Page 16 of Animal Tamer
“Yeah,” I breathe.
Paige's eyes narrow. “Mm-hm.”
I keep talking. “And then there was a knife-thrower. Cole, I think. Rowe called him Cole. He was sitting on the steps of a trailer flipping a knife between his fingers like a fidget spinner, and he looked at me like he was deciding which side of beef to start carving from.”
Paige's eyes go dreamy. “Oh my god.”
“It was unsettling,” I say firmly.
“Bet it washot.”
“Paige.”
“It washot, Wren. Just think of the guys around here.”
I roll my eyes. The mug is warm in my hands. The clinic smells faintly of antiseptic and wet dog and the cinnamon roll Paige reheated when she came in. The little radio on the counter is playing some new country song I haven't heard yet.
“Anyway,” I say.
“Oh no, you don't.”
“Anyway, the animals are well cared for, the operation seemed clean, I gave Peanut an injection, I have to go back for five more days to follow up, the end.”
“The end.”
“The end.”
Paige slides off the counter and plants her hands on the edge of it and leans toward me until I have no choice but to look at her.
“Tell me aboutRowe.” The way she says his name makes my neck hot.
“There's nothing more to say,” I object.
Paige glances toward the back hall, drops her voice. “Wren. Whisper it. Just to me.”
I open my mouth. Close it.
I should not say it out loud. I should pretend I have my act together for one more shift, and then I can go home and put my face in a pillow and scream about it like an adult.
“He's—” My voice cracks. I drop to a whisper. “Paige, I cannot stop thinking about him.”
Her mouth falls open.
“I haven't slept. I tried. I lay there from eleven until almost three, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw his hands. He has thesehands, Paige, with these scars on his forearms that I'm trying really hard not to think about because it's none of my business, and he holds his monkey like the monkey is the last good thing left on earth, and his lionchose himand you can tell, you can just tell, the way an animal looks at a person when they've decided that's their person?—”
“Oh my god.”
“—and he flinches when people touch him, like really flinches, like it physically hurts him, and instead of letting me think it was about me, he saidit's not youtwice, Paige,twice, like he couldn't stand the idea of me walking out of that tent thinking it was about me, and what kind of a man does that?—”
“Wren—”
“—and he has theseeyes, like he's been sad his whole life and he doesn't know how to put it down, and he walked me to my car at a polite distance the entire way like he was afraid of accidentally brushing my arm and I—Paige, I have never in mylife?—”
“Wren.”
The voice isn't Paige's.
I freeze, clenching my coffee mug.
