“So, you wanted to discuss something?” Theo asked as we sat on the picnic table he and Barry the stable hand had brought there for this meeting.
“Yes,” Dr. Cobb said, then he glanced at me, and I smiled at him encouragingly. “So, how are you three with plausible deniability? If I tell you something River already knows, but you haven’t actually seen any of it, then…?”
Theo considered it for a moment. Lake looked thoughtful as well. It was Sierra who shrugged.
“If this is about helping LGBTQ youth, then I didn’t hear anything,” she said firmly, then smiled.
“Same,” Lake nodded, squeezing Theo’s hand.
Theo, who was sitting in between Lake and Sierra, nodded. “Yeah.”
“Okay,” Dr. Cobb started, then turned to me. “Actually, do you want Ben here for this?”
I thought about it. “Yeah, I think so. It’s time he knows as well.” I texted him, knowing he was working in Lake’s office at the house. He responded immediately. “He’ll be here in two minutes.”
The dogs had gathered closer to us, with Bucky collapsing next to the table where Lake could reach him with his foot. Mollie the stable cat wandered to us, then jumped on the table and sprawled on it, clearly waiting for pets.
“Is this a trap?” Dr. Cobb wisely asked.
Theo chuckled. “No, she’s actually not one of those cats.”
Dr. Cobb bravely started to pet Mollie’s belly, and she started to purr in ecstasy. We all chuckled.
Ben strode toward us, and I couldn’t help beaming at him. He looked so relaxed, less like he was holding something back than when he’d first come to Twin Star.
“Something up?” he asked as he slid next to me.
Dr. Cobb sat on my other side, still petting Mollie. “Not really, just time to tell everyone something, and you know, you’re a big part of River’s life, so…”
“Okay,” Ben said easily.
Dr. Cobb asked him the same question about whether he wanted to know something that might be troublesome, and Ben, too, gave it some thought.
Then he looked at me seriously. “Do you want me to know this?”
I sighed. “Yes. I don’t want to keep secrets, but like Dr. Cobb said, it’s…plausible deniability.”
“But it will make it easier for you to mix work and home life, so I think I need to know.” Ben took my hand and squeezed it, then looked at Dr. Cobb. “Okay.”
He nodded solemnly, then suddenly grinned at me. “While we’re at the clinic, you should call me Toby. It’s so weird to be Dr. Cobb here, too, when everyone else is addressed by their first names.”
I chuckled. “I’ll try.” It was weird, I knew he was off duty and not my boss when he visited, but still. There was a hierarchy in any healthcare facility, and that included the clinic. Some places were casual, but often the younger staff would need to tiptoe around egos. I felt happy that Dr. Cobb—Toby—didn’t have an ego in that sense.
“So, River told me your aunt wanted to help LGBTQ kids, too,” Toby started, then stopped for a moment. “Okay, let me start from another point, actually.” He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck. “The thing you guys didn’t hear today is this: we’ve managed to spread the word that if any kid living on the streets or is otherwise in trouble and can’t go to the ER, they can come to the clinic. At night.”
“That’s why you occasionally pop out in the middle of the night,” Lake said to me.
Ben squeezed my hand. “I knew something was going on with that.”
“River is the only one of my staff who knows about the night visitors. We have a setting that lets us have up to two kids overnight or even longer if needed. If it’s something we can’t treat at the clinic, we’ll take them to the ER ourselves. Anyway, that’s what we’re doing that’s not exactly legal in the way we’re doing it.”
I picked up. “Yeah, see, there are night clinics, but we don’t make them fill out paperwork, there’s no paper trail, they don’t need to pay anything, and so on. And you all can picture what would happen with insurance and such if someone found out what we were doing.”
“Toby would be in big trouble over that,” Theo murmured.
“Which is why nobody knows but River. And now you,” he said, smiling slightly.
“Knows what?” Sierra deadpanned, making us chuckle.
