3. Brendan #2
“Fine. They’re hot. Seriously, like ridiculously hot.”
“There he is! My bro! I knew he was still in there somewhere.” Alan took another bite, his grin turning toothy and disgustingly tuna salad covered. “So, let’s recap. Doctor No-Personality-Peter recommended a bar, and you went, and it was good, and maybe you’ll go back.”
“That’s the whole story,” I said.
Alan nodded slowly and said nothing, which was more unsettling than if he’d said something, because Alan’s silences meant he had arrived at a conclusion he was choosing to keep to himself.
Alan keeping things to himself was a temporary condition at best. I had long ago diagnosed him with a chronic case of diarrhea of the mouth.
It might’ve been the most accurate diagnosis I’d ever made.
“Marcus said a capybara got out,” Alan said, suddenly shifting subjects.
“In the waiting room.”
“How big.”
“Ninety pounds.”
Alan whistled. “Marcus was there for that? Isn’t he normally the one running from the room, screaming like a—”
“He was brave,” I said, cutting off whatever insult he was about to hurl.
He crumpled his wrapper, did a basketball free-throw shot into in the trash, and stood. “Eat dinner tonight, a real one. Maybe even use a table.”
“I always eat dinner.”
“Eating vending machine chips at your desk doesn’t count. Don’t make me report to Mom. She’ll send the family mafia.”
“You’ll be banned from this office if you do.”
He snorted. “Love ya, bro. Text me.”
Then he vanished through the doorway. I listened to him stop at Marcus’s desk on the way out and say something that made Marcus laugh, which Marcus almost never did during office hours. Then I heard the front door open and close.
I ate the rest of my sandwich and went back to my charts.
The afternoon ran in the same direction the morning had established—one small, furry or feathered universe after another, each patient presenting its own world of concerns.
Animals and their people moved through my exam rooms with their own needs and their ways of explaining those needs.
I stood in the middle of it all doing the thing I had decided at eleven years old was the thing, healing and helping and hoping I could make each patient’s tail wag a little more.
At ten minutes to six, as Diane was shutting down her workstation, and Marcus was aligning everything on the front desk to his satisfaction, the front door opened.
“We’re just closing,” I heard Marcus say, in the pleasant but firm tone he used for walk-ins after five-thirty.
“I know. I’m sorry. He just—I just got him today, and I think something’s wrong, and I didn’t know where else to go.
” The voice was warm, and slightly breathless, the voice of someone who had been moving fast and thinking faster.
It carried a delicious accent I guessed was from somewhere in South America, possibly an island, but I couldn’t be sure.
Something about that voice was familiar in the way things were familiar when you’d heard them in a different context and your brain was doing the cross-referencing work before you’d consciously asked it to.
I put down my pen and sat back, waiting for Marcus to ask the inevitable.
“Let me check with the doctor.” Marcus appeared in my doorway a moment later with a defeated look.
“Got a walk-in with a new puppy.” He knew I wouldn’t say, “No,” to a new patient, especially a puppy, and that would extend both of our workdays.
“I’m pretty sure he’s a first-time owner.
He seems—” Marcus considered his word choice.
“Anxious—the owner, I mean. The puppy seems fine.”
“You okay hanging out a bit longer?”
“I could use the overtime.” Marcus nodded. “Make this last all night if you need to, Doc.”
I chuckled. “No chance of that unless the owner’s super hot.”
Marcus grinned. “I’ll settle in, maybe order a pizza, ’cause this one’s on fire.”
I sighed and nodded. “All right, put Mr. Hottie and his pup in exam two. I’ll be there in a minute.”
I heard Marcus chatting with the owner, quiet “thank yous” that followed, footsteps in the hallway, and then the click of the exam room door.
I picked up a fresh chart and walked to room two.
A man stood in the middle of the room holding a small beagle mix puppy against his chest with both hands.
It was the careful grip of someone who had been holding this creature for approximately six hours and had already developed potent feelings about keeping it safe.
The guy was maybe mid-twenties, with dark, almost black hair that hung nearly to his rounded shoulders, which I could see clearly thanks to the flimsy tank top he wore.
The puppy was eight weeks at most and was conducting a thorough examination of the man’s chin with its tongue. The man was submitting to said tongue bath with the resigned warmth of someone who had already accepted that this was simply his life now.
He looked up when I came in.
I blinked at him.
It was the guy from the bar.
The dancer.
We now stood in different light, in a different room. He had flour smeared across his tank top, but it was the same face, same beautiful skin, same sexy jawline and eyes and . . . damn.
It was actually him.
He recognized me at approximately the same moment I recognized him. I could see the check running, the placement clicking, and then something shifted in his expression.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
The puppy licked his chin again.
The guy adjusted his grip without looking down.
“You’re the vet?” he said.
“I am,” I said.
“From Barbacks.”
“Well, I’m not from Barbacks, per se, but I did go there, you know, last night, I mean yesterday, to have a drink. It’s a bar. Drinks are the thing, right? I mean—”
The guy grinned, and his whole face transformed into a brand of sunlight I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed. I felt my knees revolt and had to wiggle them back into compliance.
“Right. Drinks at a bar. That’s good.” He looked at the puppy, earning a dozen more sloppy licks right across the face. “I got a puppy.”
“I see that. He’s cute.”
“Today.”
“Okay.”
“Like”—he shifted the puppy to a slightly different position against his chest—“four hours ago.”
“Let me guess,” I said, knowing it wasn’t a guess. “First dog?”
“First anything,” he said. “I have a succulent. She’s a very good succulent. I’m good with her.” He looked at the puppy. “This is different.”
“Your houseplant is female?”“Her name is Abbie. She’s very sweet. At least, I think she is.” He nodded seriously. “She doesn’t lick my face or pee on my shirt, though.”
“A puppy is quite different from a plant, even one as . . . sweet . . . as Abbie,” I said, smothering a chuckle. “And what are your names?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I’m Adrian. I haven’t named this little guy yet.”
“Nice to meet you, Adrian. I’m Dr. Davis, Brendan Davis.”
“Brendan,” he said, as though memorizing a foreign word. “I mean Doc. Sorry. I’m new to all this.”
I grinned at watching a hunky guy fumbling for words. That was usually my problem when confronted with a hottie.
“So, Adrian, what made you decide to come in? It’s good to get new dogs checked out, but Marcus said you were concerned about something.”
“He sneezed,” the man said. “Like, a lot. On the way over. I kind of panicked. Is that—is sneezing bad? He’s so little, and his sneeze was so big.”
“Can I take a look at him?”
“Yes. Please. That’s why—yes.” He stepped forward and held the puppy out toward me, then apparently reconsidered whether he was ready to let go and pulled him slightly back, then held him out again. “Sorry. Here.”
The puppy looked up at me with the expression all puppies had at this age, which was one of complete trust combined with zero understanding. He immediately attempted to eat my stethoscope.
“He does that,” Adrian said.
“Most puppies do,” I replied.
“I’ve had him four hours, and I know that already,” said a man who had four hours of extremely concentrated experience and wanted credit for it.
I set the puppy on the exam table and began my assessment. Eight weeks, healthy weight, good coat, clear eyes. Adrian stood on the other side of the table and watched with focused intensity.
“Any ideas for a name?” I asked.
A brief pause.
“Mofongo,” the man said. “I’m not sure yet, but that’s on the list.”
I looked up, unable to hide my confusion.
“It’s a Puerto Rican dish,” he said, sounding like someone who had already made this decision and was not reconsidering it. “Green plantains, fried and mashed up with garlic and chicharrón. My abuela makes it. It’s—” He stopped. “He just looked like a Mofongo when I saw him.”
I looked at the puppy.
The puppy looked back at me and sneezed directly into my face.
“That’s him,” the man said. “That’s the sneeze. Is that bad?”
I straightened and grabbed a paper towel. “He’s completely fine. He’s adjusting to a new environment. It’s all new smells and a little dust from wherever you picked him up. Puppies sneeze.”
Adrian exhaled as though he’d been holding his breath since a car ride twenty minutes earlier. “Okay, good. He’s okay then?”
“He’s perfect,” I said. “Healthy weight, clear eyes, good energy.”
Mofongo was currently attempting to fall off the edge of the table with cheerful purposefulness. I moved him back to the center.