you can fix him up,” she said. “Who works for you now?”
“The same crew that’s been with me for about two years now. Holly is the newest, she’s the second vet that I hired,” I explained as we got closer and closer to town. “Carlene, Rhett, and Young are still there. We have a couple of night workers that are seasonal. They just left.”
I saw an uptick in boarding and vet visits during the winter months when the skiing crowd came in.
The upper crust of society that skied usually brought their pets with them.
Sometimes they boarded them while they were in town.
Sometimes they just stopped in for a checkup.
Sometimes shit went wrong while they were staying in their McMansions on the hill and their pets needed emergency care.
When the warmer months hit and the snow left, so did the uptick in clients.
Not that that meant that I had less work. That just meant I had less clients in-house.
I actually had more work when it came to farmers needing help with their horses and their cows, especially during birthings.
But I didn’t keep the night workers when their boarding facilities took a dramatic dip.
Honestly, it was a relief.
I liked having clients and all, but boarding animals wasn’t really something that I wanted to specialize in.
“Do you like the new vet?”
I felt her studying my face, taking in every grimace and eye crinkle.
I shrugged.
“She’s okay. A little too ‘pick me’ if you know what I mean. Always looking for validation, and she’s young. She’s a little too intense for my liking. But usually when she’s working, I’m usually not there, so I’ve decided to see how she works out for the practice.”
“What do you mean by ‘pick me?’” She frowned.
“She goes out of her way to seek validation and approval.” He grinned. “I learned that phrase from Holly, funny enough.”
When we got to town, I pulled into the coffee shop right around the corner from my vet practice and put the truck into park.
She looked at me like I’d just hung the moon.
“What’ll it be?” I asked. “Your usual vanilla latte? Or do you want to be adventurous today?”
She was never adventurous.
She’d found her coffee order at fifteen and had kept that order since.
However, she did change up her Danish order.
Though, that was likely because Reyelle, the lady that owned the coffee shop, never cooked the same Danish two days in a row. You never knew what you were going to get when you walked in the door.
Nettie stayed in the car until I walked around the hood and pulled the door open for her.
When she got out, she bounced on her toes for a minute before she reached for my hand.
My heart skipped a beat.
I wanted to ask her if she was continuing the game that she’d started with my mother yesterday—fake getting married—but I was afraid if I asked, she’d pull away.
I didn’t want her to pull away.
Even if she was playing a game, it was better than not having her hand in mine.
I reached for the door to the shop and pulled it open, allowing Nettie to pass inside before I followed her.
Nettie dropped my hand and screeched. “Birdee!”
The woman at the table with the large man who definitely wasn’t her soon-to-be husband looked up.
Her smile was brilliant as she got up and walked toward Nettie.
The two women embraced and started talking a mile a minute.
The man got up and walked over to me, offering me his hand.
“Shade,” I said in greeting.
“How’s it going, Boone?” he asked.
Shade, Birdee, Nettie, Eddy, and I had all been in high school at the same time, though in different graduating classes. I’d graduated two years ahead of Shade and Birdee, while only one before Eddy and Nettie.
Speaking of other classmates, Mable Haynes walked in. Though, when she’d gone to school with us, she was Mable Watts.
“Mable.” Shade nodded his head and left, heading behind the counter to help his mom.
Mable and Shade had never gotten along.
Shade didn’t like how once upon a time, Mable had been mean to Birdee. Though, at the time, Birdee and Mable hadn’t gotten along because their mother/stepmother had played them against each other, creating dramatic lies and scenarios that had kept them hating each other.
All of that had come to a head about a year ago, actually. Though they were all friendly now, it would take some time to see that everyone was genuine in their goodness.
“Hey, babies,” Reyelle called out. “Who’s ordering first?”
Mable gestured for me to go. “I know you have to get to work.”
I looked over at her. “You don’t?”
She beamed. “Actually, I quit last week. I start working full-time on my catering business today.”
My brows rose. “Really? That’s great news, Mable.”
“What’s great news?” Birdee asked as she bumped her sister’s shoulder.
Mable explained.
“Ohh.” Nettie’s eyes went wide as she placed her hands in front of her face in a praying gesture. “Will you please make me that chocolate devil’s food cake you made me in high school?”
The chocolate cake that Nettie had begged Mable to make when she was having her cravings.
Mable remembered that span of time as well, and her eyes went calculating as she said, “Sure. Anytime, Net.”
“Any day now, ladies and gentleman. Those spice cakes aren’t going to make themselves,” Reyelle ordered.
“I’ll get it, Ma.” Shade chuckled. “You go make those cakes.”
Reyelle sighed and went back into the back room where she did her baking.
“What’s that about?” Birdee asked.
“Mom’s having some issues today.” Shade shrugged. “She decided to divorce my stepfather.”
“Thank god,” Birdee groaned.
We all gave our orders and listened as Shade explained the new and awful things that Reyelle’s husband, Stacy, was doing to her.
Honestly, I never liked the guy much myself.
I hated how Stacy had a roaming eye that tended to lean more toward young teens than adults.
He was a sick bastard that didn’t deserve a woman like Reyelle.
Speaking of Reyelle, she came out with a tray of spice cakes that smelled delicious, causing the quiet conversation to halt entirely.
“Stop talking about me unless you’re going to include me in the conversation,” Reyelle ordered as she slid the tray into the display case.
Quiet chuckles.
Fifteen minutes later, and thirty minutes late, I rolled into my office with Nettie’s stack of food and coffee in one hand, and her hand in the other.
Everyone at the office loved Nettie, and it showed the moment they saw her.
The front office attendants got up with a flourish and gave her hugs.
Rhett picked her right off her feet, causing Nettie to laugh.
I tried really hard not to get angry that he was touching something that was most definitely mine.
Young came out to see what all the fuss was about and whooped, heading straight toward her.
The noise caught Holly and Charlene’s attention, and they too came out of the back.
Holly hung back while Charlene smiled her quiet smile and waved shyly.
Nettie blew the woman a kiss but didn’t make a move toward her, knowing Charlene’s need for space.
Holly watched the interactions with everyone with a narrow-eyed look on her face.
“Holly,” I said to the newest member of the crew. “Come meet my soon-to-be wife.”
Swift inhales, even from Holly.
Then the shouting started.
Nettie giggled, but I didn’t miss the narrowed eyes she aimed at me as she accepted her congratulations.
Holly came forward and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting for the excitement to calm.
“Don’t you all have some work to do?” I asked curiously after it didn’t stop.
Groans filled the air.
Everyone filtered out with final hugs and got back to work, leaving Holly, Nettie, and I standing in the lobby.
“Holly, this is Nettie. Nettie, baby. This is Holly.”
Holly didn’t hold out her hand, so Nettie took the initiative and held out hers.
Holly looked at it for a long second before taking it, giving a very limp shake that lasted seconds at most.
Holly pulled back and wiped her hand on her jeans.
Nettie’s lips twitched.
“It’s nice to meet you, Holly,” Nettie offered.
I couldn’t tell how this was going to go with Holly and Nettie.
“Uh, sure.” Holly nodded. “I see that your time blindness is at play again.”
My brows rose. “I don’t have what you refer to as time blindness.
I have what you call a business that I own.
One where I make my own hours.” I lifted my brows at her.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you the one that has patients this morning?
Ones that are waiting in their cars like you asked them to? ”
That was another thing I’d disliked when it came to Holly.
She didn’t want the patients in the waiting room.
Apparently it caused them ‘distress.’
Whatever. I didn’t care. But her patients’ parents were usually the younger ones that didn’t care that Holly was barely out of vet school. They were of the same generation and barely liked leaving the house, let alone communicating with the public.
It was somewhat of a relief not to have to deal with some of the younger patients that were just as stilted and awkward as Holly was.
They could have awkward, stilted conversations together.
Though, I drew the line at virtual visits.
You couldn’t diagnose a problem over a webcam, no matter how much Holly tried to convince me you could.
“Is that all?” Holly asked, eyes narrowed.
I dismissed her with a flick of my hand, and Nettie waited until she was back in the back room before she said, “She’s…fun.”
I snorted. “Fun’s an understatement.”