Page 43 of How To Plot a Payback

Which explains why I got to said veterinary office at six thirty on the dot only to discover locked doors and a handwritten sign that said, “Emergency plumbing issue. Will open shortly. Please be patient.”

And so, I was patient.

I stood on the sidewalk with Miles and these cats, alternating between watching the sun and traffic slowly rise on one end, and the staff through the window on the other. They raced around with mops and buckets. Wiped down every surface that existed. Applied tubes of lipstick. At one point, a receptionist used the window I was looking through to check her reflection while adjusting and readjusting her skirt.

And now I know why.

Plumbing issue. Right.

They were all trying to clean up for her.

Dr. Arment was off getting his dentures whitened to the point of being able to use them as paint samples for her—the girl who skipped to the front of the line while the rest of us, the plebians who’d struggled to calm our caged animals for over an hour, watched.

And now here she is, trotting along beside me like a puppy, while the actual puppy she’s trying to pull along stops at every crack in the sidewalk.

That’s it.

I’m never getting away from her.

This is what I get for not flying home often enough. This is what I get for working through holidays.

This is my life sentence.

A lifetime of her ruining my life.

She is my fate.

“Well, that took a surprising turn,” she says, as though it is not 7:46 a.m. and we don’t have a pet situation to figure out and we don’t have to get to work.

“Getting banned for life from a veterinary clinic was not on my to-do list today, no,” I reply.

“Thanks for stepping in back there. That was very”—she pauses for the word—“chivalrous of you.” Her grin broadens, as though she hasn’t used that word in reference to anyone in a while and finds it cute. Finds my actions . . . cute.

“He was much too forward,” I say begrudgingly, keeping a brisk pace.

I don’t regret what I said. He did have some nerve. And of course I wouldn’t want any woman to be treated that way, regardless of our history.

Still.

That doesn’t mean I want to be friends.

“Makes me glad I didn’t take him up on the offer to take Bernie to his place last night.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and fight the urge to reply.

Do not fall for this woman’s charade.

Do not talk.

Do not encourage this conversation.

“But I have to admit, for a moment I considered it,” she says, pausing on the sidewalk. She takes over scratching Bernie’s side in a spot where the pup had been itching. “Given he was so friendly over the phone and Bernie’s been so desperate.”

Don’t reply.

“But then when he made a little joke about his services including a free bath and grooming, and left a little ambiguity as to whom exactly he was referring to—”

My teeth grind so hard they hit a nerve.