Chapter Seven

Now

And now we were on the verge of another round of Sorbet, or so it seemed. I looked down at myself. My scrub top was covered in black and gray fur. There was also a water ring across my belly where a guinea pig had peed on me early in the morning. Yuck. I peeled it off as I went upstairs, and dropped it, followed by my pants, into the washer in the bathroom closet.

Dewey wandered into the room. He always got concerned when I spent any time in the bathroom. I think he was impressed with my ability to immerse myself in water. Maybe he was waiting for the day when I finally realized how horrible it was to be wet. I don’t know, but he settled himself on the rug with his paws tucked in, and looked up at me with feline interest. I scratched his head with my toes and turned on the shower.

I had learned in my first month as a veterinary tech that there was no point in showering before a shift. Well, I guess I could shower before, but I’d just have to do it again at the end of the day.

“Mow,” Dewey advised me.

“I’ll be fine,” I told him and stepped into the shower.

It felt great to get the guinea pig pee off my torso and the smell of animal fear out of my hair. It was kind of ironic that animals were so scared of going to the vet, when all vets and vet techs are animal lovers. No exceptions. You don’t get into the field if you don’t love animals. In my case, that love extends only to the furry varieties. Luckily, a lot of vets don’t do exotic animals. Reptiles and birds need not apply, thank you very much.

I heard my phone ringing on the bathroom counter, but I knew I’d never dry my hands off quickly enough to get it. Besides, not everyone enjoys talking to someone in the shower.

Finishing up, I pushed open the sliding door. Dewey jumped to his feet and began pacing in a circle, yowling and mewing.

“I’m all right, you idiot,” I said, stepping onto the bath mat. He reassured himself by rubbing against my wet ankles. “Yuck,” I admonished him, nudging him away. I didn’t need a fresh coating of cat hair.

Checking the phone, I saw that the call had come from Nellie. She never left messages, so I just called her back.

“So how’d it go?” she answered the phone without a greeting.

She was going to be disappointed in me. “It didn’t.”

“Why not?” she shouted, loud enough to make me jerk away from the phone.

“He said he needs me.”

Nellie was one of the few people in my life who knew all about my Sorbet arrangement with Matt. To say she did not approve would be putting it mildly.

“You are not going to sleep with him!”

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“You are so dysfunctional with him!” she protested. “You promised me—no, forget that—you promised yourself you were going to stop with this bullshit.”

“Nellie.” I sighed. “You don’t understand.”

“Oh, I understand plenty. You just sit around waiting for Matt to break up with his latest hootchie so you can scrape up the sloppy seconds.”

I pressed my fingers to my temple. We’d had this conversation ad nauseam. “It’s not like that. He does the same for me. It’s mutually beneficial.”

“It’s mutually sick.”

“Nellie,” I whined.

“I like Matt, you know that.” Everybody did. He was just one of those guys. “But you two are like an episode of Jerry Springer waiting to happen. Seriously, what are you going to do when he gets married?”

The thought made me ill. “He’s not getting married.”

“Do not argue semantics with me, Joss. You have to end this. Now.”

“I’m not doing it over the phone,” I said.

“Fine. But do it. Tonight. You are worth more than these booty calls.”

“Nellie,” I said again, but without the whining tone.

She sighed into the phone. “Joss, I love you. You know that. Just fix this.”

“I know.”

“Call me later.”

But even with Nellie’s scolding in my ears, and my own resolve from earlier in the day, I still found myself going through the usual post-shower rituals that I always did for Matt.

I have to confess to a unique level of primping before a night with Matt. I guess it’s easier to maintain the illusion of perfection when you only go to bed with someone a couple times a year at the most. I shaved my legs to baby-smoothness, exfoliated my entire body until it was beet red, then soothed my skin with handfuls of expensive lotion. I even put a dab of perfume behind each knee and in my cleavage.

I devoted some time to choosing an outfit, starting with the frilliest, prettiest underwear I owned. Silk, lace, and bows, what more can a girl ask for? I’ve always been a huge fan of lingerie. Passing Victoria’s Secret, I hear a siren song that I simply cannot refuse. Wearing it makes me feel pretty. Even when I have guinea pig pee on my scrubs, I feel pretty wearing lingerie. Matt has always been fond of my collection, and I found myself picking out some new things he hadn’t seen even though I told myself it was coincidence.

I really was pathetic.

Dewey hopped up on the bed and started batting around my panties.

“Stop it!” I yelped, all too aware of what his claws could do to silk.

He took them in his mouth and jumped off the bed, headed for one of his secret hideaways. I pursued, catching him at the top of the stairs, and carefully extracted his prize from his teeth. No damage.

“You’re lucky you didn’t rip these! I would have …” I shook my fist at the cat, who was unimpressed with my idle threat.

Back in the bedroom, my phone started ringing again. It was Matt this time.

“Hey, Joss, it’s me.”

“What’s up, Matt?”

“Instead of going out for dinner, do you want to come over? I can make something.”

I did a double take at the phone. This was completely unprecedented. It took a second to find a normal tone to reply. “Wow, you’re spoiling me rotten today. I can’t wait to hear this story.”

“I’ll tell you over dinner,” he said. “Pasta okay?”

“Yeah, sounds fine. Do you want me to bring anything?”

“Just yourself. Be here at seven.”

A glance at the clock told me it was a few minutes after six. I would have enough time to control my hair and make it to Matt’s right on time. We said goodbye and disconnected. Dewey was on the threshold of the bedroom, eyeing me with no small amount of contempt.

“What is going on in your boyfriend’s head?” I asked him. The cat loved Matt with slavish devotion.

“Yeah, I don’t know either.”

He yawned and eyed the silk underwear still in my hand.

“You’re too late,” I told him, shaking them in his direction. “I’m putting them on.”

I stepped into my underwear and headed back to the bathroom to do battle with my hair. Curls are nothing to be trifled with—if you can master them, you’ll have good hair for life, if you can’t … you might as well start amassing your hat collection now. There is no hope.

Three products and a light diffusing later, I was satisfied with the result. The last step was a little makeup, and then it was back to the closet. I couldn’t help hesitating. Normally, I’d pick something and call it a day, but Matt had thrown a wrench in the system with this whole dinner thing.

Am I misinterpreting this? I wondered. Maybe he didn’t mean he needed me.

I drummed my fingers on the edge of the closet, considering. There was something distinctly unusual about the evening and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I could call Matt back and demand answers, I knew. That was part of the deal. We were friends. Good friends.

He would probably laugh it off and tell me I was thinking too hard.

I sighed and chose a trusted black top. It was one of those go-to shirts that I put on when nothing else seemed right. It would be fine for dinner, and it would be fine for my walk—er, drive—of shame tomorrow. I supposed I could bring a change of clothes for the morning, but that was never part of the deal. I don’t exactly know why, other than the fact that we established the rules during college.

Written rules. Now that I thought about it, I couldn’t remember which one of us had them last, though I remembered clearly when Matt had started the list …