Chapter 4
Chapter Four
Dove
I rubbed my weary eyes and headed down toward the old monkey house to steal one of the twins' Red Bulls.
At least it isn’t as bad as baby-bird season , I told myself for the hundredth time today. There was sleep deprivation, and then there was baby-bird-season sleep deprivation. In only a few more weeks, I’d need a full-on IV drip of coffee to cope with however many chicks needed hand-rearing this year. At least we had two new vet tech interns coming to keep up with the workload. After Finch’s complete implosion last year, Mom had put her foot down and brought in more help. Maybe we’d even get through the season without anyone hallucinating cats on the ceiling . . . . That would be a win.
I swung my arms as I walked, humming a tune to myself to try and kickstart my energy back into gear.
Eighteen days. Just eighteen more days and the Deacon-sized shadow over the zoo will vanish.
My radio chirped on my hip. “Reptiles to birds.”
I picked it up. “Birds, go ahead.”
“What time do you want to leave for that school visit tomorrow?”
Shit. I’d completely forgotten. I’d been so focused on Deacon, I hadn’t checked my calendar in days. “Uhh, ten?”
“Roger,” Crane replied. “I’ll be bringing Darren and Velma so don’t bring Yellow.”
“Roger.”
Crane’s bearded dragon hated my sulphur-crested cockatoo, so the two of them could never be scheduled on the same school visits together. I’d probably bring Sunflower, our three-year-old sun conure. She enjoyed the chaos of children the most.
The zoo had been steadily growing our funding over the last few years, especially with the added income from the school trips and off-season events. We actually had enough money now to hire some more staff members, which opened up a new path for me to finally do something else . . . although I wasn’t exactly sure what that would be yet.
I enjoyed fundraising and event planning, and I was starting to take over more of Mom’s grant submissions and paperwork. Maybe I could move to the city and work for a big NGO, carry on my father’s legacy of saving wildlife on a larger scale than what one zoo could do alone.
But not yet . . . I still wanted the zoo to be well and truly sorted before I left. The zoo was owned by our family now, but that was only step one. We were earning more than we had in previous years, and that was step two. But I needed to make sure we could keep earning that amount with enough of a buffer for a few slow years before I was willing to move on entirely.
With my mind on my blurry future, I stumbled blearily down the back pathway past the gardens and almost barreled headfirst into a tall blonde zookeeper.
Zookeeper?
I paused and did a double take, rubbing the sleep from my eyes.
"Hey," the lanky blonde said to me without looking up from her phone. She had an eerily symmetrical face, blindingly white teeth, and shining white-blonde hair that looked thicker than a horse’s mane.
"Hey.” I dragged out the word, more than a little confused. Had Mom hired Zookeeper Barbie without telling me? "Sorry, I thought you were . . . a . . . a staff member for a second.”
She peeked up from her phone just long enough to laugh. "Cool,” was all she said and wandered away.
As she sauntered off in an odd combination of work khakis and Ugg boots, I realized I knew her. That was Ivy Blanc —an up-and-coming actress and two-time Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model. She wore the same style of khakis as mine, except without the porcupine logo—though her body looked decidedly different in them than mine did. She was easily 5’10” with big boobs, a tiny waist, and a perfectly sculpted ass—which I was definitely not checking out.
As she walked off, I noticed the back of her shirt was held tight with clips to give her even more of an hourglass figure. The Ugg boots I couldn’t explain, apart from maybe they were only shooting her from the waist up? If she was trying to look like a zookeeper, maybe someone should tell her that the footwear was entirely impractical.
I frowned down at the white splash of bird poop on my work boots. Great, the hottest woman in the world just saw my shit-stained shoes. I pinched my leg, wondering if I’d accidentally fallen asleep in Finch’s office and this was all some insane dream. I’d just bumped into Ivy Blanc at my family zoo and she was dressed like me . . . well, like when hot girls dressed up in Halloween costumes version of me, but still . . .
"What the hell?" I finally said aloud, reality catching up with me.
I grabbed my radio and pushed the button, waiting for the beep. "Uh, is anyone going to tell me why I just ran into Ivy Blanc and why she’s walking around the zoo in our work uniform?"
"You got to talk to Ivy Blanc?" Crane replied right away, all too eager.
"What does she smell like?" Heron jumped in over him. “Did you smell her?”
Hawk instantly cut in, "Don't answer that." He let out a long breath over the radio—something he always scolded us for. "They modeled her uniform after ours so that if we walk into the background shots of any enclosures, the footage is still usable. It’s why you had to sign that release form.”
What release form had I signed? In the mountain of Mom’s paperwork that had landed across her desk, had I accidentally agreed to be a background extra in a freaking movie? Had I been so caught up in avoiding anything about Deacon that I’d missed the memo entirely?
I stared down at my boots as if the answers might be scrawled across them before bringing the radio to my mouth again. “And why does she need a zookeeper uniform?"
"Did you not read the safety briefing I sent through last week?" Hawk asked, his voice already perturbed, as if he knew the answer.
"Busted." Crane snickered.
Now that he mentioned it, I had seen the subject of a few emails that had included Deacon's name and had admittedly decided to move them directly into the trash.
"They're filming a rom-com set in a zoo, Dove," Heron said. "She's playing a zookeeper."
I choked on my own breath, spluttering and coughing. How had I not gathered that from the few phone exchanges I’d had with Deacon? When I’d contacted him about using the zoo as a filming location, he’d said he was producing and starring in a new film, but I would’ve remembered if he’d said the movie was about an actual zookeeper! Why hadn't he told me that when he’d sent me the original contracts?
"Right, yeah," I muttered into the radio. "I was just surprised to see her behind the scenes. Isn't that a hazard?"
"We've designated the parking lot behind the composter as a smoking zone for the crew," Mom said.
"Did none of you read my report?" Hawk grumbled.
"He spent a lot of time on it, guys,” Hannah chimed in. “Not cool.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. "I'll reread it tonight," I acquiesced.
"There will be a quiz at dinner," Hawk scolded. “Got it?”
I rolled my eyes. “Roger."
I kept walking, storming faster now. I didn't know why it made me so angry that Deacon hadn’t told me he was filming a zookeeper movie. That was so out of character for him. I thought they were just going to use the exotic animals and bamboo hedges for a Rambo reboot or something. Deacon’s brand was action hero, not gushy romantic comedy. Why was he producing a project that was so out of character for him? Was this his way of getting payback at me for ignoring him? I wouldn't put it past him. Maybe he’d changed the film to be about a zoo just to spite me.
Yep. I decided the piece of shit was doing this specifically to torture me, mocking my job, my home, with his stupid movie and his handsome face as some sadistic game.
I balled my hands into fists as I spied the gaggle of girls waiting at the gates.
"Agh!" Something in me snapped and I stormed down the hill toward them. "What is wrong with you?" I yelled, unleashing my frustration on them from the other side of the chain-link. They all just smiled and kept looking past me as if I didn’t even exist.
They didn’t even seem upset that I was raging at them. They were like zombies, so desperate for a glimpse that they would let a hurricane roll right overhead if it meant catching a peek. They held their phones to the fence, staring, unblinking, desperation in their tight gazes.
"Deacon Harrow is a vile piece of crap who doesn't do any good in the world. He's just a hot guy who does unwatchable action himbo movies.” I erupted, waving my hands in front of their cameras to try to get their attention. “He has all the money and fame in the world and does nothing with it. He is the face of a company that has made the Almadran skinks go extinct and he hasn’t even issued an apology! He could be doing so much good with his platform, but he doesn’t care. All he wants are these sick parasocial relationships that you’re all feeding into. This is a cult, and he is your leader. Wake up! You all need to find someone better to worship than that worthless waste of space. He?—”
"Vet Team to birds," Finch's voice echoed from the radio at my hip.
“Fuck my life," I muttered as I turned to see Finch's head in the window of the vet hospital. She was most definitely standing on a gurney to spy on me. I picked up my radio. “Birds, go ahead.”
"Step away from the super fans, Lovey Dovey,” Finch said, hooking her thumb to the side.
I rolled my eyes as I started trudging back up the hill. I saluted Finch as I held the radio to my mouth. "They didn't even listen to me anyway."
"Good,” she said. “The last thing you need is to be on the wrong side of the Harrow Heads.”
I pretended to gag. Harrow Heads. Gross.
I clenched and unclenched my hands. “It’s only eighteen days,” I whispered to myself. “You can handle anything for eighteen days. Then you will never have to think about him again.”
And I really wished in that moment that I could make myself believe the lie, but the truth was Deacon Harrow had lived rent free in my head for a long, long time.