Against my better judgment, I’m grinning. Itry to bite it away before Theo notices.
“You’ll back me up, right?” Maddox asks me. “I think the two of us could handle him. When we’re done you can take the axe to the flannel if you want.”
“Deal.” I reach out to shake his hand, and Theo blinks back and forth between us, that classic smile still plastered in place.
“Here you go,” Ethan interjects, setting a paper bag on the table. “Fable’s chicken tender special. Extra ranch.”
“Thank you.” I fumble into my back pocket for my debit card.
“It’s on the house tonight.” He tips his head toward Philip’s group. “About to ask that crew to leave. You okay?” Concern pinches his expression.
Gripping my bag of food, I assure him, “I’m fine. Thank you.”
“If you want to stick around, someone just ordered soft pretzel sticks,” Ethan says with a fond smile. “We’ve got Billy Joel all cued up.”
Last year, he started a tradition to honor his late wife. When someone orders her favorite appetizer, Ethan plays her favoritesong, “Just the Way You Are,” by Billy Joel, and everyone flocks to the dance floor to celebrate her.
Theo stands and reaches out a hand, a smirk tugging at his lips. “Come on. Those chicken tenders can wait four minutes.”
My pulsewhooshesthrough my skull, panic racing in my veins along with it. Ican still feel the imprint of his palm on my hip and smell his woodsy scent, and it’s all too much. If I spend any more time with him, I’ll start missing him. And if I start missing him... well, my heart already hurts too much for that.
“I’ve got, uh... Ihave to go,” I blurt and beeline for the door, not looking back.
Chapter 2
Theo
“Arthur?” I call, quietly opening the back door to the clinic.
No answer. Iglance over my shoulder to check that it’s really his car in the employee parking lot, and yep, it’s hard to mistake that DRDOG vanity plate. Normally, he’s more likely to stroll in around ten, after his two-eggs-and-pancakes breakfast at Kevin’s Diner. And honestly, I don’t blame the guy. When I’m seventy-four, I hope I get to mosey around at my own pace and show up to things whenever I want. Garrett, the clinic’s other veterinarian, and I handle everything fine without Arthur anyway.
My ears perk at the sound of shuffling papers, and I follow the rustling to...myoffice. Arthur is hunched at my desk, sliding files around, mumbling to himself. It’s likely he didn’t hear me come in, given the fact that he refuses to wear his hearing aids when his wife isn’t around to make him.
“Morning,” I greet loudly from the doorway.
He peers up at me over the top of his glasses. “Theo. Good morning.”
“You’re so early I thought I might be hallucinating,” I tease.
As he reaches for a file, his elbow bumps my cup of pens, sending them rolling across my desk. A low curse falls from his lips.
“Can I find something for you?” I ask, helping him gather them back up.
“Need to look at the financials,” he mumbles, opening Grover’s file like the Saint Bernard’s vitals and test results might be hiding what he’s looking for.
“Remember, Jenna helped us get all of that digitized last month?”
“But I need to see it in my hands,” he explains, spreading them wide. “I don’t know how to find it on the computer. Ineed paper.”
I hide my smile. “I can help you.”
Garrett and I have some version of this conversation with Arthur several times a week. He has been struggling with the digitization of our files since the beginning, no matter how many times we take him through the process of accessing things on his computer. The man is still using a flip phone, so it might be a hopeless case.
“I can print whatever you need,” I offer, pointing to my computer. “Let me hop in that seat, and I’ll pull it up.”
He groans as he rises from my chair and moves to the spot by the door. While my computer boots up, Arthur stares at the two pictures on my desk. There’s a framed photo of my dog, Layla, and I at the coast last summer. I’m snapping a selfie as her gritty tongue licks my cheek, a thick layer of sand covering her white-and-tan muzzle. Next to that is my favorite snapshot—I have an arm around my sister, Mia, on one side, and my mom on the other. We’re all laughing in our matching penguin pajamas on Christmas morning, our image tilting to the side as the phone fell right when the self-timer ended.
The computer’s welcome chime rings through the room. “All right, what are we printing?”
