FOURTEEN
BLUE
“I thoughtI’d find you here,” Dr. Monroe—Rex to most people—said, entering the back where the sickest animals were kept. I’d gone to school to become a vet tech and sometimes when I thought maybe I’d gone into the wrong line of work, I’d come back here and look at the tiny animals that depended on me to help them.
Rex crouched down next to me and gently stroked his fingers over the head of the little tabby cat we’d been working on. She’d come in as a stray who was badly malnourished and had multiple other issues. I’d given her a flea bath to get rid of the fleas sapping her strength. I’d cleaned her up and we’d treated her wounds and various ailments, and now the rest was up to her.
“How’s she doing?” Rex asked.
“Her temp is down. Her eyes are clearing up. She’s a little fighter.” I stroked her fur, which honestly wasn’t the healthiest. She’d been outside for so long and so malnourished that her furwas still kind of grimy feeling even after a bath. It would take a few months for her to get back to full health.
“Sometimes I wonder how you haven’t taken home twenty-five animals by now,” Rex confessed to me as he took the opportunity of her being out of her kennel to give her a quick exam.
“Easy. School took all my money.” I laughed a little, and the cat, whom I’d taken to calling Cookie, let out a disgruntled little grumble. “Oh, I’m sorry, did that disturb you?” I said to her, stroking her fur again.
“Plus,” I continued, “not everyone is you, Mister. It’s not a zoo if they’re just dogs and cats. And one goat. And a bird.”
Rex grinned. “And a hedgehog.”
“Rex… nooo. We talked about this. They’re pets, not Pokemon. You can’t collect them all.”
“If it makes you feel better, I found homes for the goat, the hedgehog, and even for the bird. He’s going there this weekend. He’ll have other little bird buddies to hang out with, and he won’t have to worry about the cats anymore.”
“I’m sure he’s very relieved. Where’s he going?”
“A vet friend of mine knows people who run a rescue. He’ll be well cared for there.” Rex eyed me like he wanted to examine me next, like I was one of his patients. “What about you?”
“What about me?” I turned away and gently put Cookie back in her kennel. I kept my back turned to Rex while I messed with her blankets, making sure she was comfortable.
“You’ve been sulking back here every day for a week.” Rex moved away and checked on a little dog in a different kennel. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”
“I do not sulk,” I said, trying not to sound like I was sulking.
“When something is bothering you, you spend increasing amounts of time here when you’re not technically on the clock. I allow you to volunteer a certain amount of your own time here,on top of paying you for extra hours that you work, and I love your dedication, Blue, but you can’t live here.”
I shrugged a shoulder. “These guys don’t mind.”
“These guys are hopped up on pain meds or are too sick to give a shit where they are, so that’s not the argument you think it is.” Rex moved on to another patient after that. He had a way about him of opening a conversation and letting you know you could go to him if you wanted to continue it, but then backing off and giving you space to breathe. It was one of the things that made him a good vet. He was a good listener.
“It’s dumb.” Leaning forward, I rested my forehead on the metal bars of one of the kennels.
“Ah, must be man trouble then.”
I snorted a laugh and turned around to look at him. “How’d you guess?”
He shrugged and put his stethoscope back around his neck. “Experience. If it’s a problem, and it’s a dumb problem, it’s probably about a man.” He gave me a sad kind of half-smile. Last year, just after he hired me, he and his long-time boyfriend had split up and he’d taken it pretty hard. And without his boyfriend around to rein him in, Rex took home a lot more animals. But the fact that he was giving up the bird gave me hope that he was starting to cope better.
I’d always tried to be as honest as possible with Rex, and before he hired me, I’d told him about my career making adult content, explaining that it was how I put myself through school, how I supported myself. Rex blinked at me and simply asked me to not ever film at the clinic and then told me that he frankly didn’t care how I made my money so long as I showed up to work on time and did my job.
“So there’s this guy.”
Rex did a fist pump in the air, for which I looked at him in mild disgust.
“Sorry, but I knew it. Go on.”
“So there’s this guy.” I started over, but paused and held Rex’s gaze because I wanted to see his reaction for the next part. “And there’s this other guy.”
“Ooh, a love triangle.”
