Chapter 5
MASON
The dog was a fucking menace.
“No wonder you were abandoned,” I grumbled and immediately felt bad.
None of this was the dog’s fault. Okay, the chewed-up remains of a carton of paper towels strewn around the floor of the storage room were his fault, sure, and the drool-covered phone charger hanging from his mouth was definitely his fault, no matter how innocent he was trying to look.
But it wasn’t his fault he’d never been trained, or that I’d forgotten to close the storage room, or left my charger where he could reach it. He was just a dog doing dog things.
Still, it was a level of bullshit I didn’t need to deal with today. Or any day lately.
I held out one hand and said, “Drop it,” in as stern a voice as I could muster.
The dog’s tail thumped against the floor rapidly, like he thought we were playing a new game.
I advanced a step, hand still extended, and he tensed like he was getting ready to run.
Before he could bolt I managed to snag the charger, dragging it from his mouth and holding it up, hoping against hope that it could be salvaged.
A piece of plastic casing clattered to the floor, shattering my illusions of a rescue. “Fuck,” I said, louder than the situation warranted. The word came out sharp enough to cut, and I wasn’t the only one who heard it.
The dog whined and immediately dropped to the ground, curling up into a tight ball with his ears back against his head. I reached out a hand to reassure him and cursed again, silently this time, when he flinched.
I took a deep breath and lowered myself to the floor.
“Hey,” I said quietly. “It’s okay, buddy.
I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with me.
C’mere.” I reached into the pocket of my scrubs and found a dog treat and held it out to him.
He sniffed the air and stood before taking a cautious step forward.
“That’s a good boy,” I said, extending my palm.
He snatched the treat and scurried backward, but now his demeanor was less terrified and more sheepish, so I felt a little less like an asshole for scaring him.
I extended a hand toward the mess of paper towels. “You wanna tell me what happened here?”
The innocent expression he gave me was clearly meant to convey, It was like this when I got here, officer. It probably would have been convincing if he hadn’t still had shreds of paper hanging out of the corner of his mouth.
“You’re a menace,” I said with a rueful laugh, pocketing the remains of my charger and getting to my feet. “This isn’t Cincinnati, you know? There’s not a grocery store just down the street where I can go grab another one of these.”
The dog wagged his tail.
This was definitely my fault for not putting him back in his cage after dinner.
Just, it had seemed dumb for him to eat in his cage and for me to eat in the kitchen when we could both be eating together.
It was a social thing, right? Or something like that.
So we’d eaten, and that had been nice, and I’d been doing the dishes (mine, not his) when he’d apparently followed the siren song of the unattended charger. And now look at it.
What the hell was even open in Goose Run at this hour? It wasn’t even eight yet, but in Goose Run that might as well have been midnight. Midnight in 1953.
“You’re going back in your cage while I go to the gas station,” I told the dog, hoping they had chargers there.
It was only a short drive to Goose Run Gas, which, despite its name, wasn’t actually in Goose Run.
It was out on the highway instead, near the turnoff to the road that led to town.
The gas station was pretty run-down, but at least it was open.
And, I was glad to discover, it had a rack inside the door full of various chargers and cords and adapters.
They were overpriced as hell, but I bit the bullet and forked over the money anyway. It wasn’t as though I had a choice.
The guy at the counter smiled as he robbed me, then said, “Hey, you’re the new vet, right?”
“Just the relief,” I said, which was my automatic and defensive response to anyone who assumed I was here to stay.
The guy’s smile didn’t even waver. “Nice to meet you, man. I’m Danny. I’m one of Cash’s roommates. Cash with the dog.”
There was a joke somewhere there about there being absolutely no cash with the dog, but I didn’t make it. “Oh,” I said. “Yeah, nice to meet you.”
“You need a new charger, huh,” he said, which… obviously, since I just bought one.
“The dog chewed my old one,” I said.
“Oh, shit.” Danny winced. “That’s dogs for you, right?”
I’d been thinking the same thing not half an hour ago, but hearing it from someone else annoyed me for some reason.
“Sure,” I said. I shoved my wallet back in my pocket. “I’ll see you around.”
“See you,” he called after me.
At least the charger worked. I plugged my phone into my car as I headed back to Goose Run, idly wondering what would happen if I just picked a direction on the highway and kept driving.
I mean, I knew. I’d end up either in Brodnax or South Hill, and I’d seen enough of both of them to know it wasn’t an improvement.
But in an imaginary world where I didn’t have any responsibilities, maybe I’d just drive around the country just to see the sights.
The details were vague—the things I’d see, the jobs I’d take for gas money and food—even for a fantasy.
It lasted about as long as a soap bubble on the air, because of course I did have responsibilities.
Uncle Jim’s clinic, for one thing, and the dog.
And there was Cash too. He was coming back tomorrow and he’d be expecting me.
Although if I was honest, Cash coming over felt like more of an incentive than an obligation.
Even though he was quiet, I got the feeling that Cash was smarter than people gave him credit for, and he was perceptive as hell.
I thought of the hug.
How long had it been since someone had hugged me?
Seven months and two weeks, my brain helpfully supplied. Remember? Patrick hugged you when he said he hoped you could still stay friends. Right after you helped him carry all his stuff to his car so he could move into his new boyfriend’s house.
I wasn’t that broken up about ending things with Patrick.
And that, if anything, convinced me there was something wrong with me.
Patrick and I had dated for two years and lived together for eight months.
I should have been upset. Instead, I’d just agreed with him that I’d never prioritized our relationship over my job and asked if the blue sweater was his or mine.
And when he was gone, I’d been glad because it meant I could go home after work and sit in silence while I stared numbly at the television, and nobody would try to talk at me.
I was about halfway back to town when my phone rang. I glanced at the screen, thought seriously about rejecting it, and then answered anyway because if I didn’t, he’d only keep calling.
“Hey, Dad,” I said, gripping the steering wheel tighter.
“You wouldn’t believe this shit,” he said.
Yeah, good, thanks. How about you?
But my parents had both discarded conversational pleasantries about the same time they’d discarded their marriage. Now they just dived right into whatever was pissing them off. Spoiler alert: each other.
“She’s saying she wants the antique cabinet. That was my mother’s! But suddenly she can’t live without it, and she’s put her foot down.”
“You hate that cabinet,” I reminded him. So did Mom, which I knew because she’d tried to sell it once.
“That’s not the point!” My parents had decided to get divorced a year ago. It had been a shitfight since the start. “Can you go around and see her? Tell her it’s not hers.”
“I’m in Goose Run, Dad,” I reminded him. “In Virginia.”
“Oh, that’s right. Looking after Jim’s clinic. I suppose she asked you to.”
“She didn’t ask me,” I said. “Why would she? He’s your uncle, not hers.
” But of course my father would have come up with some grand conspiracy about my mother needling me to help Uncle Jim just to somehow make him look bad for not doing the same.
For a no-fault divorce, they sure did like to throw the blame around.
It was like an out-of-control game of Divorce Dodgeball.
They hadn’t used to be like this. “Uncle Jim is pushing seventy and he needs a vacation. I came because he asked me.”
Dad let out a long breath, sounding as tired as I felt.
For a second I almost sympathized with him before he said, in a disappointed tone, “I really could have used your support on this one, Mason.” Like I’d let him down by not being at his beck and call for this bullshit.
“Can’t you drive back for a weekend and sort this out? ”
“No, Dad. I’m sorry about the cabinet but I can’t just drop everything and come back.” Not least because it was a ten-hour drive each way.
I steeled myself for his reaction.
The sigh was audible. “I guess it’s too much to ask that you’d support your family, even though we were there for you when you decided to walk away from the business.”
I bit back the urge to remind him that he and Mom had never supported me.
They’d made sure to let me know at every turn what a disappointment I was for not following them into the family’s real estate business, something I was even more glad of now given they were both doing their best to destroy it during the divorce.
Instead I said, “I can’t leave the clinic right now. I have commitments.”
There was a heavy silence. Then my dad said, “Fine. I’m selling the cabinet, though. See how your mother likes that.” And then he ended the call.
And then, like clockwork, my phone rang again just when I’d pulled up outside the clinic.
I drew a deep breath before I answered it. “Hey, Mom.”
And around and around we all went.