Chapter 27
Katie
“Gym!” Mandie announced the minute I emerged from my bedroom the following morning.
“Absolutely freaking not.” I shuffled forward. “I can barely move right now. Yesterday was bad, but this…” I shot her a dark look. “I thought getting fit was supposed to make you feel better?”
“It does!” She blinked. “Well, after the muscle soreness wears off.” She shrugged. “Then sometimes you get some persistent joint pain or injuries.” That was waved away. “But you get stronger, fitter, faster.”
“I’ll settle for weaker, slower, and pain free,” I replied. “I’ve gotta go to work so I can do dumb stuff like pay rent.”
“And then gym?” she asked hopefully.
“I take it all back. You shouldn’t be a fitness influencer.” I waved my hand at her face. “You’re turning it into your whole personality. What about the little things in life like good movies and a pizza with all the toppings?”
“We could do that then.” She shot me a bright grin. “I’ll grab a bottle of wine and we can watch The Notebook and ugly cry.”
“Now you’re talking…” Mandie peered at me as my voice trailed away. “Well, not straight after work.”
“Why not straight after work?” My sister’s smile grew carnivorous. “What’s going down when your shift ends?”
“Bronson’s finding it difficult to adjust—” I started to say.
“Bronson.” When her hands went to her hips, I knew I was in trouble. “I thought you found that dog a home. Is Rhys not looking after him? That’s not your job to take on, you know.”
Mandie was sucking in a breath, ready to give me another of her famous tough love speeches, but I stopped her dead.
“They are looking after him. He’s just struggling with the adjustment. That dog’s been through a lot, you know. He?—”
“Was treated disgustingly by the people that owned him?” She shot me a meaningful look. “I know. Half the animals in that shelter you volunteer at are treated like crap, which freaking sucks, but…” Her hands came to land on my shoulders. “That doesn’t mean you have to be the one that saves them.”
“I’m not saving him.” That came out way grumpier than I intended and she shook her head as I pulled away. “I’m just going around to take him for a walk, make sure he’s eating and drinking, and then it’s weepy movie marathon time, promise.”
“I’m holding you to that,” Mandie said, waving her finger in my face. “If I have to come around to the guys’ house and drag you away from that dog, I’ll do it too.”
I just waved to her as I walked down the hall, towards the front door.
Are we still on for this afternoon? I saw Garrett’s text as I started packing away my stuff, vacating the front desk at the vets to let my colleague take over. Bronson’s a lot better. This was followed by a photo of the dog sitting pretty on his legs in the backyard. Still misses you though.
A man could say a lot of things, but it felt like that was what it took to get my attention. I said goodbye to my workmates and then headed for the door. My eyes were on the phone, analysing the photo, looking for signs that Bronson was really starting to relax. Ears back, mouth open, and panting in a big doggy smile, limbs loose, he was?—
“Oh!”
Holy shit, I was so damn focussed on the phone I almost collided with some poor woman. She blinked, understandably pissed, as she stepped back and looked at me pointedly.
“Oh my god!” I gasped. “I’m so sorry. I wasn’t paying attention and?—”
“Babe.” That masculine voice had me stiffening. I didn’t need to think about who it belonged to, though he’d never used that kind of tone with me. “I’ve got Fifi, and…” Dave’s voice trailed away, and he stared just like I did. “Huh.” I watched him straighten, the little pink dog carrier incongruous in his grip, but Dave didn’t blush or look embarrassed. Instead, his gaze hardened as he looked me up and down. “Forgot you worked here.”
He glanced up at the vet sign, as if to confirm that I did not change workplace just on the off chance I’d run into him again. Not bloody likely. I’d literally rather walk over hot coals than deal with him. I took in the too-long hair, the stubbly chin, and the bags around his eyes and wondered what the hell I saw in him.
The girl he was with obviously wanted to know the same thing.
“Who’s this?”
She pointed a finger at me like I was an animal on display in the zoo, not a living, breathing person.
“This?”
That cruel smile, the way he slung his free arm around her shoulder and pulled her closer, it was weird to see. It felt like ten years had passed since I’d been the recipient of his hugs, his smiles. And I didn’t want to be now, either, that hit me hard. I felt that unconscious sense of revulsion one might feel if faced with a bucket filled with vomit. I felt no sympathy, no loss and also no loyalty, so I answered for him.
“We used to hook up,” I told her baldly, rewarded by the sight of her eyebrows shooting up to her hairline. “Not that long ago. I was his regular booty call, I guess.”
“When?” She asked Dave that, not me. “When we started?—?”
“What? No, of course not, babe.”
It wasn’t his denial that stabbed deep, nor the way he looked at her. Right now, he was proud for the world to see him with his girl, and why not? She was conventionally pretty. Far too pretty for him, really. Now that I was looking closely, I could see the stains on his shirt, smell the sour stench of beer wafting off him and the way his shirt was starting to stretch over a softer belly. No, it was the part of me wondering what the hell I was doing wasting my time with him.
“Katie’s just a friend,” he said, hopeful that would pass as an explanation.
“Not a friend.” My voice was as flat and hard as a sword’s blade. “Absolutely not a friend, girlfriend or otherwise.” I swallowed hard, my mouth filling with bile. “Actually, I’m nothing to him at all.”
I didn’t dream of this moment. There were no revenge fantasies to entertain because I just didn’t give a shit about him, so I moved past them, walking towards my car. I heard some muffled voices, hers getting shrill, his deeper, louder, but they didn’t matter.
I did.
For a second, I felt it, something I kept stuffed way too far down. A throbbing sense of myself that was irritated, then outraged, by the bullshit Dave pulled. He thought he was the shit, and I wasn’t worthy of him, but really…
He wasn’t worth mine or any woman’s time.
Perhaps this is what it felt like when your shackles were unlocked and fell away, because that’s what my mind did. I’d carried around the weight of his rejection, and why would I do that? Some people thought I was wasting my time working at the shelter, that I should’ve had some kind of side hustle going to get ahead, but helping animals made me happy and I dismissed their poor opinion without a second thought.
I could do that with Dave.
He wasn’t worth it. Not my time, not my pain, nothing, and that had me straightening up, staring at my car blindly as my mind rushed to make new connections.
Of course, he had to go and ruin it.
“Katie and her animals…” He appeared beside my car with a sneer on his face. The girl he was with had walked inside the vets. “Save any dogs from choking today? Some cats from bleeding out? No, you wouldn’t have.” His arms crossed his chest. “You’re not an actual vet, just a receptionist.”
“A receptionist who booked your…” I stared past him to the door. “Girl…whatever’s appointment for Fifi. Speaking of which, shouldn’t you be over there, pretending to care?” I faced him head on. “Heard you lost your job at the station.” The sight of his expression souring was just delicious. “What’re you doing now?” I glanced back to the surgery’s door. “In house dog minder?”
“You little…” His growl should’ve worried me, scared me, but right now it felt like nothing Dave did mattered. He wasn’t just a dick, he was irrelevant. “I guess you would get jealous of a pretty girl like Felicity.”
“Jealous?” I couldn’t keep the laugh back. “I feel sorry for her. She hasn’t had the epiphany I had. That it’d be far better to be alone than to have you rub her left labia a few times and then ask her if she’s ready to come.”
“Is that right? Well?—”
A ping from my phone let me know another notification had come in. I held up a hand, cutting him off to read it. A smile came unbidden as I saw the newest photo. Bronson had his collar on, a lead attached.
Looks like someone’s ready to go for walkies with his best girl.
Dave, work, and the world all dropped away as I went to my happy place, because I could almost see Bronson’s reaction when I arrived. That whole body wiggle of his was enough to brush away all the other bullshit.
“Who’s that?” Dave was mean, but he wasn’t stupid. I saw the glitter in his eyes as he took in my every response. “Your next ‘hookup?’” He flexed his fingers in the air to form quotation marks. “Probably just another guy that has you on speed dial because you come running every time he wants his dick sucked.”
I knew I needed to make some kind of smart retort, but all words died in my throat. He smirked, shifting his weight from one hip to the other.
“That’s one thing Felicity will never have on you.” He glanced back at the vets. “Fat chicks? They’re hungry for it in ways pretty girls never are.”
Just walk away , I told myself. Pick up your feet and move. He doesn’t matter. Nothing he says matters.
But I didn’t. It was like my body went into freeze mode the moment men showed who they really were. From cruel boys in primary school, to coercive ones in high school, it felt like I saw a side of mankind that others didn’t. They saved their smiles, their pleasant demeanour, for people who looked like Mandie or Felicity, but never for me.
“Fuck off, Dave.” God, that came out all wavering and weak, which just had his smile widening. “Not everyone has the same poison in their fucked up head like you do. I’m going to help a guy with his dog?—”
“Is that how he sucked you in? Fuck.” His hand went to his temple. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that? What’s he doing? Using you as an unpaid dog walker?” I looked down at my phone, not wanting to see Dave anymore. Bronson seemed to treat me like a therapy person and right now, I needed the same from him. The joy in those amber eyes, it was a lifeline. “No doubt he’s got you thinking you’re ‘helping,’ whereas really, he’s just getting you right where he wants you. A desperate, low effort side piece that’s only good for a fuck when you’ve got no other options.” He snorted. “God, you’re pathetic.”
Was that what was happening? I’d love to say that I’d only settled for Dave before, but unfortunately I had a habit of letting people who didn’t deserve it get close. It felt like I could see what they needed so damn easily and I just knew I could give it to them.
No matter what it cost me.
For a moment, I just stared at Dave like he was a thing, dissecting the parts of him into smaller and smaller pieces before I pulled away and got into my car.
Without even a look backwards, I pulled my car out of the carpark and then drove down the road.