Page 96 of The Way We Score

“I can tell.” Dylan has a big smile as she walks backwards, her amber eyes holding mine. “You’re glowing.”

“Garrett Bradford, it really is you!”Aubrey Schiffer walks out of her small, glass cubicle to greet me at the front counter in the animal control office. “I heard you were joining the force.”

Once Liv was satisfied with her cinnamon rolls and sat down to catch up on lawyering, I decided I’d better check in with my own “job.”

Rodney called Aubrey when I was in his office, and she said to stop by when I was ready to start. Now seems as good a time as any.

She crosses her arms, looking up at me with a grin. “I haven’t seen you since you graduated high school. I thought you were the best-looking thing…”

My smile is tight. I guess it’s okay to be flattered. Even if Aubrey is my superior officer, she’s still five years younger than me.

“You were in what? Seventh grade?”

“How do you remember that?”

“I’m pretty good at math.”

Chuckling, she walks around the counter, waving for me to follow her. “Let’s go.”

We walk down a short hall to a sterile, linoleum-lined lunchroom. It’s empty, and the fluorescent lights bathe the space in pale green. Just inside the door is a closet with a lock, and I waitas she stretches out a string of keys from her hip and inserts a bright gold one into the slot.

“I’m pretty confident we don’t have a uniform that’ll fit you, but you can wear one of these vests.” The wire hangers make a scraping sound as she slides them across the metal bar.

The vest is black canvas withAnimal Control Agentin white across the shoulder blades and a patch that has the law enforcement seal of Alabama on the front chest.

“People really don’t care what you’re wearing when they have an animal control problem.” She leans in as if she’s telling me a secret. “They just want you to fix it. Stat.”

“I can believe that.”

Taking the vest, I pull it on. It’s roomy, which means it fits me fine. Aubrey, by contrast, is wearing a full khaki uniform with stripes on the arms and epaulets on the shoulders. She’s very official.

“We’ll start out doing the rounds together until you get the feel of things.” We leave the cafeteria, and I follow her back to the front desk. “After that, you can handle the smaller jobs on your own.”

“What kind of jobs are the smaller ones?” This is the part where I’m hoping for dog catcher.

“Oh, you know, the usual stuff, setting raccoon traps, retrieving squirrels from gutters, chasing skunks out from under porches.”

“Skunks?” I don’t like the sound of that.

“Don’t surprise them.” She stops abruptly, eyes wide. “Neversurprise a skunk.”

I almost laugh. “You’ve got experience with that?”

“Nope, but my dog does.” She shakes her head. “It took three cans of tomato juice before he stopped howling.”

Her phone starts to ring, and she leaves me standing at the front desk while she hustles into her office behind the glass. It has a plastic stack of shelves on one corner, and some papers are strewn across the blotter. Other than that, it’s pretty neat.

I rest an arm on the counter, thinking about how I left Liv this morning asleep in bed. She’s sleeping later now that I’m back, or at least that’s what her mom told me. I was only gone four days, but Ms. Plum said she was up at dawn every day taking care of that silly chicken, almost like it’s a soothing mechanism.

Ms. Plum likes to exaggerate things, but she’s on my side. I’m not questioning her account, and I know to treat Henny Lane like she’s a very special hen. Tracing my finger over the grain in the wood, I chuckle thinking about my serious lawyer lady so focused on a chicken.

“Looks like it’s your lucky day!” Aubrey emerges from her office, moving fast. “Or mine. Let’s go!”

“What’s up?”

“Your brother works with Gloria Fruit out at Second Chance Stables, doesn’t he?”

“Zane, yeah.” My chest tightens, and I hustle to follow her out to her old-school, brown and tan Chevy Suburban. “Something wrong with the horses?”

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