Clay: Can we talk?
Me: I’m at work.
Clay: I meant this evening.
I lifted an eyebrow. The days of silence from him had left me hurt and angry. He’d said he was falling for me, and yet he’d given up on us so fast. I missed him. How wasn’t he missing us?
Me: Will Travis be there too?
The dots flickered and disappeared. Finally, his text came through.
Clay: I’d like to talk to you alone.
Me: Sorry. I’m busy tonight.
It was a lie, but I wasn’t going to meet with him on my own because we needed to talk about this together.
Clay: How about tomorrow?
Me: If Travis isn’t there, then I’m still busy.
He had no response to that.
Since he’d reached out, I figured now was as good a time as any.
Me: I haven’t been over to see Noir. How’s she doing?
Clay: Fine. She misses you.
My breath caught because there was no way he was talking about our aloof cat. Noir was a paradigm of the independent woman. As long as she had food, she didn’t need anyone. Every now and again she liked affection, but it was always on her terms, and the rest of the time she was indifferent.
Me: I miss her too. A lot.
No new messages came through. I wanted to arrange some alone time with her, but we were swamped at the clinic, and I couldn’t leave patients waiting on me any longer. I tucked my phone back into my pocket and made a mental note to set something up with him later.
Time dragged as I went about my work trying not to think about the two men I loved, and my frustration that we couldn’t be together. It was one of those days where nothing went right. I banged my head on an open cabinet during an exam, which hurt like hell and made me look like an idiot in front of the patient’s owner. I spilled my water on a vaccination chart and had to start over. When I put on my latex gloves, the finger tore, and I nearly burst into tears.
I was coming apart.
What if Travis was wrong? What if Clay wanted to talk to me alone because he was going to try to convince me we should go back to the beginning before Travis entered the picture?
The clinic stopped taking patients at four, which meant it was at least five before I was usually done. I was still getting the overnight patients settled for the evening when a text came through.
Travis: Got a second to talk?
Me: Sure.
My screen changed as he called, only it was through FaceTime. Which, of course, because I looked like garbage. But I was too eager to see him. I tapped the icon to accept.
“Hi,” I said.
Like me, he appeared to be at work. The background behind him was just a white wall, but he was in his zoo uniform scrubs and had a stethoscope hanging around his neck.
“Hi,” he answered back. He had a huge smile, possibly the biggest I’d ever seen from him. Much too big for it simply to be him happy to see me.
Some of the animals in their crates around me were vocal with their displeasure about their accommodations for the evening, and it was hard to hear Travis over the barking.
“Hold on.” I darted out into the empty and quiet staff breakroom. “What’s up?”
“I meant to call you earlier,” he disappeared as he flipped the phone around, “but I got sidetracked by this little guy.”
A stall came into view, and the first thing to leap out was the black and white stripes. The camera panned from mom down to the newborn foal resting amongst the hay on the floor, his legs tucked to the side. As his mom ambled toward him, his dark ears twitched, and he turned his head to briefly nuzzle with her.
“Oh, my God! He’s gorgeous,” I said. The baby zebra was just as vividly striped as his mother, only his were more brown than black. He was just the cutest thing ever too. “How’d it go?”
“Great. He’s been up and walking already. Mom’s doing good too.”
This explained Travis’s huge smile. It was the first live birth he’d overseen since starting at the zoo, and I was so thrilled for him that it had been uneventful.
The camera swung back around so he came into view, and then he was on the move, walking away from the stalls.
“So, I don’t have a lot of time to talk,” he said, “but Clay called me.”
I paused, surprised. “Oh, yeah?”
He went through a door and out into a big hallway, which made his voice echo. “You should go over there tonight and talk to him.”
I was dubious. “Without you?”
“Yeah. I’m going to be here at least another eight hours, and it’s okay. We talked already.” There was a lightness in him, and I wondered if it was all from the new foal, or if part of it was a result of his discussion with Clay.