Chapter 11: Ally - Purrfect Valentine

Denise had found her phone. This was, objectively, wonderful news. What was not wonderful was that she’d apparently interpreted “I’ll be right back,” as “Please, Denise, come find me so we can chat for the foreseeable future while a very attractive man waits in my office, probably wondering if I’ve been kidnapped.”

“It was in the break room couch cushions!” She waved the phone triumphantly, blocking my path back down the hallway. “Can you believe it? I drove all the way home, drove all the way back, tore apart my whole car looking for this thing, and it was here the whole time.”

“Wow.” I nodded, already calculating the fastest route around her. “Mystery solved.”

“I was so worried. All my pictures are on here. I haven’t backed them up since Christmas, and if I’d lost those photos of my niece’s gingerbread house disaster—” she clutched her chest. “It would’ve been devastating, Dr. V. Devastating.”

“Tragic,” I agreed. “So glad you found it. Anyway, I should⁠—”

“Oh! While I have you.” She stepped closer, and I resisted the urge to physically move her aside. “My neighbor’s sister-in-law has this ferret, right? And she’s convinced it’s depressed.”

“The sister-in-law?”

“The ferret. She says it just sits there looking sad, and she wants to know if we can prescribe antidepressants. Can we do that? Antidepressants for ferrets? Is that a thing?”

In my office, Corbin was waiting. Corbin, whose hand had been between my thighs less than two minutes ago. Corbin, who’d had me panting and desperate and so close to the edge I could still feel the tension coiled in my belly, ready to snap. And I was standing here discussing ferret mental health.

“Ferrets always look like that,” I said. “It’s their face.”

“That’s what I told her! But she’s convinced⁠—”

“Denise.” I smiled so hard my cheeks ached. “I really appreciate you stopping by, and I’m so glad you found your phone. But I have some, uh, paperwork. To finish. Very urgent paperwork.”

“At this hour?” She checked her phone—the one that had started this entire nightmare—and her eyebrows rose. “It’s almost nine. You’re always working late. You need to take care of yourself.”

“I will. I definitely will. Right after I finish my paperwork.”

“You know what you need?” She leaned against the wall, settling in. Getting comfortable. Making absolutely no move to leave. “A way to relieve some tension.”

Well, she had that right at least.

“Oh! Or a hobby. Something that isn’t work. My cousin started doing pottery, and she says it has changed her life. Very meditative. You should try pottery.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Or yoga. Yoga’s good for stress. You seem stressed.”

“I’m not stressed.” I think my eye twitched. “I’m relaxed. So relaxed.” At least, I will be once Corbin finishes what he started, I thought to myself. “You know, I just want to get back to my paperwork.”

“What kind of paperwork?”

“Charts. Lots of charts. Very boring stuff.”

“Why don’t I help you? I’m great with charts. Remember that inventory system I reorganized last month?”

“I remember that.” I took a step backward. “It was very impressive. But this is, um, confidential. HIPAA stuff. Can’t have anyone else looking at it.”

“HIPAA is for humans.”

“We have a version. For pets. PIPPA.”

“That’s not a thing.”

“I heard someone is trying to make it a thing.” I took another step backward. “Anyway⁠—”

“Is someone here?” Denise craned her neck, peering down the hallway toward my office. “I thought I heard⁠—”

“No one’s here.” The words came out too fast. Way too fast. “I mean, not that it would matter if someone were here. I’m just saying. It’s empty. The clinic. Just me. And you. And now I really need to get back to work.”

Denise’s eyes narrowed. A slow smile spread across her face—the kind of smile that preceded absolutely nothing good.

“Dr. V.” Her voice dropped conspiratorially. “Do you have a boy back there?”

“What? No, that’s ridiculous.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I’m not blushing. It’s warm in here.”

“And your hair is all messed up in the back.”

My hand flew to my head. Sure enough, it had become a disaster zone. Because Corbin’s fingers had been tangled in it. Because he’d fisted my hair while his mouth worked along my neck and my jaw and my chest. Because I’d been too busy grinding against him like my life depended on it to notice my hairstyle falling apart.

“It’s been windy,” I said weakly.

“Inside the building.”

“Denise.”

“I knew it.” She clapped her hands together with undisguised delight. “I knew it! That grumpy one with the glasses, right? Mr. Wright? Margot said she saw him biking over to the Asian fusion place earlier, and I said⁠—”

“We’re just friends.”

“Friends who mess up each other’s hair?”

“I have to go.”

“At least tell me how far⁠—”

“Goodnight, Denise.”

I didn’t run down the hallway. That would have been undignified. I walked with purpose and determination, and if Denise called something after me about using protection, I pretended not to hear it.

The door to my office was still open. Light still on. I was already composing what I’d say—sorry, she wouldn’t leave, now where were we—already anticipating the way his hands would feel sliding back around my waist, the way his mouth would find mine, the way we’d pick up exactly where we’d left off⁠—

The room was empty.

I stopped in the doorway. Blinked.

Empty. Totally, completely empty.

But also—clean. The scattered files I’d knocked off my desk were stacked in a neat pile. The other items from my desk returned to their homes. The takeout containers had vanished, probably into the trash. Even my pen cup had been repositioned to its exact usual spot.

He’d cleaned my office.

“Corbin?” My voice echoed off the walls.

Nothing.

I crossed to my desk on legs that didn’t quite feel steady. That’s when I spotted it—a yellow sticky note stuck to my computer monitor. I didn’t recognize the handwriting:

We’ll talk tomorrow. — C

I stared at it for a long moment. Tomorrow. No explanation. No sorry I had to go or something came up or I’ll call you later. Just tomorrow.

Ten minutes ago, this man had me writhing on my desk. I’d been seconds from falling apart—seconds, maybe less—and now I was standing alone in my unnervingly tidy office, staring at a sticky note that told me absolutely nothing.

A laugh escaped me.

“Tomorrow,” I repeated to the empty room. “Great. Fan-freaking-tastic. Very informative.”

I crumpled the note. Smoothed it out. Crumpled it again.

The worst part wasn’t that he’d left. People left. I knew that better than anyone. The worst part was the cleaning. If he’d panicked and bolted, leaving chaos in his wake, I could’ve written him off as a coward. Easy to dismiss. Easy to hate.

But he’d taken time. While Denise had been interrogating me about ferret antidepressants and the state of my love life, he’d been back here deciding that whatever had happened between us wasn’t worth sticking around for.

That was a choice. A deliberate choice.

I sank into my desk chair and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes.

How long had it been since someone had touched me like that? Since I’d wanted someone to touch me like that? I ran through the catalog of disappointing dates and failed relationships, searching for a comparison. Six months since my last date. Over a year since anything physical. Long enough that I’d forgotten what it felt like to have my whole body light up, every nerve ending singing, every inch of skin desperate for contact.

And now my body was still humming with nowhere to go. The arousal hadn’t faded—it was trapped, mixing with the hurt blooming in my chest until I felt vaguely sick.

He told you, whispered the logical part of my brain. He was here temporarily on the way to get back his ex. Cupid Corner was never the destination.

I knew that. I’d known that from the start.

So why did this feel like a betrayal?

The drive home was a blur of dark roads and aggressive Valentine decorations. I pulled into my driveway too fast, nearly clipped the mailbox, and was out of the car before the engine finished dying. Through the front window, movement flashed—tails wagging, shadows pacing. My people. The only creatures who’d never once looked at me and decided I wasn’t worth staying for.

Bernie hit me the moment I opened the door.

Two hundred pounds of Saint Bernard slammed into my legs with the force of a small truck, his massive body wiggling with joy. His tail wagged so hard his entire hindquarters swayed, and a rope of drool caught me across the thigh before I could dodge.

“Hi, baby. Yes, I’m home. Yes, I’m late. I’m sorry.”

He whined and shoved his head against my hip as I pushed inside. The rest of the chaos descended immediately: five more foster dogs in various stages of rehabilitation, five cats observing from the back of the couch and other perches like judgmental gargoyles, and Nutter Butter, my only rabbit, thumping his foot impatiently from his pen.

“I know,” I told him. “I’m a disaster. Feel free to withhold your affection.”

He thumped again. Judgment confirmed.

I fed everyone on autopilot. Kibble, wet food, fresh hay. The motions were familiar, grounding. But my hands moved while my brain stayed stuck in that empty office. The way Corbin had groaned my name against my throat. The pressure of his palm between my thighs, working me through layers of fabric. The desperate, greedy sounds I’d made when he’d sucked my nipple through my bralette⁠—

I slammed the cabinet door too hard. One of the cats startled and gave me a withering look.

“Sorry. I’m having a terrible evening. You wouldn’t understand.”

I stripped off my clothes, crawled into bed in my brother’s old college shirt he was going to throw out and a pair of granny panty underwear because I was too wrung out to care, and let my menagerie arrange themselves around me. Bernie claimed the foot of the bed with two of the other dogs. The cats took the pillows and my lap. Nutter Butter thumped one final time from his pen—solidarity or condemnation, hard to say.

My phone buzzed.

I grabbed it, heart stuttering, already hoping⁠—

Jamie.

Not Corbin. Of course not Corbin.

I answered anyway. “Hey.”

“You sound like someone ran over your cat.” A pause. “All of them.”

“I have too many cats to run over. It would take too much effort.”

“What happened? And don’t say nothing, because I can hear it in your voice.”

I stared at the ceiling. Bernie was already snoring. One of the cats had started kneading the pillow next to my head.

“Corbin happened.”

“Clark Kent? What did he do?” Jamie’s voice sharpened. “Do I need to drive up there and key his car? Because I will.”

“He kissed me.”

Silence. “He was that bad?”

“No, it was—” I swallowed and flushed at the memories. “That was really, really good. We were in my office, and things escalated, and I was basically about to—and then Denise showed up⁠—”

“Wait? Why?”

“She forgot her phone. And then she wanted to chat about depressed ferrets and pottery and whether I had a boy in my office⁠—”

“Depressed ferrets?”

“Yes, Jamie, keep up. So I’m stuck in the lobby trying to get rid of her, and when I finally get back to my office, he’s gone. He cleaned everything up and left a note that says ‘We’ll talk tomorrow’ and nothing else.”

“Huh.” Jamie processed this. “That’s... weird.”

“Right?”

“Like, objectively weird. Who tidies up after almost hooking up and then ghosts?”

“That’s what I said!”

“Maybe he—I don’t know—wanted to be a gentleman? Give you space?”

“By leaving without saying goodbye?”

“We men are idiots. This is well-documented.”

I laughed despite myself. It came out wet and wobbly and not at all like a real laugh.

“He’s still trying to get his ex back,” I said. “He told me. He was driving to see her when his car broke down. And she won’t return his calls, but that doesn’t mean—he could still⁠—”

“Al.” Jamie’s voice softened. “You really like him, don’t you?”

“Doesn’t matter if I like him.”

“God, you’re stupid. It matters a hell of a lot.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Yes, it does.”

“No, because he’s leaving. As soon as his car is fixed, he’s gone.” I pressed my free hand over my eyes. “I’m not going to make this harder by pretending it’s something it’s not. I shouldn’t have even kissed him. Now I can’t stop thinking about it, and I’m getting attached, and I don’t know what to do.”

Jamie was quiet for a moment. “Talk to him like he suggested?”

“Well duh. But I need to prepare for it, don’t I? Build a wall. Be professional. Treat him like any other client.”

“Is that what you want?”

“It’s what makes sense.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Because it wasn’t at all what I wanted.

“Get some sleep,” Jamie said finally. “Call me tomorrow after you see him.”

“I will.”

“And Al? If he hurts you, I am driving to Cupid Corner and keying his car the second the mechanic finishes fixing it.”

“Deal.”

The line went dead.

I set the phone on the nightstand and stared at the ceiling while Bernie snored and the cats purred and Nutter Butter settled into his hay with a final, satisfied thump.

I had a wall to build. I’d done it before. I could do it again. The problem was that I didn’t want to.