Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69303 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
I tapped my nose. “I’m allergic to dogs. Like really allergic. Uncontrollable sneezing. Itchy, watery eyes. Throat tends to close up a little bit. Breathing treatments are sometimes needed. I don’t die or anything. But I’m utterly miserable for a few long hours after I come into contact with one.”
That was putting it mildly.
If suffering a sucky, non-death was a thing, I’d have it when I came into contact with dogs.
“Damn,” she said. “Have you tried those allergy shots?”
I nodded. “This is with allergy shots.”
Well, it was with allergy shots when I could afford them. Which hadn’t been all that much lately.
“Double damn,” Silver murmured. “Well, I’ll deliver this on my way home then.”
She stepped into me, giving me a hug that felt so nice and warm that I wanted to sink into it forever.
Yet another thing that I hadn’t gotten since my best friend had passed away.
A good ol’ hug between friends.
“Thanks for everything,” she whispered quietly.
I squeezed her hand. “Bye, Silver.”
“Bye, Dru. Have a good night at work.”
Oh, I doubted I would.
Night shifts sucked.
Night shifts after being up all day sucked even more.
But I had a feeling I had plenty of things to think about when I was awake all night.
Like my sister and her fifty-one text messages telling me about how Eugene was living his life.
Joy.
Fourteen
You think you can hurt my feelings, but I’m an overthinker. I hurt my own feelings.
—Apollo to Dru
APOLLO
She’d gone into work, and I didn’t know what to say about that.
I’d asked her to stay at home with me, and she’d said she would, only to go back on her word.
“She said that she needed the money.” Silver shrugged.
Webber threw his arm around her shoulders and pulled her into his side before saying, “Aella said that she was always working. It can’t be healthy to be throwing down seventy-two hours a week.”
No.
No, it couldn’t.
“Oh, before I forget.” Silver pulled out the paperwork. “This is all. And here’s your credit card that you gave to me so casual like as I was running out the door and you arrived. I didn’t give it to Dru, though, since she wasn’t coming back to you.”
Well, that was a really good hit to the chest, even if she didn’t mean to make the hit in the first place.
“Also,” she was hesitant now. “I don’t know if you know this or not, but Dru’s hella allergic to dogs.”
My heart sank. “What?”
“Yeah,” Silver looked at the two dogs that’d been shedding dog hair all over my house for the last few hours. “Really allergic. Throat swells up, can hardly breathe, sometimes needs breathing treatments kind of allergic.”
“Fuck.”
I closed my eyes as the news hit me.
I couldn’t keep them.
Not with her being allergic.
We may be very new, but I knew where this was going.
My heart was already well down the path, even if my head was taking a little bit of time to catch up.
“They can come to my place,” Webber suggested.
“Oh,” Silver’s eyes looked giddy. “Is it bad that I want to say ‘finally’ really loud? Or is that too insensitive?”
I laughed then.
Silver had been trying to silently sneak the two dogs into her car every time they visited Knight and Elaine since they’d arrived back home from deployment.
It was a joke to see how far she could get them without either of them noticing.
I placed my hand on Kenny’s head. “I think they’d like that.”
I loved the dogs and all, but I wouldn’t choose them over Dru.
“You really don’t mind?” I asked Webber.
He shook his head. “Not at all. They’re both awesome dogs. Trained really well. Good around the kids. Plus, they’re getting a bit old now and don’t chew on shoes.”
“I’m sorry that my dog chewed on your shoe. But in his defense, you’d cleaned a deer earlier in the day and had blood all over your shoes. What did you expect him to do? Turn down that kind of delicacy?”
Half an hour later, I was vacuuming like a madman while simultaneously placing a one-hour delivery order for a massive air purifier.
Only after it arrived and I had the whole thing set up and running in the house did I go find her at work.
I found her on the surgical wing, barking orders at a few nurses at the nurses’ station, looking like a queen residing over her kingdom.
All her colleagues looked a little flustered, though.
New.
I wondered if any of them had been working long. They all looked like they’d stepped out of diapers only yesterday.
When they turned, the badges on their shirts declaring them “students” was visible, confirming my thoughts.
“…why would you not take a BP on a patient with no lymph nodes?”
There were a few answers, but none of them were sufficient to her, so she explained loudly why that was a no-no.
I loved hearing her be so authoritative.