3 Xavier
3
XAVIER
T HIS LOOKS TERRIBLE ,” I said.
Tina shrugged. “You told me to make him look different.
He looks different.”
My dog smiled up at me with the goofiest haircut I’d ever seen. He had the beard of a schnauzer and the shaved legs of a poodle. He’d be embarrassed if he cared.
I blew a breath out. I guess ugly was better than dead.
“Still no name?” Tina asked.
“No. I’m waiting for something to speak to me,” I said.
It had been over a month since his “death.” The lady had come in and collected the St. Bernard ashes weeks ago. I figured she wouldn’t have any reason to come back to the clinic, so I’d brought the dog to work so he wouldn’t be home alone. That meant he needed the haircut now that he was out and about—and he needed a new name. I’d been calling him by his old one this whole time, but that wouldn’t work if he wanted to make public appearances.
“So are you definitely keeping him?” Tina asked.
“I think I have to. I can’t exactly put him up on an adoption site.”
“None of your friends can take him?”
“No.”
She scratched behind his ear. “He’s a good boy.”
“They’re all good boys,” I grumbled.
My stomach growled. I looked at my watch. Two o’clock. I’d worked through lunch again.
I was the only doctor at my practice. If a patient needed a last-minute visit, I didn’t like to send them to the ER vet if I didn’t have to. It meant I didn’t always get breaks—in fact most days I didn’t.
Tina must have read my mind. “We brought you some chicken enchiladas. They’re in the fridge.”
“Thanks,” I said.
They were always feeding me. It happened so much I’d started paying them for the groceries.
I opened up the laptop to respond to emails while my dog sat with his chin on my thigh.
“So you’re going with Chris tonight to the thing, right?” Tina asked, leaning in the doorway.
“That is the plan,” I said, not looking up.
“Is he still single?”
“As far as I’m aware.” Chris, Mike, Jesse, Becca—they were all my best friends, practically family.
“You should ask him if he wants to meet my sister,” she said. “She just broke up with that youth pastor?”
“Chris is too busy for dating,” I said, skimming an email about a vaccination clinic for the rescue. “And I am too busy to be in the middle of it.”
“What about Mike?” she said, going on unfazed. “Although he might be too muscly. Not sure she’d like that. Too bad Jesse isn’t single, he’d be perfect. They’re both in finance, you know? But Chris is a pharmacist, that’s really good too. Also, he likes to read and she likes to read. I bet they’d get along, you should ask him.”
How these women managed to glean this much about my friends from the handful of times they’d come in here and the limited information I provided them was beyond me.
Maggie burst into the back. “Dr. Rush!” She was panting. “That lady is here!” she hiss-whispered.
I blinked at her. “What lady?”
Her eyes were wide. “The butthole cat lady.”
I froze. Samantha.
After I’d sent the donation last month, I got a generic thank-you email—not that I expected anything beyond that. I didn’t send it in the hopes she’d reach out, I sent it to help and to apologize. But so much time had passed…
“What does she want?” I asked.
“An exam?” Maggie said. “Says she’s flying with the cat and she needs a health certificate and a sedative.”
Why would she come to me ?
I’d been reliving that entire encounter in my head on a loop for the last six weeks. I couldn’t let it go.
I’d acted badly. My behavior had been unprofessional and uncalled-for. The culmination of exhaustion and the general fatigue of dealing with other human beings, but I’d atoned for it and usually that was enough for me to move on.
But I couldn’t shake this and I didn’t know why.
No. I did know why. It was her.
Normally things people said about my personality didn’t bother me. I was dry. I’d always been dry. She had every right to say what she did and call me what she had. She wasn’t even the first person to do it. But coming from this woman it had hit differently for some reason. It bothered me that I’d let her down.
It had made me work more these last few weeks to be softer with people. Like she’d somehow know if I was short with someone and it would disappoint her, which was ridiculous on a thousand different levels, but I was doing it nonetheless.
And now she was here.
I went to the bathroom to check my hair. Then I was mad at myself for checking my hair because she wasn’t here to look at me , she was here for me to look at her cat. I came out and went straight to the hallway to go get this over with, then immediately turned around. “What room?”
Maggie was waiting for me. “Two.”
I left again. Then I came back.
“Tablet,” I said.
Maggie was standing there smiling, holding it up, like she’d known I was coming. I narrowed my eyes at her, took it, and left. Again.
When I opened the door to room two, Samantha was in the same place as last time, cat in her shirt.
“Hello, Dr. Rush,” she said wryly.
Beautiful. Even more than last time.
“Miss Diaz,” I said, my voice low.
I went to the sink to wash my hands, mostly to buy myself time before I had to talk to her.
When I turned back around, she was smiling at me. “Would you like to see my kitten’s butthole?”
I snorted. Then I straightened and tossed the paper towel in the trash. “I actually would like to see that.”
She pulled the cat out of her bra and handed her to me.
I set her on the exam table and lifted her tail. Then I raised my eyebrows. “That’s an excellent-looking butthole.”
“Riiiight?” She grinned.
I had to work to keep my face straight.
“The surgeon said the deformity was more minor than we thought,” she said, watching me examine Pooter. “She came through it great, she’s not incontinent or anything.”
“Are her bowel movements normal?” I asked, feeling her stomach.
“Yup.”
“How many a day?”
“Two to three,” she said.
“How do they look?”
“I brought you a picture because I just knew you’d want to see it.”
She took out her phone and swiped and then held it out to me. I nodded sagely. “Perfect.”
I felt her watch me as I checked the kitten’s teeth and eyes.
The cat smelled like her perfume again. Again I liked it.
She put her phone back in her purse and leaned against the wall. “I accept your apology by the way,” she said.
I glanced up at her. “I was wrong. I can admit when I’m wrong. I underestimated the people of the internet.”
“No, you underestimated me and how funny I can be, which is worse.”
She got a small smile out of me.
I took out my stethoscope and listened to Pooter’s heart and lungs.
“You raised more than you needed,” I said. “What did you do with the rest?”
“I donated it all to Bitty Kitty Brigade.”
I wrapped the stethoscope around my neck. I liked that.
“I think she’s in good shape,” I said. “I can clear her to fly. I’ll give you something for the trip.”
“Thanks.”
Then she waited, giving me a Well? look.
Well indeed.
“Would you like to go on a date with me?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” she said without even thinking about it. “But you have to take me tonight. I leave tomorrow.”
“Pick you up or meet you somewhere?” I asked.
“Pick me up.”
“Six thirty?”
“Sounds good,” she said. “My number’s in Pooter’s chart.”
I handed her the kitten, took the airline health certificate she brought for me to fill out, and I left.
I saw Tina in the back. “She needs a prescription for gabapentin and proof of vaccinations. I’ll fill out the health certificate before I leave.”
I was talking to Tina but looking through the tablet for Samantha’s number.
“Oh my God, he’s smiling,” Tina said.
My head jerked up. “What?”
She was looking at me with wide eyes. “You’re smiling .”
“He is smiling.” Maggie’s mouth was open. “Is it her? Do you like her??”
I didn’t get to answer. Tina gasped and started bouncing. “He likes her!”
“Stop it. No I don’t.”
Maggie made a circling motion with her finger. “Yeeeessss you dooo! We can tell.”
I stared at both of them flatly. Then I turned toward my office and shut the door. I stood in front of my desk and wiped a hand down my mouth.
I felt bad that I said I didn’t like her. It wasn’t true.
I came back out.
“I do like her. We’re going on a date tonight. I don’t want to hear anything else about it, it’s not a big deal.”
Apparently it was a big deal. They started screaming.
“This isn’t my first date,” I said defensively.
“Oh, we know,” Maggie said, beaming. “But this one is different.”
“Why?”
“She called you an asshole.”
I snorted.
“Normally I would tell you not to be all scary and serious, but I think she’s into it,” Tina said.
“Thank you, but I do not need your advice. I do not exactly have a difficult time finding people to go out with me,” I said.
I didn’t. I don’t know why they were so excited.
“You go on dates with a very specific kind of woman,” Maggie said.
“Do I,” I said, unamused.
“Your girls are always A-type personalities,” Maggie said. “They’re all Ivy League grads with perfect clothes and zero sense of humor. You’re intense and brooding and she’s always mad and texting furiously into her phone because she’s a CEO or a lawyer or something with a super tight bun—”
“Yeah! The bun!” Tina said. “They always have the bun!”
“The last one did not wear a bun,” I said, annoyed.
“No. But she had bun energy,” Tina said.
“You need someone who will argue with you,” Maggie said. “And loosen you up.”
“Someone nice but not like, too nice,” Tina said. “You’re too scary for too nice.”
I scoffed. “I am not scary.”
Both women looked at me with their awwww, bless your heart faces.
“You don’t smile a lot, sweetie,” Maggie said.
“Also, you’re very tall,” Tina said. “You can’t frown and also be tall. It’s intimidating.”
“Where are you gonna take her?” Maggie asked.
“It should be a public place,” Tina said. “You’re too big and frowny to take her somewhere secluded on the first date.”
I gave her a look. “Is my face really this much of a problem?”
They both sucked air through their teeth.
“Sort of?” Tina said. “Like, conceptually it’s fine? In a romance novel you’d be an alpha-male vampire,” Tina said, matter-of-factly. “That’s really good.”
“A werewolf,” Maggie corrected. “He’s sort of growly.”
“A werewolf,” I deadpanned.
“No…” Tina said to Maggie, not to me. She paused dramatically. “Rhysand.”
Maggie gasped. “Yessssssss! Because he’s all cold and handsome and dangerous looking.”
“He even looks like him. Like if Rhys were human?” Tina said.
“Oh my God, totally,” Maggie said.
They kept going on about it and I watched them, highly unamused.
“While you two figure out which fictional monster I am, I’m going to get back to work.” I gave them a pointed glance. “It’d be nice if you also resumed working at some point.”
They continued on, talking about faeries with bat wings.
I retreated to the office again before they could ask me any more questions, and I started second-guessing my plan of where I wanted to take Samantha.
It didn’t help. Then I second-guessed my second-guesses.
Usually I made choices quickly and confidently, and they tended to be the right ones. But for some reason with this, I wasn’t sure.
I don’t know why, but I felt like I was only going to get one shot with Samantha. The shot felt important. Maybe because the entire date was a second chance to begin with?
And what did they mean I don’t smile? I smile.
I looked up over the desk at a photo Maggie had framed of the three of us at the grand opening of the clinic two years ago. One of the happiest days of my life.
Okay, maybe I didn’t smile.
I should work on that.
I blew a breath through my nose. Then I called Jesse’s girlfriend, Becca. She answered on the second ring. She sounded like she was in a drive-through—a muffled voice was telling her to pull forward to the next window.
“Xavier?”
“Hi. Can I ask you a question?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“Am I intimidating?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Hello?” I said.
“I’m trying to figure out how to say this nicely.”
I rubbed my temples.
“You are very tall, and you don’t smile very much,” she said. “You can come off a little grumpy. I think you are a little grumpy, actually.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
“Why? Do you have a date or something?” she asked.
I felt like a dark cloud. “I do.”
“Do you want my honest opinion?” she asked. “Like honest, honest?”
When I didn’t answer she went on.
“Be yourself. If you’ve gotten this far, she’s probably got an idea of how you are already. And you’re not scary once someone gets to know you.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“I’m serious. You’re not. You’re not charismatic. Or charming or extroverted or fun or—”
“Okay, I get it.”
“No, let me finish. You’re other things. You’re dependable and loyal. You’re stable and hardworking and kind. You always do the right thing, and you have a ton of integrity. That’s the stuff that matters.”
I softened a little.
“You’ve never cared before what anyone thought,” she said. “This must be a big date.”
I didn’t respond.
“Hold on, I have to pay for my coffee.”
“That’s all I need. Thank you for the feedback,” I said.
“You got it.”
“Don’t tell Mike or Chris I called you,” I said. “Or Jesse.”
“Okay, I won’t, I promise. Just lean into the smoldering romance hero thing you have going on. Embrace your inner Rhysand.”
Sure. I had no idea what that meant. I was thinking I should probably google it since it was the second time I’d heard the name in ten minutes.
“Good luck,” she sang.
I hung up and stared at the photo on the wall. I wasn’t going to force it. I was going to be myself.
Hopefully that’s what she liked.