Page 50 of Animal Instincts
He’d stopped looking for the training jobs he’d craved.
He’d stopped looking at accommodation listings for rooms in shared houses.
He’d stopped looking at the clubs and bars he’d fantasised would be his second home when he arrived in London, Manchester, Bristol, York… Anywhere that wasn’t here. But wasn’t it here, wasn’t this little village that wasn’t quite so little or remote anymore, feeling more and more like it was exactly where he wanted to stay?
“Joss? Are you okay?”
“What? Yes, I’m fine. Just, erm, thinking about the admin.” He stared up at Oliver, standing in the doorway of the small office and holding two steaming mugs of tea.
“Forget about that for the moment.” Oliver set down the mugs, drew up a chair, and took Joss’ hands in his. “I want to talk to you, about the animal care qualification. You’re more than ready — you’ll fly through it. And I can help you. Not just with the training, but with the fees—”
“What? No—”
“Why not? That’s what a good employer would do, and I hope I’m that.” Oliver gave a wonky smile.
Joss gulped. Oliver was more than that, so much more…
“You’re a natural with this work, Joss, the way you are with both the animals and the owners, it’s incredible, and I want to give you all the support I can. Maybe further down the line you might want to look at training to be a veterinary nurse; it’s something to think about. But the first step’s the animal care qualification.
“Of course, it’d mean staying here and working alongside me for the year it takes to complete, which I hope wouldn’t be too much of a hardship,” Oliver said, with a light laugh. “I know you came here initially just to get some work experience under your belt, but things have changed…”
Oliver’s words faded as doubt shadowed his eyes, dulling their piercing grey. He leaned back, let go of Joss’ hands, and pushed his fingers through his hair.
“You’re not saying anything. I thought this was what you wanted, but…” Shaking his head, Oliver looked down into his lap. “Here’s me, rattling on when I should have been thinking. You made it clear from the start you had ambitions to move to a large city-based practice as soon as you could. I understand that, I honestly do. Why would you want to stay working part-time in a one man band set up? Forget I said anything.”
Oliver pushed his chair backwards, the sound of it like nails down a blackboard as it scraped on the tiles. He stood and turned; the movement, and the bleak devastation in Oliver’s face, hurtled Joss out of his stunned silence.
“No! Oliver, wait.” Joss jumped up, fast and clumsy, knocking over not only his chair but both cups of tea abandoned by Oliver on the desk. Smashing to the floor, the tea formed a small, steaming sea. “Oh, shit.”
Oliver swung around. “I’ll get a cloth.”
“Yes. No. No, wait. I’m sorry, and I’m not talking about the tea. Or not mostly.” Joss glanced down as the tea spread, the sea becoming an ocean around their feet.
“You’ve no need to say sorry, Joss. You don’t owe me an apology. What I was suggesting, it’s not what you want — your plans, you were clear about them from the start — and what do I do? Throw a spanner in the works, stomp in with my size tens, muddy the water. Pick an analogy, they all boil down to the same thing.” Oliver shrugged, and his mouth twisted in a downwards curve. “I was ignoring your ambitions, pushing them aside, and thinking about myself, about what I want—”
Joss stepped forward. The overturned chair, the mess on the floor, the smashed mugs, all of it forgotten.
They were so close, just a hair’s breadth away… All the doubt, all the disappointment, all the defeat etched deep into Oliver’s face. Joss wanted only to kiss it away until it all faded to nothing, as though it had never been.
“What plans?” Joss whispered. “They can change, you know? Sometimes they change without you noticing, and it takes somebody else to point it out and make you see. That’s what a friend said to me, and they’re right. But I didn’t know it, until now. So, if you really do want me to, to stay here—”
“Not just in the practice, Joss, never just that.”
“No, not just in the practice.”
Joss wound his arms around Oliver, as his heart wound around the warmth that pulsed in its very core. All those plans, they blew away on the breeze like the dried, dead leaves they were.
Listen to your heart…
Joss pressed hard into the man who in just a few short weeks had changed everything, their hearts beating in a harmony so perfect, so matched, it was as though they were one. Crushing his lips to Oliver’s, Joss’ eyes fluttered closed.
Listen to your heart…
TWENTY-NINE
“This is stunning.” Oliver grinned at Joss, before he turned back to look out over the sea and the high majestic cliffs stretching off into the distance.
The view wasn’t the only thing that was stunning, Joss thought, as he sat on the rough grass and gazed up at Oliver.
