Page 10 of Before We're More Than Friends
Toby gave me the type of looks that parents gave their children when they suggested something obviously stupid.
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . .” When I looked around the room, pictures of volunteers and animals covered the walls. Pictures that included Toby, Kami, and me with whoever we were taking care of that day. Tears welled in the back of my eyes, and I took a step back to process. How many times could a guy cry in an animal shelter in a two-and-a-half-week time frame?
“Dallas.” Toby stopped the water and gave me a hug. He rubbed his hands along my back, the way my family did after I had a bad day. My lungs tightened inside my ribs. “I know.”
“Thank you.” A tear spilled onto his sleeve as I hugged him back. “I feel like I’m dying.” Toby was my only friend here, and I couldn’t imagine a life without him. We were the type of best friends who planned to attend the same college and live next door to each other with their families. But here we were, our plans knocked over like a dog bowl.
“It’s killing me too. If I could, I’d sneak into one of the moving boxes and show up at your new house in Nevada. I’msure I could put some food and water in there and put on a diaper, though cramping might be an issue.”
“It’d have to be a box meant for storing a dead body inside.” I laughed at the image of him stuffing himself in a big box like he was climbing into a coffin.
“You’re way more practical than I am.” Toby grinned before bringing in the cats who needed to be bathed. We had eight of them, and thankfully, seven of them were sleepy and hopefully wouldn’t give us a hard time. Simba, however, would be a challenge as he was running circles around his cage.
“If you were a cat, you’d be like that,” I told Toby, pointing to Simba. “He can’t contain himself.”
Toby gave a soft laugh. “Yeah, we’re saving him for last.” He brought out the scrubs for the cats. “Bring out the first one.”
I took the first one out—Pearl. I hadn’t met her yet. I rubbed her plush white fur and gave her a big smile. “Hello, Pearl, it’s nice to meet you.” I blinked at her three times. I’d heard that it was a way of telling a cat you loved them, but I couldn’t be sure.
She looked up at me with her big blue eyes and meowed.
“She’s adorable,” Toby said with a smile. “But stop going goo-goo over her and get her in the tub.”
I sighed and helped Pearl into the tub. She cooperated with me very well and seemed to enjoy her bath. Huge grins were on our faces the whole time.
We bathed the cats up until Simba, who kept running wild. Bracing myself, I picked him up from his cage, which was when he bit my hand. I winced and slowly lifted him into the water.
Toby grabbed the brush to clean him off, but Simba shot up and attacked Toby’s arm. Both of us screamed, and I dove forward to get Simba off Toby, which involved knocking over the bathtub and drenching all three of us and half of the room with water.
Toby let out a string of curses before we both fell out laughing, rolling onto the floor.
“What’s going on?” Kami walked into the room to see the ocean we’d created. Her mouth hit the floor. “What in the world?—”
“Simba wasn’t in the mood for a bath today,” I managed to choke out through laughs. “And he started to?—”
“Yeah, I can tell.” She nodded at Toby’s arm, which was covered in blood, before sighing. “Mom’s surprise party is in half an hour, and you can’t come looking like that.”
“No crap, Sherlock,” Toby said. “Get me a freaking first aid kit.”
She gave one more sigh and left the room without saying anything else. The two of us turned back to each other.
“Is it crazy that I’m going to miss disasters like this together?” Toby asked, holding Simba in his lap.
I wrapped my arm around him, which flung water in our faces. We shook our heads and laughed. “It would be crazynotto miss these moments,” I said. “They’ll be at the front of my mind when I’m not here.”
CHAPTER 4
Raina
PRESENT DAY
My least favorite thing about waiting rooms was that no matter how much they tried to capture your interest, they were still mind-numbingly boring. For crying out loud, no one wants to watch an old sitcom about bad moms or read an old magazine. Could they at least give us entertainment from the past five years?
I wouldn’t mind scrolling on my phone like everyone else if I hadn’t been on edge. My anxiety was out of control today, feeling the need to remind me every few seconds that people might be watching me fidget.
My anxiety was why I was here in the first place.
My phone buzzed in my hand, saving me from my anxious thoughts. I picked it up to see I’d gotten a new message on Connections, a chat app that had come out a few years ago.
