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He scowls. “Mom,” he says, looking down at her.
There’s this awkward silence where she doesn’t reply, and I think I should go, but I don’t want to rip Smuckers away.
“You’re telling me she seemed…conscious before?” He asks it remotely and without looking up.
“She was talking,” I say. “Petting Smuckers.”
The expression on his face is unreadable.
Just then, a beefy bald-headed guy in a security uniform comes in, followed by two nurses. “You’re going to have to take the animal out—now,” the security guard growls.
Bernadette’s hand is over Smuckers’s fuzzy little back.
“Leave him,” I plead. “She’ll be so upset.”
Nobody’s listening to me; their attention riveted on the son who has chosen this moment to turn the harsh light of his wrath onto the guard and the nurses.
I take a deep breath. I feel like I haven’t breathed since he entered the room.
Calmly, the son cocks his head. He and the security guard are about the same size—the security guard might even be a bit beefier, but if it came to a fight, my money would be on the son. He has an aura of power and confidence. He crackles with it.
The security guard is no wimp, though. He stares right back, all testosterone. It’s like watching Animal Kingdom, Midtown Manhattan Edition.
“If my mother wants the dog by her side,” he says calmly, “my mother gets the dog by her side.”
“Rule’s a rule,” the security guy growls. “You’ll remove the animal or I’ll remove it and hand it over to animal control.”
Animal control? It?
The son’s blue eyes sparkle with humor, as if the security guard’s threats are mere clownish whispers in a world constructed for him and him alone.
He addresses the assembled staff as a group. “Do you all understand who this is?”
It’s Smuckers, biotches! I think.
The complaining nurse folds her arms. “I don’t care. This is a pet-free facility.”
I rivet my attention to the son. I didn’t like him when he was turning his hard-ass Blue Magnum gaze on me, but now his asshole power is on my side, or at least Smuckers’s side.
“This is Bernadette Locke, head of the Locke Foundation, the entity that funded this wing, the medical teaching and research facility on the other side of that skyway, and probably your paychecks.”
I straighten. What?
More people come into the room, among them, a woman who seems to be some kind of administrator. “Henry Locke,” she says, grasping his hand. She apologizes for the mix-up, uttering words of empathy, admiration, gratitude. If he had a ring, she’d kiss it. She’d make out with it.
“…and of course Mrs. Locke can have her dog stay with her as long as she pleases,” she continues. “With our sincerest apologies—we had no idea that the swing shift was not informed…” She mumbles on, all excuses.
“Thanks,” I say. “It means a lot.”
They all look at me, like you’re still here?
The son points at me. “You. Out.”
“Wait. I promised Bernadette—I promised her I’d care for Smuckers. She asked me specifically to care for him, you know, when…”
He huffs out an exasperated breath and holds out his hand. “Card.”
I grab my wallet, and hand over my Etsy business card, quickly drawing away from the brush of his hand, the sizzle of his orbit.
