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Should I give him a chance? Or was I just setting myself up for another heartache that made me beg a fae to take away my memory?
Shaking my head, I told Shiloh, “I have no idea what to do.”
“You don’t have to make a decision right now.” She nudged my leg again. “Eat your ice cream. Then we’ll watch some scary movies while we drink margaritas. You can figure out the rest tomorrow.”
Before I could agree or decline, she hoisted herself up off the couch and strode into the kitchen. From the particular squeak of one cabinet, she was getting out the makings of those margaritas.
I laughed softly to myself and spooned out some more ice cream.
Fine. We’d eat. We’d drink. We’d watch some horror movies.
And maybe tomorrow, I’d know what the hell to do about Matteo.
Chapter 16
Matteo
I didn’t sleep for shit that night. No surprise there. And it was no shock that today sucked too.
What did catch me off guard was that today was, in its own way, worse than the days following my breakup from Owen. That had been a special flavor of hell, but this was, too. There wasn’t that whirlwind of chaos as I tried to move out of the condo and find a new place to live. I wasn’t compelled to find a bunker somewhere and hide until my phone, email, and social media stopped blowing up. Until I stopped being bombarded with messages about what a colossal dickhead I was, punctuated by the occasional and even more painful “I just want to check in—are you okay?” from the handful of people who somehow thought I deserved empathy. This wasn’t the hurricane and its aftermath all over again.
No, this was a quieter kind of heartbreak.
For maybe forty-eight hours, I’d had a glimmer of hope, however faint, that we could go back. That underneath the rubble of our breakup was a solid foundation. The way we’d talked. The way we’dtouched. That had to count for something, right?
But the way Owen had looked at me yesterday after his memory came back? The way his eyes had flashed with all the same fury and pain they had a year ago?
That foundation had turned to sand.
It was almost a relief when he kicked me out after that. Staying would’ve meant reliving everything I’d put us through a year ago, and not just in the form of memories. All his emotions were fresh as the day I’d caused them, and he’d have let me have it with both barrels.
But the absence of a knockdown drag-out fight was cold comfort as I slogged through today. I’d been missing Owen all this time. After having the briefest taste of us again, it was like starting the grief over from the beginning.
Maybe I was right after all. Maybe thisisactual Hell.
I did manage to pull myself together enough to see my patients without letting on that there was a problem. Professionalism and all that. I could even plaster on a smile and exchange small talk.
I held it together most of the day, anyway.
Just before lunch, I had a hellhound coming in for a checkup. And I don’t mean Muffin the foul-tempered chihuahua this time. Zagrag was a legit hellhound—the kind that looked like a wolf on steroids—and he was getting up in years. His owner had brought him in for a routine checkup, and after the tech had gotten an update on how he was doing (quite well for an old man), we took him in the back to do some bloodwork. Never hurt to run a blood panel on senior pets, after all.
The techs were slammed and this was my last appointment before lunch, so I handled him. He was a docile old pup anyway, which was good, considering his back came up to my hip and I’m not exactly a short guy. He plodded into the back on a loose leash, perking up at the sight of one of the techs who always gave him treats. She gave him one, of course, and he crunched happily on it while I got everything together for his blood draw.
Then I knelt beside him to get the sample from his front leg. This was usually a two-person job, especially on a dog this big, but Zag was reliably chill about things. I did put a muzzle on him, though, which he didn’t care for but didn’t object to.
He also wasn’t thrilled about the needle, but unlike Muffin, his only protest was a low growl. It was one of those deep rumbles that hit humans in their primal subconscious, and even after years of dealing with animals like this—and even knowing Zag was about as vicious as a teddy bear—it still made my hair stand up.
I withdrew the needle, dropped it in the sharps bin, and taped a rolled piece of gauze against the hole. Then I undid his muzzle and patted his broad, graying back. “There, buddy. All done.”
He swung his huge head around to look at me. Those red eyes had unnerved me the first few times I’d encountered a hellhound, but I knew now they were as expressive as any other dog’s. As gentle at times, too. A lot of people didn’t think a red-eyed hellhound could have kind eyes, but they could, and Zag certainly did.
His soft expression actually made me choke up. I didn’t even know why. I just smiled and tousled his enormous ears. “You did good. Let’s get you back to your mom.”
He gave a little whine and nudged his silver muzzle against my arm. Then those big eyes met mine again, all full of the innocence and compassion that had always drawn me to animals.
And I just fucking fell apart.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and right there in the clinic’s back room, I broke down on the shoulder of this giant elderly hellhound. He tucked his head against my back, feeling for all the world like a small horse instead of a giant dog, and I let the last couple of days’ worth of emotions crash over me.
