Chapter 4 #2
Which, okay, wasn’t my strong point. But I was getting better with talking.
It scared the hell out of me, but so had stealing the dog in the first place, and I’d still done it.
If I’d managed that to save him, then surely I could find a way to make this work.
And if Mason was letting me work off the debt by helping out at the clinic, then maybe he’d do the same for other stuff the dog needed, like checkups and shots.
I just had to ask.
Chase might call me an optimist because I thought it was sometimes worth taking a risk on people, even when they were strangers, but it wasn’t like I’d been wrong so far. So why not hope for one more thing?
I didn’t know exactly how I was going to make this happen, but I did know that to have any chance I was gonna have to talk to Mason—and talk properly, not just the five or six words we’d exchanged so far.
But I thought that maybe I could manage it, if it meant I got to have a dog.
And get Danny to agree, of course, but I didn’t think that was going to be an issue. Danny had a habit of taking in strays.
And even though I barely knew him, it felt like maybe Mason was someone I could feel safe talking to.
Like, he was a vet. He had to be a decent guy.
And he seemed like he wouldn’t push or make a big deal out of it if I didn’t talk much.
Someone who mainly worked with animals was probably fine with holding one-sided conversations, right?
“I can try,” I repeated, more certain this time.
“That’s all any of us can do,” Mr. Conrad said with a smile, and in silence once more we went back to work on the Colosseum.
It was after consultation hours when I got to the clinic, the late afternoon light already starting to fade into evening.
Kayla’s little red car wasn’t parked in the street, and the door of the clinic was locked.
I knocked and then stepped back, shoving my hands in my pockets while I waited for Mason to open the door.
I remembered to keep my shoulders pulled back the way Chase did so I didn’t look as anxious as I felt.
Except then Mason wrenched the door open so quickly, the glower on his face so pronounced, that I took a hasty step backward anyway. So much for not looking like a skittish animal.
“Shit,” Mason said, the glower evaporating immediately. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone. You here to see the dog?”
I nodded, and he stepped back and let me inside.
Then, like most people, he must have decided he needed to fill the silence with something. “Sorry,” he said again. “Rough day.”
I made a questioning noise.
Mason rubbed the back of his neck again and rolled his shoulders like they were carrying too much weight.
He let out a long breath. “Had to put a cat to sleep, and the owner was devastated. But I’ve employed my patented technique of going out back and crying for twenty-one seconds and then never thinking about it again.
” He surprised me with a smile that was a little too sharp around the edges. “It’s healthy, don’t worry.”
I raised my eyebrows, very much doubting that.
Mason snorted and led the way toward the kennel room.
Joking about hard things was healthy, right?
Chase and I had done it. But also, sometimes it felt like maybe it was crossing a line, where self-deprecating turned into self-hating, and you couldn’t always see where that line was when you were busy laughing your way over it.
I wondered where the line was with Mason, and if he knew either.
One thing I was sure of, though, was that he definitely wasn’t never thinking about it again. Not when he’d felt the need to joke about it, and not when he’d been glowering like a thundercloud when he’d opened the door.
When we got to the kennel room, the dog was in his cage. He stood up, tail thrashing when he saw us, and pressed his nose against the mesh, the plastic of the cone making a weird noise as it scraped against the wire.
“Hey, dog,” Mason said. “Look who’s here.”
The dog scampered out of the cage and came straight to me as soon as Mason opened the door. I got down on my knees so I could greet him better, careful to make sure I didn’t knock his ear.
“Take him out into the yard if you want,” Mason said, so I did.
The dog was excited to be outside again, his nose twitching as he sniffed the air.
Then he kicked his legs like a jackrabbit and darted off at a run.
I was sure the yard was full of interesting smells, a bunch of them probably left behind by all the other dogs that had visited the clinic.
There were little dead spots in the grass that signposted what must have been the best spots to pee, and the dog stopped and checked them all before he finally picked one for himself.
He didn’t cock his leg when he peed. He tried but he wobbled too much, so in the end he just sort of squatted, one leg slightly extended with his toes hovering just above the grass.
It felt weird to watch a dog pee, even though he didn’t seem to mind, so I turned around and watched the house instead. It wasn’t quite dark yet but the kitchen light was already on, and I saw Mason take a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Then he walked away, out of sight of the window.
When the dog finished his inspection of the yard, he came and stood beside me expectantly. He looked at me and then at the back door, and I guessed I wasn’t the only one around here who didn’t need words to get across what he wanted.
We went back inside.
Mason was sitting at the kitchen table with his back to us.
The bottle of water was sitting untouched in front of him.
The way he was sitting, with his shoulders slumped and his head hanging down, reminded me of how Chase got on a bad day, when something had gone wrong and he didn’t know how to fix it.
Maybe Mason didn’t know how to fix whatever it was either—or maybe it was something he couldn’t fix, like having to put someone’s cat to sleep.
I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to do that day after day.
When one of my people at Sunny Fields died, it always hit me pretty hard even though death was a part of life, and I figured that when you were the one responsible for ending that life, it had to be a hundred times worse.
I stood silently in the doorway not wanting to intrude, but the dog had other ideas.
He went up to Mason and tried to put his head in his lap, except his cone got in the way and dragged up the leg of Mason’s scrubs before springing free.
Mason looked up and saw me standing there.
His eyes were glassy and red-rimmed, and he looked almost embarrassed for a second. Then he shrugged and stood.
“Sorry,” he said, his voice rough. He walked over to the sink and took a cup from the drainer and put it under the faucet.
He didn’t do anything else with it. Maybe he was trying to pretend he was busy because he didn’t like the way I’d seen him just sitting there in his feelings.
“Sometimes it takes more than twenty-one seconds.”
I wished I could say something to make him feel better, but even if I knew what to say, I wasn’t sure I could get the words out. But he looked so defeated standing there, shoulders slumped, that I had to do something. So I did the only other thing I could think of.
I walked over and wrapped my arms around him and gave him a hug.
Mason tensed up at first, but a second later he melted into the touch, letting out a long breath and putting a tentative hand between my shoulder blades, like he wasn’t sure if it was allowed.
I liked hugs. I liked giving them and receiving them.
I didn’t like to be surprised, that was all, and sometimes people mistook that for not wanting to be touched at all.
Which I got. Like, one time when we hadn’t been living with Danny and Wilder for long, Wilder had touched me on the shoulder to get my attention for something, and I’d just about bolted for the hills.
After that, he’d been worried about touching me for days until I finally got sick of him being so skittish around me and reeled him in for a hug.
He got it now. As long as I knew it was coming and it was someone I trusted, a hug was always allowed.
And I trusted Mason.
I drew a breath and whispered, “What was the cat’s name?”
He jolted a bit, and I didn’t know if the question surprised him or just the fact I’d said something. He cleared his throat. “Muffin.”
I made a noise.
He laughed, and it sounded a little wet. “I know, right? But still.”
Yeah, but still. I wondered if a little kid had named it and then wished I hadn’t, because that made it worse. I hugged Mason tighter before I let him go, and he turned around and fiddled with the cup in the sink again.
I held my hand out to the dog and scratched his head, and Mason and I didn’t have to look at each other for a while.
I sat on the kitchen floor and ended up with the dog sprawled across my lap, his cone digging into me as he did his best to lick my face.
“Hey,” I whispered, “are you feeling better, boy?”
The dog panted in reply and gave me a doggy grin, then licked my arm from wrist to elbow. It was gross and also kind of cute, and when I looked up I found Mason watching us and wearing the beginnings of a smile.
I scrunched up my nose and held up my arm, and Mason let out a soft laugh and handed me a paper towel. I was glad to see him smiling, and he seemed a lot less tense than he had been when I arrived.
I wiped my arm clean and stood, and Mason took the dog to the kennel room and put him in his cage. I took it as my cue to leave. I didn’t want to wear out my welcome.
I headed for the front door and stood there awkwardly for a minute and rubbed the back of my neck, then waggled my fingers and whispered, “Bye.”
“See you tomorrow?” Mason asked.
And maybe I was imagining it, but it sounded like there was a hopeful note in that question, like he really wanted the answer to be yes. I didn’t know Mason, not really, and he didn’t know me, but I was glad I’d been here tonight when he’d needed that hug. And maybe I’d needed it too.
I nodded to let him know I’d be here, and I didn’t imagine the small smile he gave me in response.