Page 7 of Most Eligible Billionaire

Animal control? It?

The son’s blue eyes sparkle with humor, as if the security guard’s threats are mere clownish whispers in a world constructed for him and him alone.

He addresses the assembled staff as a group. “Do you all understand who this is?”

It’s Smuckers, biotches!I think.

The complaining nurse folds her arms. “I don’t care. This is a pet-free facility.”

I rivet my attention to the son. I didn’t like him when he was turning his hard-ass Blue Magnum gaze on me, but now his asshole power is on my side, or at least Smuckers’s side.

“This is Bernadette Locke, head of the Locke Foundation, the entity that funded this wing, the medical teaching and research facility on the other side of that skyway, and probably your paychecks.”

I straighten.What?

More people come into the room, among them, a woman who seems to be some kind of administrator. “Henry Locke,” she says, grasping his hand. She apologizes for the mix-up, uttering words of empathy, admiration, gratitude. If he had a ring, she’d kiss it. She’d make out with it.

“…and ofcourseMrs. Locke can have her dog stay with her as long as she pleases,” she continues. “With our sincerest apologies—we had no idea that the swing shift was not informed…” She mumbles on, all excuses.

“Thanks,” I say. “It means a lot.”

They all look at me, likeyou’restill here?

The son points at me. “You. Out.”

“Wait. I promised Bernadette—I promised her I’d care for Smuckers. She asked me specifically to care for him, you know, when…”

He huffs out an exasperated breath and holds out his hand. “Card.”

I grab my wallet, and hand over my Etsy business card, quickly drawing away from the brush of his hand, the sizzle of his orbit.

The card has a photo of a tough-looking German shepherd wearing a pink-sequined bow tie.

He scowls down at it for a long time. Really scowls.

I’m imagining that he’s thinking of all the things he’d do if somebody tried to put a bow tie dog collar on him. And I’m guessing none of his scenarios end with the bow tie dog collar being in any way recognizable as a bow tie dog collar.

“She wants to know Smuckers has a home and—”

“I comprehend the meaning ofcare for Smuckers,” he says. “We’ll send Smuckers in a car.”

A car. That’s how Mrs. Locke would always say it. Send a car. I thought she meant an Uber or a cab all this time.

But it comes to me, standing there, that Bernadette Locke belongs in an entirely different world than I belong to, and that in her world acaris alimo.

Two

Two Weeks Later

Vicky

I almost don’t answerthe buzzer. I’m not expecting anyone. And who just shows up and buzzes? A drunk or a freak, that’s who.

My sister, Carly, is busy fulfilling her duty as a sixteen-year-old girl to make us late due to hair styling operations that are more complex than a Space-X mission.

The buzzer sounds again and again. Smuckers barks.

I pick him up. “Shhh!” We’re not technically supposed to have dogs in the building.

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