He Locked Me Out and Let Her In novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: Croissants for the Night Crew

Lydia walks into Eastside at 2 a.m. with her cat and a pastry box, offers Maddie her old Thursdays back for silence, and Dr. Garrick takes the cat himself; Lydia says she has already approved Maddie for Friday's dinner.

I went to work, because the rent was due and a dog with a swollen belly doesn't care about my love life.

Eastside Animal Hospital never closes.

I was a night tech there, five years in, and Dr. Reuben Garrick ran the floor after ten.

He was a big, quiet man with a beard going grey at the chin and reading glasses he kept losing on top of his own head.

At eleven he stopped me by the treatment table.

"The owner called me," he said. "About the complaint."

"I didn't follow anyone."

"I didn't ask." He pushed his glasses higher. "You're on my shift until she decides something. Nobody touches your schedule."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me, Donahue. Take bed four. He ate a sock."

That was all he said, and it was the nicest thing anyone had said to me since the door shut.

At two in the morning, the front doors slid open.

I was behind the reception counter, logging the sock.

A woman came in with a cat carrier and a white pastry box in her other hand.

Camel coat.

Dark bun.

My hands stopped on the keyboard.

"Hi, everyone," Lydia said, in a voice that carried across the whole waiting room.

There were five people waiting, and a man with a limp beagle on his lap.

"I brought croissants for the night crew," she said. "You people are saints."

She set the box on the counter and smiled at the receptionist, and the receptionist smiled back.

Then she turned to me.

"Maddie," she said, and her face softened.

"Daisy's due for her shots, and I wanted you to do them. Is that all right?"

"No," I said.

Her eyes went wide and hurt.

The man with the beagle looked up.

"Honey, I know it's a terrible night for you," Lydia said, gently, to the whole room. "I'm not here to fight. Can we step into an exam room for two minutes?"

Everybody was watching.

If I said no again, I would be the unreasonable one.

I knew exactly why she had come at two in the morning, with an audience and a box of croissants.

I led her into Exam Three and shut the door behind us.

She put the carrier on the table and opened it.

Daisy walked out and climbed straight into my arms.

"She loves you," Lydia said, still soft. "She always did. She talked about you for weeks after that night."

"The night I met Dean."

"Was that the night?" She tilted her head. "I forget."

The warm voice stayed the same, but her eyes didn't match it.

"Here's what's going to happen, honey," she said. "Dean is up for partner. The partners want a steady man with a steady girlfriend. You are the steadiest person I have ever met. Three years, and you never complained once."

I stared at her.

"You want me to go back."

"I want you to keep coming. Thursdays, and Sundays if you like. You'd keep everything you've had." Her smile didn't move. "Dean makes partner. You never mention a cat. I withdraw my complaint, and nobody at this hospital ever hears the word stalker again."

Daisy was purring against my chest.

I put her down in the carrier very gently, so I wouldn't take it out on her.

"You filed a complaint to make me say yes," I said.

"I filed a complaint because you filmed me in a hallway."

"You walked into his apartment."

"Honey," said Lydia, "I've been walking into that apartment for longer than you've known his last name."

The door opened.

Reuben stood in it with a chart in his hand.

I had not heard him knock, because he had not knocked.

"Ms. Stroud, is it?" he said. "I'm Dr. Garrick."

"Oh, thank goodness." She turned to him with a bright smile. "We were just catching up. Maddie's been such a good friend to my friend."

"She isn't assigned to this patient," Reuben said.

"She's the one who knows Daisy."

"That's why she isn't assigned," Reuben said. "She's got a pending complaint from you. So I'll see the cat myself."

He picked up the carrier with one hand.

Lydia looked at him for a long moment.

"Of course," she said. "You're the lead. Whatever is best for Daisy."

At the door, she touched my sleeve.

I stepped away, and her hand stayed in the air.

"There's a partners' dinner on Friday," she said, loud enough for the hall to hear. "Eight o'clock, a steakhouse on Randolph. I put your name on the list myself."

"I'm not going."

"Oh, you are."

She picked her purse up off the table and gave me a last, gentle look.

"I've already approved you," she said.

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