I obsessed about it for an hour after I got home, still exhausted, yet too wired to sleep. I even sent him a lame ass text, giving him the address of The Haven and telling him, Just in case you change your mind. I’ll be there all day.
He never responded, but that wasn’t a surprise to me. Gavin is so closed off in his own world that I don’t think he bothers with societal conventions.
Pushing the wheelbarrow back into the supply room of the main kennel, I check my watch and see it’s only nine AM. It’s taken me just a little over an hour to feed all the dogs and cats. I make my way back through the kennel, making note that most of the dogs have left their runs because it’s nice and cool out. It should warm up a bit, which will make it perfect for me to start bathing them outside.
Heading over to the stable, I mentally go over the rest of the chores I need to do today. After I finish feeding the horses and clean out their stalls, I have to bathe the dogs, clean out the cats’ litter boxes, and re-stock the indoor supply room from the small shed that houses the bulk feed supply. Then Brody asked me to run a few errands, which should still give me plenty of time to get back for the evening feeding.
It’s a tough day of work, and I only do a full Saturday once a month, but it’s my pleasure to do so to give Alyssa and Brody some time together away from The Haven. They devote their entire life to their work here, so their Saturday’s off are well deserved.
Just as I finish cleaning out the stalls, I hear a vehicle pulling up behind the kennel. I decide to leave the horses out a bit to stretch their legs in the small paddock, and head out to see who it is.
Possibly Gavin?
As soon as I step outside of the stable, I see, with utter disappointment, that it’s Brody pulling up. Not that I’m not happy to see him, because, hello… it’s Brody, but because I had been hoping—in my heart of hearts—that Gavin would come and spend the day with me.
I wanted to get to know him better, because his dark allure was pulling at me hard. He also has me fascinated by this concept of how he views me, and I feel the burning need to make him see that I’m so much more.
Brody gets out of his car as I walk across the grass that is just starting to turn brown with the cooler weather. “What are you doing here?” I call out to him.
“Alyssa’s getting girlie shit done to her nails with Gabby and Casey, so thought I’d come hang out here today,” he says with a smile.
I follow him into the kennel and he heads for the office he and Alyssa share at the front of the building. “Come on, Brody. It’s your day off. You should be out having fun.”
“Yeah, like what?” he asks as he sits down at the desk and fires up the computer.
“Oh, I don’t know… get your brother and go surfing.”
“Yeah… sorry, but when it gets chilly enough you have to wear a wetsuit, I don’t go in the water anymore.”
“Wuss,” I tease him.
“Absolutely,” he affirms, clicking on the Outlook button to pull up his mail. “So what all still needs to be done today?”
“Most everything. I just got the animals fed and the stalls cleaned.”
He browses the emails for a moment, and then turns to me with a serious look. “Go ahead and clean the litter boxes and then run those errands for me. I’ll handle washing the dogs.”
“No freakin’ way, dude,” I tell him with a stern look. “I’m volunteering my precious time here, and you are not taking away the one fun thing I look forward to all week.”
Brody gives a bark of a laugh and stands up from the desk. Chucking me under the chin with his knuckles, he says, “Fair enough. Didn’t think I’d be able to pull that one over on you. Let’s go split the work, and then I’ll take you out to lunch before we run our errands.”
I follow Brody out of the office, back through the kennel, and out a side door that takes us to the cats’ building. “We need to stop by the feed supply store and pick up some probiotics,” I tell him. “That new lab mix, Nelly, has some loose stools.”
“Got it. And we need to hit the lumber supply store. I saw one of the fence posts on the paddock is cracked near the bottom. I think one of the horses kicked it.”
We start to work cleaning out the litter boxes, and yeah, I get sidetracked playing with the five new kittens that came in last week. It takes so little to amuse them, nothing more than the string from my hoodie that I wave in front of their fuzzy little faces.
“So, what was the deal with that English dude you were talking to at the bar last week? He said something that pissed you off.”