Chapter 4
___
Bev
I arrive at MBAS feeling hopeful. I have a gameplan. I’m going to find out why Nate is here—I mean, I know about the court-order. But I want to find out why he got the court-order. And maybe if I can do that, I can write the judge, as Nate’s manager of course, and say what faux wonderful things he’s doing to address whatever it was he did in the first place. Maybe the judge will have mercy on me and let Nate go early.
But who knows what depths Nate could have sunk to. Stole money from a kindergarten teacher? Wouldn’t put it past him. Hip-checked a kid on the sidewalk for walking too close? Quite possibly.
I jump off my bike to walk it the rest of the way, and then, I see him. My jaw clenches to fight that flip-flopping sensation in my belly. He sits on our outdoor picnic table, leaning forward with his forearms resting on his thighs and a mysterious half-revealed tattoo along his bicep. There’s a peaceful air to him. The sun backlights his black shirt and twinges his dark hair in gold. He seems deep in thought. And I sort of want to know those thoughts. I hate to admit it, but I’m often curious to know what he thinks, in a way that can be so intense, it’s almost painful at times.
“You’re on time,” I say surprised. I told him a half-an-hour earlier than everyone else because I figured he’d be late.
He shrugs. “I got here a few minutes ago.”
Now, let me tell you about his voice. This is not any voice. This is a talented musician’s big, money-making voice. It comes from somewhere deep inside him. And I’ve thought about this before. Tried to locate exactly where in his body. My best guess of yet is somewhere in his ribcage. But this sounds too easy, makes it sound too mundane, like we could all have this kind of voice if we talked from our ribcages. No, this is some kind of magical low, lilt. It’s a voice that makes you look up. It’s a voice that feels oddly like a gift. Something from deep inside of him that he hands out to the world. “Why are you here?” I ask, not liking the direction of my thoughts.
“I told you.” The corner of his lip—those goddamn gorgeous lips—twitches with something. “Court ordered.”
“No, I mean, why? What did you do?”
He leans back on the table, placing his palms behind him, flat on the wood. It makes his shoulders impossibly broad, and I remember seeing him shirtless last night. He has muscles now, strong and sinewy, washboard abs, and a thickness. He’s no longer a lanky teenager. He’s got tattoos and a history in them—a part of his life that I no longer know, which fills me with a sort of nostalgic despair and curiosity.
He sighs, looking at me, not bothering to answer the question .
“What did you do?” I repeat.
He scratches the back of his head, not answering.
My stomach somersaults with another bout of annoyance. “You’re to clean the bunny litter first thing.”
“You mean the cat litter?”
“The bunny litter. Bunnies can be litter trained. All of our bunnies are now trained.”
“Can I do literally anything else?”
I realize now that I’ve been secretly hoping for him to be like Wesley from THE PRINCESS brIDE and say, “As you wish,” after each of my requests. Instead, I get this. “You’re to clean the bunny litter AND the kitty litter,” I say.
He opens his mouth as if to say something but then stops himself, resigned.
I feel as if I’ve won this one, although I already know that won’t last long.
___
I enter the break room to put my lunch in the fridge, and Janice, one of our senior citizen volunteers, sits at a table filling out a crossword puzzle. She wears her glasses on a purple chain around her neck, but now they’re perched on her nose. Her hair is gray with a pink streak that her granddaughter dyed for her.
“Good morning,” I say cheerfully, determined to leave any negative Nate feelings behind me.
“Morning,” she says, looking up with a wry smile .
“Doing well on the crossword?” I ask, trying to make sense of the smile.
“Oh no,” she says. “I’m smiling because aren’t you a lucky girl?”
I immediately know what she means. “Working with Nate isn’t lucky.” She doesn’t look convinced. “Believe me,” I add.
“My granddaughter couldn’t believe it.”
I’m not sure what to say. “Urgh,” slips out.
“I told her about when he took a photo with Chandra, and my grandbaby said,” she pauses for emphasis. “ He’s so ‘real. ’”
“I don’t think that means what you think it means,” I say as I shove my lunch in the fridge’s only empty spot, which isn’t quite large enough.
“That’s what my granddaughter said.”
“Well, he’s ‘real’ in that he’s alive.”
“And he’s real cute,” she adds.
I find myself exceedingly frustrated with fitting my lunch in the fridge, but I finally manage and shut the door.
Janice goes back to her crossword puzzle. Maybe she can tell I don’t like talking about Nate as much as everyone else on the planet seems to. But I do decide to google him…yet again.
I open another browser and type in “Nate Hart + court order.” A few articles pop up. He’s probably got a great publicist since there’s not more. TMZ seems to have the most info. Apparently, he “assaulted” an exec.
I scroll for more info but that’s it.
I open another tab, but when I search, it’s the same info.
I don’t bother closing them out. I’ll get back to them later, and this way I’ll know which ones I’ve already searched .
As I walk to go check on Nate and the bunnies, I find myself even more intrigued. Why did he “assault” an exec? And what does that mean—he punched him? Did the exec insult his music, and Nate’s ego couldn’t handle it?
Sounds about right.
Still, I can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe I can get more out of him in the bunny room.
___
The bunny room has a large glass window, like the cat room, and I watch Nate before entering. It sounds creepier than it is. He’s not even doing anything. He’s looking at his phone.
I swing open the door, and he guiltily shoves his phone in his back pocket.
“What are you doing?” I ask, knowing full well what he’s doing.
“I got a text from my manager,” he says defensively. “Look,” he lowers his voice. “I don’t want to be here either. You don’t have to nag me.”
Nag?! I nearly blow a fuse. Keep it together, Bev. Keep. It. Together . “Did you even clean the litter?” I ask.
“No.”
“WHAT?” It comes out way louder than expected.
Of course, Chandra just happens to walk in at that moment. She presses her lips together in a thin line. “Bev, may I speak with you in my office please? ”
I don’t dare look back at Nate’s face as I follow her out. I couldn’t stand to see his satisfaction.
We enter her office, and she formally gestures for me to sit in a chair.
Uh oh, this isn’t good.
“I can explain,” I begin, but I realize I have no idea how to explain.
She raises her eyebrows as if to say, “Go on.”
“Well…” I squirm in my chair. “Nate doesn’t seem to want to work.”
“He’s a rock star, Bev,” she says simply.
“But rock stars should have work ethics too.”
Chandra sighs heavily. “Let me tell you something about the world. It ain’t fucking fair.”
“I know.” Believe me, I know. “But I want it to be.”
“Well, it’s not.” She folds her hands together on her desk, and the gesture is strangely presidential and shows power, restraint. “Look, I’m not a manager who is going to throw you to the fucking wolves. I know your intent is good. So I’m going to mentor you a little.”
“Thank you,” I murmur, relieved. I love this woman, even if I don’t deserve her.
She taps her thumb overtop her other thumb before speaking. It has a great effect. I lean in.
“Have you heard of the Four D’s?” she asks.
“No.”
“The Four D’s of management are: do, defer, delegate, and drop. So which one do you think you need to do in this situation?”
“Delegate?” I ask, completely unsure.
“Drop. You need to learn to drop it, Bev.”
“Drop it,” I repeat to myself. “Got it. ”
“Whether you like him or not, he’s a big deal for this shelter. It’s a huge coup we got him. With one post on his social media, he could get every single dog adopted. Even Jerry. And I know that’s important to you. I know how much you care about the animals here. We’re a family, and you know that. So do it for them, alright?”
I swell with pride to be at MBAS. I can do this. We are a family. We love each other, and we support each other. And I want nothing more than to give good homes to all the animals here. “I will,” I say with confidence.
“Now, go get ‘em,” she says with a smile.
I stand, also smiling.
That smile fades when I arrive back at the bunny room, heart pounding, and look through the window to see Nate again. He looks down, tying one of the green poo bags. His sharp eyelashes cast shadows on his cheekbones, and there’s something about the way he concentrates, which is strangely mesmerizing.
He must feel me staring because he suddenly looks up. My heart thuds harder when his gunmetal eyes meet mine. My body gears up for whatever annoying thing he’s sure to say in about sixty seconds when I walk in the room.
Do it for them. I push through the door, steeling myself.
“How’d that go?” he asks dryly as he finishes tying the bag.
I take a deep breath and ignore the pounding crescendo in my ears.
He pops open the special trash can for poo bags and turns to face me.
Again, those gray eyes face me head-on, and it’s like my ribcage throws up my heart. There’s such a quiet intensity to him. Like he’s searching for something. But is he searching for something? I don’t know. Probably a lost contact or something.
“Fine.” I hate how uncertain I sound. Because it had gone fine.
“Did she tell you to have some mercy on me?”
“What? No. We talked about the Four D’s.”
His lips pull into a half-smile. “The Four D’s?”
I already know where he’s going with this. “Very funny.”
He puts his hands on his hips, and of course, my eyes inadvertently following the movement. And once my eyes are down, they brush against his jeans, which are strangely tight there, like rock star tight.
Something spreads through me, a warmth, a glow, I don’t know. It feels foreign and like it might lead to danger.
“And what are the Four D’s?” His voice lowers and does that snake thing again. It’s almost enough to make you shiver.
I feel dreamily stunned, like I’m being hypnotized, and my defenses are being lowered against my will. Stay up, I internally scream at them. Stay the fuck up!
“I don’t need to tell you.” I try to sound forceful, managerial. But after I hear myself, I know I miss the mark. I think I gave myself away, although I’m not sure what I gave away exactly. Not to mention, I’m growing increasingly aware of some strange electrical current building in the air like lightning before a strike.
His fingers drum against his hips like he’s thinking. I notice how large his hands are, and the masculine veins leading up into his forearms. “Denial?” he asks.
I’m growing worried about where this is going. And how my eyes keep returning to his jeans. He’s doing things with his hands. He’s trying to draw my eyes there. To another word that starts with “d.” I know it’s intentional, but it annoys me because it’s working. I force my eyes to meet his. “Dolphins, Dads—”
He smirks.
The weird current in the air zips away, sparkless, like it’d never been there in the first place.
We both take deep breaths and turn our attention elsewhere.
As I pretend to look through a clipboard containing the bunnies’ feeding schedule, which I already have memorized since I wrote it, I realize that something has changed. Even though the strange electricity evaporated—making me question if it’d even been there—what was left unsaid between us has created a sort of pressure, a pressure that bears down upon you, eating at you, gnawing. It’s like hearing your favorite song on the radio and having it cut out at your favorite part, the lyrics echoing in your head, but it’s not enough. Or not being able to put in the last piece of a thousand-piece puzzle you’ve agonized over for weeks. A sort of unfinished business that you want to be done with.
Is it his innuendo with the Four D’s? Just the word? Dick? Leaving it unsaid like that? But what am I going to do, turn and suddenly shout “dick” at him?
Still, I want whatever this is to lift. I need it to lift. I don’t want this thing hanging between us.
And that’s the thing about Nate Hart. He’s wily. He’ll get you like that. Defenses must remain up at all times. Full stop. Period.
“Hey.” His voice has more of a lilt like he’s trying to control it and not succeeding. Like he feels that building pressure between us too. “I got a bunny adopted. Sir Carrots the Third. ”
I calmly put the clipboard down and turn to face him with my most professional expression possible. Neutral, void of any desire, or emotion. “That’s amazing, Nate. Thank you. You’re learning a lot.” I don’t mean the last bit to be condescending, but I feel like I have less control than I’d like over what’s coming out of my mouth and how it’s coming out of my mouth.
“Oh hey, it’s actually that guy.”
Dread prickles the hair on my forearms. I follow his gaze—although I already know where it’s leading. The photocopy of the guy who is not allowed to adopt bunnies at all costs. “Nate, I told you.”
He runs a worried hand through his hair. “I’m sorry,” he says and sounds like he means it. “I know you mentioned something in the hallway the first day. But with the orgasmic parrot…I was distracted. And I know— I know —you showed me the picture. But I forgot what he looked like.”
“When did he come in?” I ask, scared to know the answer.
“When you were talking to Chandra.”
“There might be time. Quick, grab a carrier!” I snatch the keys to MBAS’s white transportation van. It’s overkill for a bunny, but we both can’t take my bike.
I text Chandra as we rush out to the parking lot.
I hop into the driver’s seat, and Nate slips in on the passenger side.
Nate’s cheeks are flushed as he glances over at me. “What does this guy do anyway?”
I press the accelerator, and we peel out of the parking lot. “He eats the bunnies.”