Charming as Puck(28)

“Are you firing me?” Muffy asks.

“Yes,” my three friends chorus together.

Now I’m wincing. I’ll text her later and tell her she has one last chance, but I want to know his full name and see a picture before I agree to it this time.

“The Badgers are playing the Blades tonight,” Alina announces. “Who’s up for watching?”

All of us are, naturally.

We’re a little crazy like that.

Not that I should be watching hockey right now. But at least it’s better than thinking about the growing problem with Sugarbear.

And the growing problem with Nick.

Felicity settles on the other side of my recliner. “I might have an idea for Sugarbear. But I don’t know if I like it.”

I look at the cow-puppy, who’s drifting off to sleep on my sofa with Tiger sprawled across her snout. “Will she be safe?”

“Definitely. And it’s not permanent, and you can still see her. Let me look into it tomorrow, okay?”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

I don’t add for everything, because it’s Felicity.

She knows.





Sixteen





Kami



Tuesday morning, after a covert early morning walk for all four of my dogs, I get to the clinic just as a flower delivery truck is pulling out of the parking lot behind the building. I’m trying to remember if I’ve forgotten anyone’s birthday when my mom meets me at the back door, cup of coffee in hand and eyebrows even higher today than they were yesterday.

“Oh, shit,” I mutter. “What now?”

“I don’t know who your mystery man is, but when I was your age, I wouldn’t have been rolling my eyes over thirty bouquets of roses. Actually, when I was your age, I didn’t know anyone with the money to send thirty bouquets of roses.”

I’m cringing before I walk into the break room, where, sure enough, vases overflowing with pink roses are covering every horizontal surface. There are still three teddy bears left that we weren’t able to find homes for yesterday, and now I’m wondering if there’s symbolism in the pink.

It’s not red, so it’s not love.

Not that I’m operating under any delusions that Nick loves me.

He just can’t do anything small.

Including apologize.

But he also didn’t drop to his knees last night and offer to marry me and give me babies and worship me every day for the rest of his life.

No, he did the Nick thing and distracted me with what he can offer—physical pleasure.

I sigh.

Maybe I’m being too hard on him.

But I’m not asking him to change. I’m just asking him to let me go so I can find someone who can give me what he can’t.

Mom’s watching me over her World’s Greatest Vet mug.

“Why do I feel like the bad guy when all I want is someone to love me?” I ask the room of roses, because it hurts too much to look at my mom when I ask it.

Dad adores her. He’s an astrophysicist—yes, my brother followed in his footsteps—and he thinks she hung the moon, that there’s nothing she can’t do. She’s the only person in the world he’ll put aside articles on groundbreaking discoveries in astrophysics for.

“This isn’t love?” she asks gently, gesturing to the pink roses in the crystal vases.

“This is guilt.”

“So…these aren’t from any of your dates that Muffy found you?”

And now I’m cringing harder. My hand is a little bruised, but nothing so bad that I can’t do my job today.

I’m spared answering and explaining all about Nick by my phone ringing. I pull it out and check the display.

It’s a local number I don’t recognize, and I actually have enough battery to get through a conversation without having to plug in to Mom’s charger in the corner, so I swipe to answer and head for my locker to put my coat and purse away. “Hello?”

“Ms. Oakley?”

“Yes?”

“This is Officer Badcock with Copper Valley Animal Control. I need to ask you a few questions, please.”

Oh, shit.

Oh, fuck.

I give Mom the I gotta run gesture and take off for the parking lot.

Fifteen minutes later, I’m pulling up at my house just behind an animal control van. Mr. Varga is looking on from his front window. Mrs. Ostermeijer is peering out too, and I have no idea how many neighbors across the street are watching.

I text Felicity quickly before I get out, asking if she’s looked into that temporary solution for Sugarbear yet.

The animal control officer climbs out of his truck, and I hop out of my car too.

The next thing I know, I’m blabbing my entire life story to him.

At least the part starting with finding Sugarbear in Nick’s apartment—hell yes, I’m name-dropping—and improvising the part about being the Thrusters’ official vet and ending with the part about how she’s such a good cow, I refuse to let her be made into ground beef.

Once I get past talking about the donkey, and the ducks, and the pygmy goats, I can’t tell if I’m losing him or if he’s making a note to visit the Thrusters’ management.

“The penguins?” he says on a sigh.