The Case of the Flirty Succulent #2
The cycle repeated every thirty minutes, like someone in town had set up a sign-up sheet for hospital visits.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they actually had.
The theme was always the same: they’d start by telling Buddy how tough he was, most would make a joke about him needing to get his strength up so he could be ready for the annual bachelor auction which happened at the summer festival in ten days’ time, that always got a laugh out of him, and then, almost as an afterthought, they’d turn to me and say, “You’re her spitting image, you know that? ”
After the third or tenth round of this, Buddy started to look worn out.
His color dulled, and his voice lost some of its snap.
Once the room was finally empty, he let out a sigh so deep it rattled the ice cubes in his remaining cup of ginger ale.
I thought he might finally let the walls down, but instead, he turned on the TV and pretended to care about a golf tournament.
That left me with my phone, which I’d kept on silent but checked compulsively, scrolling through increasingly terse emails from my office in Manhattan and a half dozen missed calls from Peter.
I let them pile up because every time I pictured Peter’s voice on the other end of the line, I felt like I was being gently smothered with a hotel pillow.
I’d already ended things over text, a call, and voicemail. The guy was just not giving up. I could be wrong, but I was starting to suspect I was the only person who had ever broken up with him before and it was just not computing.
Luckily, to counterbalance those stressful messages, Dawson had been sending me updates on a cat he’d rescued sometime yesterday named Minnie.
He picked her up from the vet this afternoon, and I was receiving photos every few hours throughout the day.
He sent one of her curled up on his shoulder while he was doing paperwork.
One meeting the horses. Another meeting, Banjo.
He had this way about him that animals, kids, and babies just responded to. They loved him. Seeing the evidence of that again through Minnie, the kitten, was just another reminder of the man I’d loved, the man I’d thought I was going to spend my life with.
I still wasn’t sure what to make of what he’d told me. If he really didn’t remember what happened between him and Vicki, did it change things? Should I ask Vicki? Did it even matter at this point?
My mind was contemplating those questions as I scrolled through the photos of Minnie and Dawson when Ida came in to change out Buddy’s I.V.
As she finished up, she glanced over at me, mischief dancing in her eyes.
“Heard you were at Cupid’s Arrow with Gio last night,” she said. “That boy is trouble with a capital T.”
“Good thing I’m not lookin’ for trouble,” I said, keeping my tone casual.
She gave me a wink and disappeared, but not before refilling Buddy’s water and jotting something on his chart. Buddy watched her leave, then turned to me with a speculative look.
“You seeing that Russo boy?” Buddy grumbled. “Just because he got doctor in front of his name doesn’t mean he’s a good man.”
“He’s just a friend, Buddy,” I explained, resisting the urge to roll my eyes. “Nothing more.”
Now, Dawson, that was a different story.
He was more than a friend and someone I definitely wanted to talk about.
The impulse to ask about the letters Dawson wrote and find out why he hadn’t given them to me, was intense, but I resisted.
Not only was Buddy’s complexion pale, his skin was so thin it looked translucent, and he appeared exhausted.
The last thing he needed was an interrogation.
My phone lit up, and I glanced down to see that it was Peter calling. Again. It was strange, when we were actually seeing one another, he was never this attentive. Now that I’d called things off, he was all about me.
“You gonna answer that thing? That boy keeps callin’ you.”
I wasn’t sure how Buddy knew that Peter was calling. I wanted to check the room for hidden cameras, but his eyes weren’t even that good.
I didn’t respond, and he didn’t press, but the silence between us felt loaded, like the pause before a bull charges the chute.
I realized from the uncertainty in his stare that he was waiting for me to tell him something.
Communication had never been his strong suit, but I didn’t think it was about Peter or Gio.
If I had to guess, I would say it was what I was planning to do—about the farm, about him, about my life—and that I didn’t actually have a plan at all.
For the second time in twelve hours, I felt completely untethered.
Since he’d shut me down the first time I’d brought it up, I figured round two might be better. “I can hire some temp staff. Maybe a farmhand or two, just to keep things running until—”
“There’s nothing wrong with the way things are now,” he cut me off, sharp as a cattle prod. “You don’t need to go sticking your nose into it.”
I tried not to flinch. “Buddy, you’re in a hospital bed. You can’t do it all yourself.”
“Don’t you worry about me,” he said, and this time the old iron was back in his voice. “I’ll be home in a week, and things will be exactly the way I left them.”
That’s what I was worried about. I wanted to do as he asked and stay out of it, but I couldn’t, not in good conscience. I could see it in his face and in the way the doctors hovered near his chart that there was almost no chance he’d be back at full strength anytime soon. Maybe never.
I sat at the foot of his bed and watched him drift into a shallow, restless sleep, arms folded over his chest, as if even in unconsciousness he was bracing for a fight. My phone chimed again, it was my assistant, and I silenced it with a flick of my thumb.
If Buddy wouldn’t tell me what was really going on with the farm, I was going to have to go back to the house and find out for myself.