Chapter 7
chapter seven
Christine swung open the door to Pratt Veterinary Care, the chime chiming far too cheerfully for the empty room.
Nothing.
No frantic pet owners, no yapping dogs, no stressed-out receptionist drowning in phone calls. Just the faint hum of fluorescent lights and the distant whir of something unseen.
Weird.
The front desk was empty except for a laminated sign: Please ring the bell for assistance.
Christine pressed it.
Ding.
Silence.
She squinted, leaned forward, and gave it another more aggressive press.
DING.
A door creaked open with all the enthusiasm of a death row inmate taking their last steps.
Christine clocked the orthopedic shoes first, then the name badge. Nancy. Then, the unmistakable aura of someone who knew too much, cared too little, and survived purely out of spite.
Nancy shuffled to her chair, sat down with the world’s weight on her shoulders, cracked her knuckles, and began typing with the passion of a dying houseplant.
Christine waited.
Nancy typed.
Christine cleared her throat. “Hi, I don’t have an appointment...”
Nancy held up a single hand, the universal sign for: Cease. Immediately.
Christine’s eye twitched.
Nancy exhaled, as if Christine had just asked her to lift a car. Still typing, she muttered, “No appointment?”
“No, but-”
A laminated flyer was already in Nancy’s hand.
“We don’t take walk-ins.” The flyer slid across the desk. “Here’s a list of emergency clinics that may have availability.”
Christine looked down.
A low-res hologram of a dog stared soullessly up at her.
Her brain short-circuited.
“I, what? No, I just need-” She gestured wildly at Gruit, who was licking his still-bleeding leg like it was a gourmet snack. “He was attacked.”
Nancy finally, finally, glanced at the dog.
One full second of acknowledgment.
Then a shrug.
“It doesn’t look urgent.”
Christine stared. “He’s bleeding.”
Nancy leaned back in her chair, drunk on unchecked administrative power.
“I don’t make the rules.”
Christine’s grip on the counter tightened. She opened her mouth, fully prepared to argue or vault the desk, when the front door swung open behind her.
And suddenly, the temperature shifted.
Christine turned. And promptly forgot whatever the hell she was about to say.
The woman standing in the doorway looked like she strolled straight out of a cinematic fever dream, all sharp angles and lazy confidence. Christine was instantly drawn to her, uninvited, like an eager, lovesick puppy.
Rich, dark blonde waves tumbled past her shoulders.
A green jacket, slightly worn at the seams, clung to her in a way that felt personally offensive, like it had been tailored to her body through some unfair divine intervention.
She wore faded loose-fitting jeans, a battered vintage backpack slung over one shoulder, and radiated the energy of someone who could absolutely wreck your life.
Christine barely had time to process any of it before the woman took a slow bite of a turkey sandwich.
Then, without hesitation, she tossed it onto Nancy’s desk. Crumbs detonated across the keyboard like a tactical explosion.
Nancy jerked back as if the sandwich had personally insulted her entire bloodline.
“Ugh!”
The woman ignored her.
She crouched in front of Gruit, rubbing slow, steady circles behind his ears. She murmured something low and warm. Something Christine wasn’t close enough to hear but somehow still felt, making her stomach do something weird.
“Be careful,” she said, stepping forward, hating that her voice came out softer than she intended. “He was bitten. I don’t know how bad it is.”
The woman tilted her head up. Aviators slid down, revealing eyes so sharp, so impossibly blue, they hit Christine like a sucker punch to the ribs.
For just half a second, Christine’s brain lurched into something dangerously close to recognition.
A flicker of déjà vu curled around the edges of her memory, soft but insistent, like a whisper in the dark.
Then, it was gone.
The woman’s gaze flicked to Nancy, utterly unimpressed.
“Why aren’t they in an exam room?”
“No appointment.” Nancy refused to look up, too focused on meticulously dusting away the world’s least important crumbs.
The woman’s expression did not change, but the air in the room somehow did.
She exhaled through her nose slowly, like she was trying to summon the patience of an ancient deity.
Then, she picked up what remained of her sandwich, took one more giant bite, then tossed the rest in the trash with the calculated indifference of a woman who just made a critical executive decision.
She dusted her hands off, then clapped Nancy’s shoulder twice, patronizing and final.
“I’m in early today. I’ll take this one, Nanc. Thanks.”
Nancy shrugged.
Christine, still catching up to the last 90 seconds of her life, grabbed Gruit’s leash and trailed after the mystery woman, throwing Nancy a look so filthy it should’ve required a liquor license.
“Yeah, thanks, Nance,” she muttered, just loud enough to guarantee she’d be the topic of breakroom gossip that afternoon.
The woman paused, glancing back at Christine with a quick once-over. “Go ahead and wait in exam room two,” she said, unzipping her coat. “I’ve got to change. Be right in.”
And then she was gone, leaving Christine standing there with a twitchy dog, wide eyes, and a low flicker of sparks in her stomach, like her body clocked something her brain hadn’t entirely caught up to yet.
* * *
The tiny exam room was freezing.
Not just regular cold, medical cold. The kind designed to keep people too uncomfortable to think straight. A sleek diagnostics console flickered to life in the corner, automatically logging Gruit’s weight, heart rate, and a real-time scan of his biometrics.
Christine rubbed her arms, watching as the gorgeous vet, now in black scrubs, ran experienced hands over Gruit, checking his limbs with a calm efficiency that was both reassuring and infuriatingly attractive.
“My tech’s going to take him back to shave around the wound and clean it up,” the vet said, giving Gruit one last scratch behind the ears. “You can wait here.”
Christine frowned. “Wait, you’re not doing it yourself?”
The woman smirked. “I could, but he’d come out looking like he lost a bet. I’m not great with the clippers.”
“That’s promising,” Christine huffed, trying for cool, maybe even flirty, but landing somewhere closer to awkward and mildly congested.
The vet tech appeared and took Gruit’s leash, gently tugging it. He hesitated, shooting Christine a look that perfectly balanced betrayal and wounded dignity before reluctantly following. His tail drooped slightly, a clear sign of mild but dramatic protest.
Christine leaned back against the wall as the door swung shut behind them. And suddenly, she was alone.
With her.
Dr. Oakland Pratt.
Her badge made it official. She was a devastatingly attractive vet and a direct threat to Christine’s ability to form coherent thoughts.
Pratt. That’s the name of the clinic. She must own this place.
Oakland moved with the kind of effortless confidence that made it look like she belonged anywhere, whether in an exam room or casually standing in the smoldering wreckage of your dignity after absolutely ruining you and never texting back.
Christine couldn’t take her eyes off her.
Was she gay? Please, universe, just this once, let me have this.
She decided to press, just a little, to see what would happen. She tilted her head, keeping her voice light. “So, I haven’t seen you around the district before. Do you ever get out to play?”
Oakland didn’t look up from the screen, but there was a flicker of amusement in her expression. “That depends. What do you consider ‘play’?”
Christine hummed, pretending to think about it. “Oh, you know. Going out to dinner, making questionable choices.” She let the words sit briefly before adding, “Dating.”
Oakland’s fingers stilled on the keyboard for a fraction of a second.
Christine clocked it immediately.
Then, smoothly, Oakland resumed typing. “I have been known to dine occasionally. Why?”
That was as close to an opening as Christine would get. “Cool, cool. Ever been to Birkenbrew?”
“Is that the gay bar on the edge of the district?”
Christine blinked. “Wow. Just throwing it out there like that, huh?”
“Was that rude?” Oakland finally met her gaze, shameless and amused. “I just assumed from all the rainbow flags.”
Christine narrowed her eyes. Something in the gorgeous doctor’s tone was giving straight vibes now.
“You’re not wrong,” she admitted with a shrug. “But it’s not just for gays. You haven’t been?”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Ah. Well, it’s mine,” Christine said before immediately wincing. “I mean, I own it. Co-own it. The brewery. That I co-own.”
Oakland squinted, her lips curving into a small, knowing smile, like she had already figured Christine out and was quietly enjoying the show.
Christine screamed internally: Shut up. Shut up immediately. But her mouth, as usual, had no respect for self-preservation.
“Anyway,” she barreled on, “we’re doing a launch event tonight: new beer, live music. You should come. Drink on the house. As a thank you. For, you know, dealing with my furry idiot.”
Oakland leaned against the counter, arms crossed, watching her. Considering.
Christine felt scrutinized in a profoundly unnerving and deeply unfair way. The overwhelming urge to fill the silence kept her talking. “I mean, we work in the same district. We’re basically neighbors, right?”
“So,” Oakland mused, lazily scanning Christine from head to toe, “is this an actual invitation or just a guilty conscience in action?”
Christine’s brain did a complete blue screen of death. “Can’t it be both?”
Oakland’s gaze held hers, steady, knowing—too amused for her own good. She let out a soft laugh, shaking her head. “That’s a dangerous answer.”
Christine raised a brow, finding just enough footing to push back. “What, you can handle injured dogs but not mixed signals?”
Oakland’s lips curled slightly, eyes flickering with something Christine definitely wasn’t imagining. “I’ll try to stop by,” she said, voice smooth, teasing.
There was a brief, charged silence.
Then, because Christine never quite mastered the art of being chill, she went to lean against the counter and immediately knocked over a metal tray.
The entire thing crashed to the floor.
Christine froze, horror washing over her as scissors, syringes, and other expensive-looking medical supplies clattered across the floor like shrapnel from a very dumb, very preventable explosion.
“Shit, sorry, I-”
Panicked, she stepped sideways to fix it and immediately kicked over the trash can. It toppled dramatically, spewing out crumpled paper.
Christine inhaled sharply through her nose.
Slowly, very slowly, she turned back.
Oakland stood in the same spot, arms crossed, watching Christine implode with the kind of detached amusement one might have while watching a cat get stuck in a paper bag: mildly entertained, vaguely impressed, but not at all inclined to help.
“You good?” Oakland asked, one perfect eyebrow arched.
Christine cleared her throat, desperately trying to salvage a shred of dignity. “Yeah. Just, uh. Testing the clinic’s…gravity.”
Oakland made a vaguely amused sound. “It’s working.”
Before Christine could dig herself further into this mortifying hole, the vet tech returned, leading a freshly bandaged, smug-looking Gruit back into the room.
Christine dropped to her knees, immediately scratching behind his ears. “Hey, buddy. You good?”
Gruit licked her face.
Oakland skimmed the paperwork the tech handed her. “Okay, there’s just one puncture mark on his leg, but the wound is cleaned up. There’s also a nip on his ear that I’m not too worried about. We will give him an antibiotic injection. Just keep it dry and try not to let him be an idiot about it.”
Christine nodded, willing herself to focus. “Right. Meds. Food. No shenanigans. Totally locked in.”
Oakland’s gaze lingered.
Christine, ready to escape this nightmare, turned toward the door, promptly slamming face-first into a metal towel dispenser.
Pain exploded across her lip.
She stumbled back, muttering a string of expletives.
Before she could assess the damage, warm fingers tilted her chin up.
Christine’s brain went static.
Oakland was close.
Like, close-close.
Christine could smell her—something woodsy, like pine and smoke, with a faint trace of cinnamon.
Unfair.
“Ouch,” Oakland murmured, her thumb barely brushing the corner of Christine’s mouth. “You okay?”
Christine, still grappling with the completely unjust reality that this woman even smelled hot, blurted out the dumbest fucking thing possible.
“I mean… if you wanted to apply mouth-to-mouth… I wouldn’t stop you.”
A pause. A long, terrible pause.
Oakland’s eyebrows inched up.
Christine’s soul left her body. She covered her mouth, blood and shame mixing into one giant existential crisis. She needed to go. She needed to vanish. She needed to fling herself into a black hole and never return.
But a hand caught her wrist.
“Hang on,” Oakland said, her voice smooth.
Christine’s pulse jackhammered.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Sit.”
Christine blinked. “What?”
Oakland grabbed gauze and antiseptic, nodding toward the exam table. “Sit.” Her tone was dry, but the barely concealed amusement in her eyes was infuriating. “I’m not a people doctor, but I can confidently say you won’t die. Unless, of course, you keep running into things, then it’s touch and go.”
Christine hesitated, then reluctantly hoisted herself onto the table. “Is it possible to die from embarrassment? Or is that just wishful thinking at this point?”
Oakland stepped between her knees, way too close again.
“This might sting,” she murmured.
Christine was about to make another stupid fucking joke when?—
Oh. Oh, that stung.
She winced as the antiseptic soaked into the cut. “Jesus, warn a girl.”
“That was the warning.”
Oakland dabbed at the cut one last time, her touch lingering for a second too long. “All better,” she murmured, her thumb dragging lightly over Christine’s cheek before she finally stepped back.
The absence was instant. And entirely unacceptable. Christine exhaled, shaking off the idiotic amount of attraction she was currently trying to ignore. “Well… thanks. For patching up both of us.”
“Anytime.”
Before Christine could further humiliate herself, she grabbed Gruit’s leash and started backing toward the door. “Cool, so… maybe I’ll see you later.”
“One more thing,” Oakland’s lips curved playfully.
“Yeah?”
“Do you have a name, or should I just write ‘Chaos Incarnate’ on your chart?”
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