Page 41 of Bodybuilders for the BBW

Garrett

I might’ve screwed everything else up, but I couldn’t afford to make a mistake now.

“Heading out!” I called to the shift supervisor. She looked up from where she was looking after a patient and nodded, turning back to the man seconds later.

“Getting your pup?” Helen was one of the veteran nurses on the floor. She’d been there to talk me off a ledge when I first started and still kept up on what was going on in my life.

“Yep.” I glanced at my watch, mentally calculating the time it would take to get to the shelter. I was supposed to leave fifteen minutes ago, but a guy going into cardiac arrest in the emergency department waiting room meant it was all hands on deck until he was stabilised. “But I’m running late.”

“Go.” She gave me a squeeze on the shoulder. “Take a bit of extra time if you need it.”

“Extra time…” I looked at the chaos raging around us. “Rhys is on dog sitting duty today. He’s taken the day off work to make sure Bronson is OK.”

“Well, take lots of photos. I wanna see this pup when you get back,” she said.

“Helen…!”

Someone wanted her to put a line in, I bet. The woman could find a tricky vein more surely than an ultrasound could.

“Duty calls,” she said, pointing at me while pulling away. “Photos, Pretty Boy, photos.”

At this point, I’d be lucky if I could get the shelter owners to sign Bronson over to me. I’d set up the adoption meeting in my lunch hour, an optimistic decision I regretted right about now. The sound of an ambulance siren had my head jerking up, but when I took off at a run, it wasn’t to meet the medics at the door. There was always something happening in the ED and there were plenty of nurses on the floor. It was go now or go never, so out the door I went.

“Didn’t think you were gonna make it,” Rhys said as I jumped out of my car.

We were both standing outside the animal shelter, but I couldn’t see hide or hair of Rhett. He’d disappeared before we even got up the morning after the big reveal, making sure none of us tried to talk further about what happened with Katie. The intention had been that we’d all meet the dog, see how he responded to all of us to ensure we all meshed. I guess that was off the table as well.

“There was…” I smiled and shook my head. “Emergencies, many, many emergencies.”

“Of course there was.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Well, let's go in and meet this pup.”

“You’re here to adopt Bronson?” the girl behind the counter asked. I nodded. “I’ll just go get him.”

I wanted to pace, try to walk off the restless energy that burned inside me right now, but I needed to be calm and contained to put the dog at ease. I’d read article after article about traumatised dogs, glad that there seemed to be at least a degree of overlap with the techniques to use with traumatised people. Trauma-informed practise was something we’d had to sit through many a training session about. Dogs were even more sensitive than human beings, reading your body language and responding to your energy. I blinked, seeing those white scars that criss-crossed Bronson’s body and found my hands balling into fists.

“You OK?”

Rhys’ face swam into view, helping bring me back to the waiting room.

“Bronson, he was hurt badly…”

I want to be immune to it, the second hand pain of seeing people, animals, hurt for no good reason. God knew I’d seen enough of it to get jaded. I never did. The hushed silence that fell over an examining room when a woman staggered in, wide eyed and staring, or a child was covered in bruises. The quietly terse conversations nurses had amongst ourselves, working out if we needed to contact the authorities.

I wasn’t, and I never would be. Cruelty… it was this completely needless, wasteful yet persistently shitty part of humanity, and when I saw that dog… I didn’t need a cat or a dog. I needed to help him.

“We need to make sure he adjusts to the change,” I told Rhys in urgent tones. “That he feels safe and…”

Whatever else I had to say was cut off as the door opened. Not to admit Bronson, but Rhett. He strode across the floor, boots slamming down on the lino floor, the lead and collar he’d bought for the dog gripped tightly.

“Wasn’t sure if you were coming,” I said, and that earned me a hard stare.

“Said I would.”

Rhett bit off every word, but we all turned at the sound of dog paws scrabbling across the floor.

“He’s a bit reluctant,” the handler said between gritted teeth. Bronson was digging his claws into the soft floor, lunging backwards so hard the chain of his collar was cutting into his throat. A small whine had me moving forward.

“Bronson…?”

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