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Diana snorted. “She just might if you’re not careful.”
• • •
It took me ten minutes to find my cat once I got there.
And the cat was right where I thought he’d be. In Matilda’s arms.
And she was talking to said cat.
“You know, Hairy,” I heard her whisper. “I think he won’t notice if you’re gone.”
“I’d notice,” I surprised her.
She squeaked and whirled.
The cat, however, was unaffected.
“Make some damn noise,” she snapped at me.
My lips quirked up. “I did. I asked where you were to that lady over there. She pointed you out. And I called your name.”
She grimaced. “They’re making a lot of noise.”
She was pointing to a pig. Or, more accurately, multiple pigs.
They were squealing and hollering their discontent.
“What are they doing here?” I asked.
“Getting checked over. They’re show pigs,” she explained. “They were dropped off. Hairy and I were just checking them out.”
“Is that right?” I asked.
“That’s right.” She squinted. “Did you change your shirt?”
I looked down and shook my head. “No.”
“It looks different. Softer,” she explained, her fingers already reaching for my shirt.
When she paused halfway, I caught her hand and led it to my belly so she could feel it.
“Sorry,” she said as she fisted her hand in it. “This is a really nice shirt.”
“It’s from Goodwill.” I shrugged.
“Can I look at the tag?” she asked.
I nodded and turned my back toward her while also hunching down slightly.
She flipped the collar of my shirt back and sighed. “Damn. The tags were ripped out.”
“You can have it when I’m done with it,” I said. “It was all of four dollars.”
“No,” she shook her head. “If you’re shopping at Goodwill, you likely need it more than I do.”
I snorted. “I don’t have to shop at Goodwill. I just did because I needed a lot of clothes in a short amount of time, and I didn’t want to borrow a shit ton from my friends. I’m being serious. You can have it when I get back.”
“How long will you be gone?” she asked curiously.
“Couple of days. Max,” he replied.
She frowned then. “Who’s taking care of Hairy for you, then?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I was thinking about just sending him home where I filled a huge bowl of water and food for him. Is that bad?”
“Not bad, no,” she said. “Just kind of sucky when you could have me watch him for free.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “You’ll give him back when I get home?”
She took so long to answer that I wasn’t altogether sure she was telling the truth when she said, “Sure.”
Lips quirked, I said, “What’s your number?”
She spouted it off fast and was surprised when I repeated it back to her verbatim.
“Good memory,” I answered to her questioning look. “Take care of yourself, Matt.”
“Matilda. Or Mattie,” she called after me. “Not Matt.”
My eyes were full of mirth when I said, “Sure.”
CHAPTER 4
I hope you get poison ivy on your vagina.
-Matilda to Ellen
MATILDA
“Earth to Loser.”
I looked over at Ellen, the most annoying person on the planet, and frowned. “What?”
“I was talking to you.”
Was she?
On the best of days, I tended to ignore her out of desperation to remain sane when I was around her.
However, on the worst days? When I couldn’t handle it any longer? I did the best I could.
Today was a latter day.
The day where I’d done everything I could to ignore her, and I’d only been at work for an hour.
“I don’t appreciate being called a loser,” I said to her stiffly. “I also have asked you multiple times to stop.”
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously, you need to chill. It’s just a joke.”
“It’s unprofessional, and makes you look like you’re compensating for something,” I corrected her. “What do you need, Ellen?”
I wanted to call her asshole, but that would make me no better than her.
“I wanted to know who that was,” she snapped.
I shrugged. “A patient.”
“Is that…” she trailed off when I turned my back on her and took Hairy to Dr. Beauregard to be seen.
Dr. Beauregard gave him a clean bill of health, and I let him go into the cat playroom to have fun until it was time for me to leave.
It was with about two hours left in my shift that I got the go-ahead to go home.
When I arrived at the cat playroom, it was to find Ellen in there.
Since Ellen generally tended to stay clear of all things animal related—she worked in a vet’s office, but she was the front desk/office manager. She rarely had to deal with animals at all—I was surprised to find her in there trying to coax Hairy out from under the cat house.
“What are you doing?” I asked her the moment I breached the entrance.
Instantly, all of the cats ran toward me, and I gave each one some lovin’ before I reached for Hairy, who’d also come running at the sound of my voice.
