Page 13 of Fundamentals in Flirting

In his arms was a wide-eyed and beautiful tortoiseshell cat.

“Like what? Is this your cat?”

“No! I don’t have a cat. It’s got a big bloody lump on its head, Hannah. I think it might be dying,” he whispered dramatically.

“Ok, well put her on the table and I’ll have a look,” I replied, barely repressing a tut at his overly theatrical assessment of things.

The cat was surprisingly calm and sat quietly while I performed a quick examination of her vital signs. There was a large sticky, weepy sore behind her ear, and a huge bulbous bubble of infection straining the skin.

“She’s got an abscess, likely from scrapping with another cat. She’s not dying, Teddy.”

“Oh thank God. Can you treat her?”

“Yes, but you’ll have to help me by holding her,” I replied, putting on some gloves and gathering swabs and warm water in a stainless steel kidney-shaped bowl.

Teddy stepped forwards and gingerly put his hands around the cat’s middle.

“She’s probably not going to like this so, you know, hang on, ok?” Our faces were quite close together as we both leant over the examination table and near to the cat.

“Ok,” he whispered.

His blue eyes were stormy with worry, his stance rigid and tense, while my own body was bamboozled, yet again, by his intoxicating maleness and charisma, which was hitting me like a sledgehammer to the chest.

Concentrating all my effort on the cat and blocking Teddy out for a moment, I started to ease the oozing scab from the lump behind the cat’s ear with a dampened swab, unmatting the sticky fur and looking for the entry wound. Suddenly the abscess ruptured like a mini volcano, the pressure of the infection exploding upwards in a thin jet, and I quickly whipped my head away to avoid being hit in the face by this impressive pus fountain.

“Holy-mother-of-all-that-is-shitting-well-holy!” Teddy yelled, leaping backwards and dropping his hold on the cat. “What the actual fuck even is that?!”

His pallor was a little green, even beneath the layer of dust, while the cat decided to make a break for it, yellowy pus and blood oozing like a river down her neck.

“Bloody hell, Teddy! You had one job – hold the cat!” I reached under the table and retrieved the unimpressed feline, placing her back on the rubberised surface.

“What is that smell?” he whispered, his eyes tightly shut, body bent double, leaning against the wall in the corner, hands on his knees. He made a faint gurgling, groaning sound.

“It’s the infection – sometimes they get a bit whiffy. Ted, can you come back over here and help me, please?”

“I’m sorry, but I feel a bit unwell, Hannah.”

“Don’t you chuffing well faint on me. Get over here and hold the sodding cat,” I ordered sternly. I wondered if I should call Betsy and get her to come back in, even though she’d probably already be halfway across town by now.

His eyes snapped open, comically wide, and he shakily walked over to the table again, putting his hands back around the cat but purposefully looking at the ceiling. He was breathing unsteadily, his lips moving silently. Was he counting?

“What are you doing?”

“Calculus in my head. It helps to keep me calm.”

“Who’s the geek now?” I muttered under my breath as I worked quickly to tidy up the wound and extricate as much pus as possible before flushing it with sterile saline and administering some pain relief to make her feel better.

“I’ll grab some antibiotics. You’ll need to give them to her every day and try and keep the wound open and clean so it drains,” I said, typing into the computer and printing out a label.

“I have to do what? Can’t you just keep her here, in the hospital, and do it?” he replied, horrified.

“Not really. It’s not life threatening, Teddy.”

“Can’t you have her? I’m just not great with animals. Or blood. Or large amounts of oozing gunky shit. Or smells.”

I considered him steadily. “Let’s see if she’s got a microchip. We might be able to find her owner and reunite them.”

“Yes! Yes, let’s do that!” Teddy was still gripping the cat quite tightly and she let out a little protesting yowl. But when the microchip reader didn’t pick up anything, we both slumped our shoulders in disappointment.

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