Lauren had clearly spent the last ten minutes working up a good amount of resentment toward him, and now she scowled and set her shoulders forward before marching into the exam room.
“Good luck,” said Rachel under her breath.
Back in the exam room, Caleb said, “She doesn’t need antibiotics. It’s a bladder stone. This one is pretty small and should pass on its own in a day or two and she’ll be back to normal. Try to make her drink as much water as possible. If you notice blood in her urine, bring her back and we’ll look into surgically removing the stone.”
“Surgery?”
“It’s a small stone, but it’s just big enough to block part of her urinary tract, which is why her symptoms read like a UTI. I doubt surgery is necessary. Give it a day or two, and if she’s not better, come back.”
But rather than thank Caleb for figuring out what was wrong with her cat, Lauren continued to glare at him. “Your bedside manner leaves something to be desired.”
He sighed. “What do you want from me? You marched in here and told me what you thought was wrong. I actually did the tests to find the problem. If I’d gone ahead and prescribed antibiotics without checking, she probably would have gotten better on her own, but you’d have to chase her around to shove a pill down her throat twice a day for no reason. I saved you from that. I’m the good guy here.”
“Are you this charming with everyone?”
He watched her pet Sunday for a moment. Sunday flopped onto her side and presented her belly to Lauren, who gasped.
“Did you shave my cat?”
“I had to for the ultrasound. Which is how I saw the bladder stone, by the way.”
Lauren grunted and rubbed the cat’s belly.
“Are you…mad I was right?”
“We’re not friends, you know.”
“Okay.”
“I mean, you don’t need to be this frank with me. We’re basically strangers, so you could be polite. The other vets here are far more friendly. Maybe you don’t realize the vet clinic and the Cat Café have kind of a symbiotic relationship.”
It felt like the moment when the sky suddenly got dark, minutes before the heavens opened and the thunderstorm began in earnest. Caleb spoke anyway.
“As you so aptly pointed out, I am new here, and I’m happy there’s a good relationship between the clinic and the café, but I’m also the actual veterinarian here, so I don’t need you to barge in here and tell me how to treat my patients. And I hate to point this out again, but if I’d just done what you’d said without actually examining the patient, I would have needlessly prescribed antibiotics.”
“Fine, but you don’t have to be rude about it.”
“I’m not, I’m…fine. Sorry. But still, you were arrogant enough to assume you knew what was best for your cat and tried to tell me what tests to run, so I’m not the only one who acted inappropriately here.”
Lauren scowled again. She picked up Sunday and bundled her back into the carrier. “I misjudged you.”
“How so?”
“First time we met, you were just this good-looking guy in my café who needed his morning coffee, and everyone who has met you so far says you’re this great guy, but good looks are no measure of character, and you, sir, are an arrogant prick.”
Caleb opened his mouth to respond but couldn’t come up with anything to say. She thought he was good looking. She also thought he was an arrogant prick. She was probably right on both counts, although he didn’t think he was arrogant so much as right.
“I apologize, I do,” he said. “But I try to be passionless when evaluating a patient. I can’t assume my knowledge of the animal is enough to make a diagnosis without doing a few tests to back up or refute what I think. And cats are cute and all, but I—”
“Let me guess. You’re a dog person.” Lauren rolled her eyes.
“I like cats fine, but if I had to pick one or the other to have as a pet, I’d rather have a big, friendly dog.”
Lauren snatched the cat carrier off the table as if his admission to being a dog person was the last straw. She probably lived in an apartment that had a huge cat condo in the living room with cats draped all over. He still found Lauren very attractive, but maybe he’d dodged a bullet.
He walked toward the door and opened it for her. As she stormed through it, he said, “I’m sorry if I was rude, but you have to admit you could have let me do my job.”
“Sure, fine. I shouldn’t have assumed.” The “I’m over this and you irritate me” was left unspoken. “I’ll see you later, Rach. And I’ll see you,” Lauren turned and pointed toward Caleb. “Much later, hopefully.” Then she turned on her heel and walked out of the clinic.
“You’ve got a way with the ladies,” said Rachel.
“But she… No, you know what? It doesn’t matter. Are there any appointments this afternoon?”
Rachel looked at the computer. “Nothing until seven.”
“Great. I’ve got some charts to finish up. I’ll be in the office. Holler if anyone comes in.”
“Is this like a schoolyard thing?”
Caleb paused on his way toward the back. “What?”
“Did you yank on her pigtails because you like her?”
“I’m a grown man.”
“Uh-huh.” Rachel turned back to the computer and smirked like she knew something Caleb didn’t.
Well, she could believe what she wanted. Caleb had no time for whatever flakey nonsense Lauren peddled in. Cats in cafés, and people coming to drink tea and pet them? What even was that?
He sighed and pushed through the door to the back part of the office. Okay, sure, he liked her, and he sure had enjoyed riling her up, but they clearly had nothing in common, and she would very likely never speak to him again. Right?
Chapter 4
“I hate him.”
Evan rolled his eyes. “You don’t.”
Lauren and Evan were at Pop, a bar on Whitman Street a few blocks from the Cat Café. It had become Lauren and Evan’s favorite bar in the short eight months or so it had been open, despite its absurdity. It was trying to be an upscale Manhattan cocktail bar, but this part of gentrified Brooklyn was all hipsters and young families and trust fund kids—more of a flannel-and-jeans crowd than a sparkly-cocktail-dress crowd. However, the martini page of the drink menu had twelve different options. Lauren was currently drinking something called a Deep Blue Sea, and she had no idea what was in it, but it was a blue martini garnished with a gummy shark, shoved onto the rim of the glass like an errant lemon wedge, and it tasted like cotton candy.
“I do hate Caleb,” said Lauren. “He’s such a smarmy know-it-all.”
“I hate to even point this out, but he is a veterinarian. He does know a lot.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, girl, always yours, but you doth protest too much.”
“He’s a dog person.”
Evan laughed and then covered his mouth, probably realizing Lauren didn’t find this funny. Lauren glared at him and sipped her martini.
“So you’re telling me,” Evan said, “that this isn’t some, like, love-slash-hate thing like in the movies, where you fight but only because you’re secretly into each other? Like, uh, Heath Ledger and Julia Stiles in 10 Things I Hate About You? Or Moira Kelly and…that guy in The Cutting Edge. Or Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds in The Proposal. Or Moonlighting. Or—”
“I get it.” Lauren rolled her eyes. “And please. The world doesn’t work that way.”
“I dunno. When I was twelve, I picked fights with this boy Tommy because I was madly in love with him and didn’t know what to do.”
“See, that’s a dick move. You probably traumatized him.”
“Nope.” Evan plucked a strawberry from the rim of his glass and popped it in his mouth with a grin. “What I did was exchange blo
w jobs with him in the locker room after gym class in tenth grade.”
“Men are the worst.”
“What? He wasn’t traumatized. He had a crush on me, too.”
“I just mean, you think sex fixes everything.”
Evan picked up the bar menu and started perusing the appetizers. He raised an eyebrow at Lauren. “Ah, I see what has you all riled up. He frustrates you. You say you hate him. But you still want to bang him.”
Lauren sighed and looked around for the waitress so she could order another martini.
“I mean, I get it,” said Evan. “He’s foxy.”
“He’s not… That’s not what I…”
Evan just grinned.
Okay, Lauren was attracted to Caleb, and he was quite foxy, but she was not in the habit of sleeping with people she found annoying—or sleeping with anybody, really, since it had been awhile—and it seemed like a bad idea to bang the guy who worked next door. They didn’t exactly work together, but if things went wrong, which they totally would, she’d still have to see him.
Of course, he seemed to be avoiding her. He hadn’t stopped in for coffee since that first day. He probably didn’t have much fondness for her, either.
Whatever, it didn’t matter. Caleb was an infuriating man. If Lauren slept with anyone, it would be with someone with whom she got along, someone she had mutual respect with.
Evan pursed his lips and gazed at the menu. “I want something salty. You want to share a bowl of their homemade potato chips?”
“Sure.” But before Evan could flag down the waitress, she said, “You know, you’re one to talk.”
Evan scoffed. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“If sex fixes everything, then why are you here with me and not with Pablo the barista?”
Evan shrugged. “I’m playing the long game. He did get a job at the bookstore, so I guess I’ll have to catch up on my reading.”
“Right.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
Evan successfully got the waitress’s attention, and after they ordered several appetizers and Lauren ordered two more martinis because happy hour was almost over, Evan said, “This doesn’t have anything to do with Derek, does it?”
“Oh, for the love of—”
“I’m sorry, just the timing. I know you don’t want to get back together with Derek, but his wedding photos have been all over my social media feeds, too, and I know that can’t be easy.”
“No, it has nothing to do with Derek. Well, not directly. I mean, yeah, seeing him all happy with his new wife is not exactly filling me with warm fuzzies, but that’s not it. I’ve made a decision.”
“Yeah?”
“Derek was… I mean, he’s a great guy, but being with him didn’t really make me happy, nor did the stupid rebound fling with Jason the Math Tutor. You know what I’ve decided? To find what makes me happy. Working at the café makes me happy. Rescuing cats makes me happy. Spending time with my friends makes me happy.” She reached over and gave Evan a soft punch on the shoulder. “Even when they irritate me. So I’ve decided rather than pursue some relationship just for kicks and sexual gratification, especially with a guy I hate, who probably thinks I’m an idiot, I’m going to focus on the things that make me happy. I want to build a fulfilling life. If I happen to meet a nice man, great, but if not, that’s okay, too. As long as I’m happy.”
“All right.”
“You think that’s stupid, don’t you?”
Evan shook his head. “I mean, you do you. I want you to be happy, too. But I couldn’t go that long without sex.”
“Are men lining up outside your apartment while you’re playing the long game with Pablo, or…”
“Shut up.” Evan scowled at her for a moment. Then he said, “Oh, speaking of, I ran into that girl Jen who used to work at Star Café. The really tall ginger? She works at the wings place in the Atlantic Center now.”
“Sure, I remember her.”
“She told me the reason it closed is there’s some up-and-coming developer buying up buildings in the neighborhood and jacking up the rents. He thinks the proximity to the Barclays Center will bring in some big-money tenants.”
Lauren grimaced. “Right. Because what this part of Brooklyn needs is more banks and cell phone stores.”
“I know.”
“One of the best parts of Whitman Street is that it’s so cute and full of mom-and-pop stores. Did Jen know what the Star Café is going to become?”
“No, just that the new owner raised the rent well beyond what the café could afford. Should we place bets?”
“Chain coffee shop.”
“Fast-food restaurant.”
Lauren winced. “Ugh. What did that video store near your place become?”
“A chain fried chicken place. And the bodega at the end of my block became a Duane Reade.”
“That tracks.”
Evan sighed. “Your block is so gosh-darn cute that I’d hate to see it go big corporate.”
“I think you’d have to pry the building from Diane’s cold, dead hands.”
“I can’t see her selling, either, but stranger things have happened. Remember that guy, Charlie, I dated? He used to live off Flatbush Avenue, before we dated. When they built the Barclays Center, he had to move because of eminent domain. There was a little old lady in his building who refused to move and delayed construction.”
“Oh, yeah, I remember that.”
“If this real estate developer plans to buy up most of the block, he could want to put in a big-box store or a mall or something.”
“Bad enough that the meat market gym is across the street.”
“Don’t knock the meat market. If I had a few hundred dollars to blow on a gym membership every month, I’d be trying to pick up rich jocks there.”
Lauren laughed. “Well, let’s hope the Star Café is the only casualty.”
Evan raised his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
***
It felt like such a high school thing to do, but Caleb gave the Cat Café a wide berth as he walked by it on his way to work in the morning. He’d grabbed coffee from a little place he’d passed on the walk from his apartment. He could probably just buy a basic drip coffee maker for twenty bucks and put it in the shared office; it would make perfectly serviceable coffee. No need to frequent the Cat Café or see Lauren. Problem solved.
It wasn’t even that he didn’t like her. He was torn about whether he found her stubbornness irritating or charming; a little of both, probably. Really, though, she made him think of an old scene from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, with Ed Asner telling Mary she had spunk and Mary taking it as a compliment.
I hate spunk!
He said hello to Rachel on his way into the office, reflecting on the fact that, well, he did hate spunk. Maybe that was post-divorce Caleb talking, but after everything that had happened with Kara and their old practice, he had very little patience for nonsense. Kara’s nonsense had been covering up lies and betrayal, after all; for months, she’d pretended everything was fine when it hadn’t been. And now Lauren, while beautiful and sexy, was all nonsense.
An hour later, he was in Exam 1, finishing a chart after a patient had gone home, when a big yellow Lab mix wandered in. The dog sat at Caleb’s feet.
“Hi, buddy. Where are your people?”
Rachel ran in then. “Sorry, Dr. Fitch. He got away from me.”
“Is this your dog?”
“No. Dr. Francis took him in last night. Someone left him tied up outside with a note saying they couldn’t take care of him anymore.”
Caleb knelt beside the dog and pet his ears. The dog barked happily and licked Caleb’s face. Caleb laughed despite his sour mood. “Well, you seem friendly enough. Why would someone leave you?”
“It happens,�
�� said Rachel. “We get pets left here periodically, usually either by older people who don’t have the energy to look after them anymore or, more often, people moving into apartments that don’t allow pets. And because there aren’t really any other clinics in Brooklyn that are open all night; we get a lot of the abandoned pets here.”
“My old practice got a few. Mostly boxes of kittens people found on the street. Usually not big friendly dogs.” The dog licked Caleb’s face again and he laughed. “You house-trained, buddy? Wanna go for a walk?”
At the W-word, the dog perked up even more.
“The note said the dog’s name is Hank.”
“Hank?” Caleb asked the dog. He was rewarded with another face-lick. “Well, that’s a good sturdy name. Do we have any leashes? I can take him for a quick trip around the block.”
“Yeah, sure, there are a couple in the drawer at the reception desk. I’ll get you one.”
Caleb shrugged out of his white coat and returned to the reception area, where Rachel handed him a leash and a little container with biodegradable pet waste bags.
Hank was definitely house-trained. He acted like a dog who knew exactly what he was supposed to do, including barking at every other dog they passed on the street. Caleb was mystified about how anyone could abandon such a big, friendly dog. Hank was big for a Lab, sure, so he’d be a lot for a small apartment. But his tongue lolled out of his mouth, and he trotted around the block, pausing to do his business near a tree, and then resuming his happy gait.
When Caleb returned, Hank barked at the Cat Café. “Good boy,” Caleb said as he reached down to rub Hank’s ears.
Back inside the clinic, Caleb let Hank off the leash, and Hank flopped down in front of the reception desk.
“What’s the procedure for adopting animals?” Caleb asked.
“Well, we usually keep them here for a couple of days in the kennels in back, and we’ll put signs up out front saying we’ve got an animal for adoption, but if nobody takes the animal, we find a shelter. If it’s a cat, Lauren usually takes them, but for dogs and other pets, there’s a no-kill shelter in Park Slope we work with.”
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