3
“You wanted to talk to me?” Ryan asked as he poked his head into his Aunt May’s office, a quiet room on the top floor of the house with a view out across what Ryan still couldn’t describe as anything other thanthe swamp.
Well. It was probably a marsh. Ryan wasn’t entirely clear on the difference, but he’d gotten the impression that it was important.
He spotted Oscar lounging on a plush-looking but ancient couch off to the side of the room a moment later, offering him a tiny smile.
Coming here with nothing but what he could fit in two suitcases made him eager to make friends wherever he could. Even if he reallywasonly going to be here a few weeks.
Besides, Oscar seemed cool. He’d befriended a tiger. It didn’t get much cooler than that.
“Come in,” May waved him forward enthusiastically. “Come in, make yourself comfortable.”
Ryan glanced over at the couch, shrugged, and then sat down on it. The frame creaked ominously, protesting at supporting the weight of two grown men. Oscar wasn’t a big guy, exactly, but between the two of them, they didn’t weigh nothing.
A theme Ryan had noticed since he’d arrived was that every piece of furniture had seen better days. Most of it was at the stage where a charity wouldn’t even take it.
Someof it was at the stage where he was afraid to touch it in case it crumbled into dust.
The checking he’d done so far into the books explained why. The place was going broke, running on a shoestring budget and wishes.
There were things he could do to help the situation, but they needed capital to do that, and he had no idea where to start. May was the charity expert. He was just here to handle how the money was spent, and probably not for long enough to make much of a difference.
He’d take the work with him when he left, he thought. As a thank you to his aunt for taking him in when she couldn’t really afford it. They’d have free basic accountancy for life, at least.
“How are you settling in?” May asked, pulling an equally worn chair over and perching on the edge of it.
“Uh, fine, I think?” Ryan said.
He was grateful to have a place to stay that was about as far away from New York as he could get without leaving the country. That part was good.
The swamp noises keeping him up at night was… less good, but he didn’t want to complain. May was being hospitable. Complaining would just make him both look andfeellike an asshole, especially in front of Oscar.
“Good,” May enthused. “If you need anything, just you let me know, okay?”
Ryan nodded, positive that short of an emergency, he wasn’t going to ask foranything. He was way too shy for that.
Hell, even in an emergency, there was a fifty-fifty chance that he’d die instead of taking the risk of putting anyone to any trouble.
Which, he supposed, was probably a character flaw.
“Okay, to business. The good news is that we’ve had a fundraising opportunity come up,” May said, beaming eagerly at both of them.
Ryan could tell she loved this place. That she’d poured her heart and soul into it.
He wanted it to be okay for her.
And, though he probably wouldn’t have admitted it out loud, for all the animals he’d met over the past few days. Even the albino Burmese python he’d run into by accident while he was exploring.
He probably needed to apologize to Finn for startling him when he screamed.
It was called buttercup. How scary could an animal calledbuttercupbe?
Aside from being more than big enough to squeeze Ryan to death, it was probably fine. And like him, it needed a home, and it’d found one here.
The last thing he’d expected coming here was to feel sympathy for a snake that wouldn’t have been out of place in a horror movie set in the Amazon jungle, but here he was.
“The bad news is that it’s a dinner event, and someone needs to represent the sanctuary,” May continued. “And I’m sending you, Oscar. You’re the one who can talk enthusiastically about the work we do here at length.”
