After I’ve had a few mouthfuls of the soup and have settled back on my couch bed, Jared disappears into my bathroom and then reemerges with a washcloth folded into a cold compress. He gently places it on my forehead, just like my mum used to do when I was little.
He smooths the washcloth against my forehead with those paramedic hands that probably do this for strangers all the time. Except I’m not a stranger. I’m the guy he’s sleeping with who’s too much of a coward to ask for more, and now I’m addingpathetic sick personto my list of attractive qualities. Right up there withscarredandemotionally damaged.
But he’s looking at me with this soft expression that makes me want to say stupid things like “please don’t leave,” “I think I’m falling in love with you,” and “why are you so nice to me when I look like this?”
Instead, I close my eyes and let myself pretend, just for today, that this is real.
I doze off secure in the knowledge that Jared will be here when I wake up.
The weekend blurs togetherin a fever dream of soup, terrible daytime TV, and Jared’s cool hands against my forehead. He brings me more groceries and even cleans Patches’ litter box without being asked, which might be the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for me.
He has to babysit Emmy for Sophie on Saturday afternoon, but he comes back with a get-well-soon card from Emmy, complete with a drawing of what might be me or possibly a sick giraffe, it’s hard to tell, and approximately thirteen glitter stickers of unicorns because, apparently, unicorns cure the flu.
Despite Jared’s best care, I have to take Monday off work.
Which involves me lying on the couch, stressing that the other vet nurse students are impressing the clinic owner.
But by Tuesday, I’m raring to go again.
Well, with a slight cough that one could potentially describe as hacking.
“I still don’t know if you’re well enough to go to work.” Jared frowns at me. He’s just come back from his overnight shift and has come to check in on me before he heads to bed.
“The vet clinic owner is only there for two more days. I need to make sure I’m there to impress her,” I say as I straighten my shirt.
Jared looks uncertain. “Just take it easy, okay?”
“Okay.”
But when I get to work, there’s no chance to take it easy. The moment I walk in, Aroha grabs my arm.
“Thank god you’re here. Mr. Whitman’s Saint Bernard ate his wife’s engagement ring and needs an emergency endoscopy. Can you help get him ready?”
I shuffle toward the operating room. Unfortunately, the Saint Bernard—whose name is Bruce—is doing that thing where dogs suddenly develop the ability to triple their body weight when they don’t want to move.
“Come on, buddy.” I manage to wrestle his front half onto the table when his whole body does that unmistakable rolling motion. That pre-vomit wave that every pet owner knows means you have about two seconds to grab a towel.
“Oh shit, not yet?—”
But Bruce is already going for it. He heaves, and out comes the ring in a puddle of bile, along with what looks like maybe an earring. This dog has expensive taste in snacks.
I drop to my knees to grab the jewelry before it rolls away, and Bruce decides to do that full-body head shake that Saint Bernards have perfected. A rope of drool catches me directly across the face. The shock of it triggers my stupid cough, which sounds like I’m trying to hack up my own lung, which apparently offends Bruce because he jumps off the table.
Right onto my back.
So now I’m face-down next to a puddle of dog vomit, with a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound dog standing on me like I’m a really uncomfortable yoga mat, and Mrs. Whitman’s engagement ring is somewhere under my left shoulder.
The door opens. I crane my neck to see Aroha’s sensible clogs next to a pair of designer heels. Valentino, if I’m not mistaken. Last autumn’s collection.
“Ms. Evans, this is Felix, one of our trainees,” Aroha says in a professionally neutral tone.
“Felix, this is the owner of the vet clinic, Ms. Evans.”
Of course this is the moment when I meet the woman I’m desperate to impress.
“Nice to meet you,” I wheeze as I look up.
But it isn’t horror or disgust on the face of the mid-fifties woman who stares down at me.
