Chapter 20
TWENTY
PERRY
Rex met Quinn, someone I’d worked with on multiple occasions, and so far he hadn’t freaked out.
There had been no weird jealousy vibes from him.
In fact, Quinn seemed to be the person affected the most by his actions because he spent the next five minutes apologizing and then offered to buy us a coffee after our workout.
I declined. Not because I didn’t want Rex to be friendly with my coworkers, but because I’d promised Rex that we would go together to check on some animals that were being boarded at the clinic overnight.
One of the techs would have already checked in and taken care of them, but Rex liked to split up the workload so it wasn’t always just one person.
“You could have had coffee with Quinn if you wanted,” Rex said as he unlocked the clinic and punched the code in to disarm the security system.
“I know, but I didn’t want to. I wanted to come here with you and help you like I said I would.”
He got a strange look on his face, but he nodded and tucked his keys away. “There’s not many here this weekend, thankfully. And both Blue and Mercy have been in a few times to check on our guests.”
“Is it hard to leave them here?”
Rex started to shake his head, but stopped. “Sometimes. And sometimes I don’t do a good job at leaving work here. If I can’t bring a patient home that I’m really worried about, there’s a couch in the staff room that I’ve been known to sleep on.”
Rex gave me the tour and he showed me the couch in question. It was an old, well-loved piece with sagging cushions and cracked leather. A pillow and a blanket lived on the one side of it, waiting for the next time Rex couldn’t leave an animal in need.
“I bet Blue gets so mad when he comes to work and finds you in here.”
Rex laughed. “Does he ever. He’s like a little mother hen. The staff takes bets sometimes on which patient will convince me that I need to sleep on the couch.”
“I think it’s sweet that you care so much.”
“My exes wouldn’t agree with you.”
“Your exes are stupid.”
He laughed again. I loved the sound of it. How clear it was that he was happy and relaxed. That being with me put him at ease enough to let go and have some fun and just be himself.
“Tell me how you really feel.”
It was supposed to be rhetorical, and I knew that, but I wanted to take the bait and answered anyway.
“Your exes are stupid on two fronts. First, for being your ex and second, for being jealous about a busted couch in a vet’s office staff room.
I mean, if they’d really been that pressed to see you, they could’ve come here.
Or they could remember that not everything is about them and get over themselves. ”
“You say that now, but wait until my phone goes off in the middle of dinner and someone is begging me to come save their dog.”
I paused and pretended to think about it. Tilting my head to the side, I tapped my chin with my finger. “Hmmm, nope. I wouldn’t be mad if you left dinner for that reason. What kind of a cold-hearted ass clown would be pissed about that?”
“It’s not that it happens once. It’s that it happens more than once, and they start feeling like they come second.”
I shrugged. “If it’s between watching you eat ravioli while we drink wine and gaze into each other’s eyes or you getting off your ass and saving someone’s best friend, then sorry, but I’m willing to eat alone. If they weren’t, they were just selfish, stupid, and cold.”
Rex didn’t seem to know what to say to that.
I may not have any dating experience the way he did, but maybe that was a good thing.
If people were out there acting like saving someone’s dog was a bad thing because it inconvenienced them, then maybe I’d dodged a huge bullet.
The bar was on the floor, in Hell, and the floor was lava.
His patient today was a stray cat with a litter of kittens.
The kittens were still very small and the mother was clearly malnourished so they’d been kept at the vet clinic so they could give mom the best supportive care until she started to put on a bit more weight.
It was clear that her kittens were taking a lot out of her, but she was determined to look after them.
Rex picked up one of the little black fuzzy kittens and handed it to me.
“Oh, God,” I said, taking the tiny creature. I held it against my chest, cradling it with my hands. “Hi,” I said to it, lowering my voice to a whisper for some unknown reason. It must be some kind of instinct taking over. “He’s so little.”
“She.”
“She’s so little. How do you not have a million cats at home? I couldn’t do this job. I’d have half the city’s cat population in my apartment.”
“Mostly I do it by realizing that I can take care of a certain number of pets very well, and anything more than that decreases their quality of life. I’ve dealt with the aftermath of too many people who have hoarded animals.”
Rex’s mouth was tight and his brow creased.
He looked like he was weighed down with a million bad memories.
The realization that he must have seen so many terrible things swept through me like a flash flood.
He’d seen hoarding situations. Abuse. Cruelty.
He’d helped families grieve their losses, and he did it all and still managed to not fall apart.
Rex was kind and sweet and funny. He was happy in a slow, quiet way. He took the time to look at the world around him and appreciate it.
“I could never do your job,” I told him, meaning every word.
“It would be too hard to watch people lose their best friends. Too hard to—” My voice cracked, and I cleared my throat.
Blinking away the sudden rush of emotion, I kissed the top of the kitten’s head and stroked his fur as gently as I could.
“Some days are easier than others,” was all Rex said and I appreciated him for not calling me out on nearly bursting into tears.
And for not blowing smoke up my ass and being all no, Perry, you can be anything you want to be if only you put your mind to it.
Which was the usual shtick I heard when I said that I couldn’t do something.
What people sometimes failed to realize is that I had a very healthy, very realistic outlook.
I was fully aware that I wasn’t capable of anything I put my mind to.
For example, higher math eluded me, so no, I could never be a rocket scientist. And just because I liked something, like animals, that doesn’t mean I needed to make a career out of it.
“How long does momma cat have to stay here?” I asked, carefully reuniting her with her kitten. She immediately started licking her baby like she was trying to get the smell of evil, strange, dirty human off her child.
“I want her to gain a bit more weight before I release her to the shelter.” Rex closed the kennel door and then turned to face me. He had a weird look on his face as if he were trying to see inside my head.
And then he stepped forward, into my personal space. I loved that he was a little taller than me, that I had to lift my chin just a touch so I could look him in the eye properly. The air in the room was electrically charged and sparks flew when he pressed his lips against mine.
My hands had a mind of their own, and it was like the slightest touch from Rex triggered them to touch him. I sank my fingers into his hair and held on as we kissed, our tongues sliding and caressing in a slow dance.
He was the one to kiss me, and he was the one to pull away. He’d stolen all my oxygen, leaving me breathless.
“What was that for?” I asked, closing my eyes as his forehead rested on mine.
“For being here. For being you. For… okay, this is kind of… don’t be mad, okay. But I can’t get the idea of you and Quinn out of my head.”
“Are you jealous?” My stomach clenched. If this was some sort of strange kiss me and piss on my leg to mark his territory thing, we were going to have to for real end our fake relationship.
“Yes, but not the way you think. I’m not jealous in that I want you to stop working.
I’m jealous because you haven’t told me anything about your job.
About who you’ve been with and how they were.
About the good stories or the bad. I want to know all of you, Perry.
Even the version of you who has sex with other men. ”
You could have knocked me over with a feather. “I—really?”
“Really.” Rex’s lips brushed softly against mine. “Really, really. I want to know all about your life. About why you do it, why you like it. I want you to go to work and then tell me how it was and, selfishly, why I’m better.”
I had to laugh at that last part because of the truth dripping from every syllable.
“Well, I happen to have an invitation to do a shoot next week with Quinn. The text message came in before we even left the gym, but I didn’t want to bring it up in public.”
“I think you should do it,” Rex said with a conviction that surprised me. “I think you should have your scene with Quinn, and then I think you should come to my place after and tell me all about it.”
“And then…” And then he’d throw me out. And then he’d be disgusted. And then he wouldn’t want to have anything to do with me. I couldn’t open my eyes and look at him. I just stood there and quietly panicked until he kissed the corner of my mouth.
“And then I can either show you why I’m better, or I can take you into the shower and wash you down from head to toe and spoil you rotten. Or there’s always the secret third option.”
“What’s the secret third option?” I expected him to say something stupid like it’s a secret, or the ever-tired I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you line. Instead his voice was quiet but firm.
“Both.”