Chapter 30
thirty
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Was I already breaking the rules? It was Saturday, and my day off, and I remembered Saúl had said my days off had to be focused on Little-time, and yeah, that sounded so good it made me tear up again.
But instead, I was following him along on Mercury while he went over the fences of the horses’ habitat because one of the volunteers had mentioned there were areas where it had lifted after a storm when we were away.
In my defense, yeah, I could’ve been chilling on my own, but the interest to do that now that I could do it with someone?
Yeah, it was not there. Besides, I had things on my mind, and that meant bothering Daddy with them before they got worse because I was an expert at turning everything into a big, bad, scary monster.
“I’m very anxious about tomorrow.”
“You’ve said that already.” Daddy was crouched down while checking over the fence and while I held Swiftheart’s bridle.
Daddy said there was no need; that she was a good horse—which she was—and too easily motivated by the treats he had on him.
It was true, but keeping an eye on her meant I was keeping busy.
“But I’m proud of you for going through it. ”
It was hard to keep myself from squirming.
Mercury was the best boy, but I didn’t want him to read into my body language and get spooked or think I meant something that I didn’t.
He was growing used to me, but we didn’t have that easy connection Daddy had with Swiftheart.
I was mindful of his background, too. Sofía had told me more about him, too, about how prone he had been to reopen his wound during his recovery.
It was the reason he’d ended up here. I tried not to be bitter toward the owners.
It was a work in progress, only half-appalled by Daddy’s insistence that they were good people.
“If you say so.” I patted Mercury’s neck as I spoke. Maybe the petting would compensate for all the anxiety I must be signaling. “I don’t think I had a choice.”
“And how deeply you believe that is why you’re not the undeserving monster you think you are.”
Was it?
“I didn’t come here so you made me feel all better or whatever it is you’re doing, Daddy.”
Obviously, there was no bite to my words. I wasn’t that good of an actor, and my brattiness was reserved for non-serious topics. Besides, he had a point, dammit. I didn’t like it, and I definitely didn’t like the clenching of my stomach if I spent more than a few seconds on it.
There was something about how Saúl said things.
He wasn’t a poet laureate, and he wasn’t always the most tactful, but there was no subterfuge.
He just stated things, and gave no room to do anything but listen.
I didn’t want to devalue it by just thinking of it as a Daddy thing, but thinking of it in those terms made it easier to swallow.
It made it easier to keep seeking out his warmth, his comfort.
It made it easier to ignore the fear that creeped in.
I’d never actually seen Kara angry. I wasn’t sure the idea of her anger was what scared me—even though it didn’t help—but the possibility, the uncertainty…
I didn’t know how to cope with it.
“It’s in the morning, right?”
“Yep. She’s in Spain. That’s like eight hours ahead of us. So I’m going to be sleepy on top of anxious, and that just means my stomach is gonna be even more of a mess. Yay.”
Of course, I hadn’t even considered asking her to reschedule. For one thing, she knew I wasn’t a morning person, so her choosing that time was either part of a petty revenge I couldn’t fault her for, or she simply didn’t care. The latter would suck a lot, and it hurt, but… Well, I deserved it.
Even if I wasn’t a monster like Daddy said, not even him could fault that logic.
I wasn’t going to test it in any case.
“I got an email from the pet store, by the way. All the puppy things will be here on Tuesday.”
That part helped lift off the thunderstorm clouds holding me down.
It wasn’t my usual level of excitement, but getting all the pretty bowls and collars and beds and toys and all the necessities everyone I’d talked with had teased me for because I was apparently spending too much money on things when they could easily make do with stuff we already had, meant that they could move to the main house and leave the vet lair.
They were watched and doted on around the clock, but I knew they weren’t going to come out of their shell until they had a proper home. Golden had that sad look in her eyes more often than not, and it broke my heart and made my eyes all glassy at least a dozen times a day.
The puppies didn’t know any better, and they were just happy figuring out how their legs worked, but still.
“Have you thought of their names yet?” Daddy glanced back at me after nailing something something more properly into the ground.
“Oh! That’s true, I forgot to tell you!” I exclaimed. “Well, to be fair, if you visited us in our lair, you’d know. There’s a giant banner now with them.”
“Maybe I wanted to hear it from you.”
“Uh-huh.” I rolled my eyes. There was only so much charm I could fall for in a day. “Anyway. They’re Brownie and Bootylicious, and I’m not taking questions if you can’t tell which is which.”
I really had gone for the obvious. Brownie was a perfectly smooth chocolate color all over.
Bootylicious was a slightly lighter color, and she had a big white patch all the way from the middle of her back to her butt.
They both looked like they took over more from their missing daddy’s side, but it was hard to tell.
Golden wasn’t a pure breed either, but it made me a bit sad that none of the pups had her creamy fur.
When I really felt like fucking up my day, I wondered if that was another reason why she looked so hesitant. She was a good mama, but there weren’t enough studies on dogs’ maternal instincts and how they felt after childbirth or after losing babies.
The patriarchy affected more than humans. Who would’ve thought.
“Those are… names.” Daddy took a second to stretch after standing up. “And you got the appointment with the vet in town?”
“Yeah. Well, Sofía convinced him into driving here Monday before my shift starts.”
“Sounds good.”
“We also need to get them an appointment in person, anyway,” I mused. “I mean, I know they’re healthy, but neither of us is specialized in dogs, and they need to get their shots, too.”
Sofía had mentioned we could just order the vaccines and do it ourselves, but I refused to have my future children hate me from the get-go. They could have a standard dog life where they hated the vet, and they didn’t associate me with any of it.
“I know, darlin’.”
Daddy had been the one with the idea that we’d take care of them in-house. And like, look, if something happened to them, I wasn’t going to waste precious time driving them all the way to the vet or the nearest hospital. But regular stuff?
Nope. Not doing it.
There was a reason why I chose to specialize in big carnivores. One was that it frustrated me that there weren’t enough people treating them right. Another was that they didn’t depend on us humans to the point dogs and even cats did, all jokes about their independent status aside.
I got attached quickly. It was easier to cope with that attachment when taking them home was not even a possibility.
Breathe in.
Breathe out.
Ugh.
Wasn’t breathing supposed to work?
I’d been at it for the past six minutes. I knew because I couldn’t take my eyes off the corner of my tablet. It was easier than completely focusing on the video call app I’d opened twenty minutes ago because I clearly had no chill and had woken up in a mood.
Daddy had already been out. At least I’d woken up awake enough to remember he was out because he started working at the dawn of time and there were no real days off for him. Kind of hypocritical if you asked me, but I was not thinking about that.
No, I was counting down the seconds to seven o’clock, when Kara would start the call, and my tablet would buzz with it, and I’d have to accept it, and words would get trapped in the back of my throat, because I had nothing to say, and it would just be a fucking mess.
Maybe she expected me to start the call instead.
Oh, shit.
Hadn’t we specified?
She usually let me know, but that was when we were close, and she knew I had panic attacks and got overwhelmed, and, and, and—
“Fuck.”
Could I reschedule?
No.
No, rescheduling was bad. Real bad.
I’d already done enough bad when it came to her.
This wasn’t even…
I didn’t know what our… talk was going to be like. I didn’t know what Kara wanted to say, or what she wanted to hear, or…
I didn’t know anything.
Oh, fuck. I should’ve talked this through with Daddy more.
Maybe rehearse a speech? Write down something I needed to say?
It would have helped, but the few times we broached the topic, I just got downright depressed and beat myself up for how terrible I was, and no amount of cuddles or making out helped convince me otherwise.
So, avoidance it was.
And now it was too late to realize I’d made the wrong choice again.
More breathing that didn’t help ensued. Was I even doing it right? Maybe I wasn’t. Breathing was supposed to be easy, but it wasn’t. There were literal courses people ran on breathing techniques. Obviously, the courses wouldn’t be there if they were as easy as people made it out to be.
Okay.
In through the nose.
Count to four.
Out through the mouth.
Slowly. Count to six.
It was important to breathe with your entire chest and not keep it all above the lungs.
I was doing it right.
Maybe.
Probably.
The tablet rang.
Kara’s profile image was there. It wasn’t her usual account, so it wasn’t her usual image. Instead, it was a pink teddy bear with fairy wings that looked soft instead of the gritty glittery type that I knew she didn’t like.
Okay. Okay, I could do this.
Totally.
I just had to tap on the green button. That was it.