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Charlie pushes open the door of the vet clinic to find it in absolute chaos.
The normally quiet, calm waiting room, with its separate areas for cats and dogs, is alive with people and animals. In the ‘Dog Corner’, two people appear to be wrangling at least six huskies, all of whom are – in classic husky fashion – singing extensively about their sufferings.
Charlie inches apologetically around a man with an extremely tetchy cockatoo in a large cage, keeping a short lead on a very curious Daisy, and manages to find his way to the front desk.
“Er… Charlie Spring, here with Daisy Spring for a 3:15 appointment?” he says to the receptionist, whose normally bubbly demeanour has clearly taken several hits.
As she types something on her computer, a man with a vicious-looking chihuahua – its aura of molten rage barely confined by a small tartan handbag – pushes his way up to the desk.
“I’ve been here forty-five minutes,” he says tetchily. “Can you possibly tell me how much longer it’s going to be?”
“I’m very sorry, we’re extremely behind today—” the receptionist starts.
“Clearly,” the man interrupts sarcastically, for no material benefit, and Charlie cringes at the absolutely unnecessary spleen-venting rudeness.
“Yes, well, unfortunately all the vets had to spend an hour and a half working to save the life of a dog who was severely injured in a car accident,” the receptionist says, apparently deciding this mild leak of patient information is worth dousing Chihuahua Prat in pure liquid shame.
“Is the dog okay?” Charlie asks. Chihuahua Prat looks even more shamed.
“She will be, hopefully,” says the receptionist, turning back to Charlie and beaming. “But I do apologise, it’s going to be a long wait.”
“That’s okay,” Charlie says immediately. “Emergencies happen. I’d reschedule, but I’m a bit worried about Daisy’s paw, she’s been limping and whining.”
The Chihuahuarsehole has taken the opportunity to slink back to his seat, while the receptionist assures Charlie he was right to bring Daisy in.
A frazzled looking vet comes out with a clipboard and calls “James and Gary Barlow?” and a tall brown-haired man follows her with a fluffy half-grown cockapoo puppy, waving to another man holding a kelpie’s leash as he goes.
“It had to be a day when the sled team were booked in, too,” the receptionist sighs, looking out at the chaos. “Saturdays are always chaos to start off with, and someone brought in a bloody swan this morning, too – it’d got tangled in fishing line, nasty strangled foot – so we were already behind.”
“Well I hope the swan was better behaved than some of your clients,” Charlie laughs. “And I hope you’ve got a nice bottle of something waiting at the end of this.”
The receptionist laughs ruefully.
“Daisy’s pretty chill, right? Do you think your girl would be okay to sit in the cat section?” she asks. “I feel like we’re going to have a riot in the Dog Corner any minute.”
“Oh, yes, Daisy’s very calm,” Charlie says. “And I actually mean that, not like one of those owners who says ‘oh, he’s a big sweetie, just push him off if he gives you trouble’ while their Doberman slavers and growls. She’s actually a guide dog drop-out. Just not ambitious enough, apparently, were you, Dais?”
The receptionist laughs, and comes around to ruffle Daisy’s flouff, calling her a good girl and sneaking her a treat from their stash.
Charlie turns to Cat Corner – the section currently under the watch of the cockatoo. His brain automatically begins scanning for the best place to sit: facing the door, back corner, maximum space from other patrons, enough space to cross his long legs, good trash magazine access.
As it happens, there’s actually only one seat available, but Charlie’s brain takes a shockingly long time to inform him that it’s one pet carrier and a corner table away from the most beautiful man he’s ever seen.
Charlie freezes for a moment, but thankfully the man is looking out the window, and doesn’t see Charlie standing there like a complete twat, staring at him.
He forces his legs to move, manoeuvring himself and his very large golden retriever among the forest of legs and carriers, hoping Daisy doesn’t send anyone’s highly strung Siamese into a panic.
But as he approaches the corner, the beautiful man – all afternoon-sun-glinting-off-golden-hair and limpid-honey-brown-eyes-lit-like-amber and brawny-arms-that-could-lift-a-Volkswagon and shut up, brain – looks up at Charlie, and Charlie’s brain is suddenly wiped clean of all cogent thought.
The man is looking up at him like he’s been waiting for Charlie this whole time. Maybe he has, supplies Charlie’s idiot brain. Maybe he’s been sitting here waiting for you his whole life.
“Hi,” Charlie says, inanely.
“Hi,” says the man, smiling like it’s the best conversational gambit he’s ever heard.
“Um, is it okay that Daisy and I sit here?” Charlie gestures to the empty seat. Thankfully, it’s flanked by a stand of fancy vet-approved cat food, and this man is the only one they’re in immediate danger of bothering. “It’s actually the only empty chair in the place.”
The man’s eyes move down to dog-height, and if anything, light up more when he sees Daisy.
“Hello, Daisy,” he says to her, and she gives a polite low huff of greeting and sniffs his extended hand. “I mean, uh, yes, please, of course, sit down! T’Challa’s generally good with dogs. And if they get excited, I can turn the carrier around.”
He pats the top of the carrier, and Charlie squats down, to find his gaze met by two large yellow eyes in a cloud of darkness, and a purr that could drown out a power tool.
“T’Challa?” he says, smiling up at the beautiful man. “You named your cat after Black Panther?”
“You know Marvel?” the man says, slightly breathlessly.
“I’m pretty sure everyone knows Marvel these days,” Charlie says, thoroughly endeared.
“It was the compromise when we got a cat,” the man says. “I wanted to get a dog, she wanted a cat, so I got to name him.”
Ahhh. The beautiful man has a she.
“And, as it turns out, I got to keep him too, when she moved back to Guangzhou.”
The she departing a mere sentence after she arrived doesn’t cheer Charlie up as much as it should. After all, she’s still a she. And this man’s hardly wearing cuffed overalls, or a wolf cut, or sporting a single earring, or anything that might lead Charlie to suspect he’s chatting to a bisexual. In fact, the scuffed Vans, grey joggers, Adidas hoodie, catalogue-model haircut and total lack of any visible jewellery or frog tattoos screams ‘STRAIGHT BOY’ through a megaphone.
“Hi, T’Challa,” he says, to cover the crushing gay disappointment. “Aren’t you beautiful? What’s your superpower?”
“He could probably purr his way through a wall,” the man says. “I should have named him Vibranium.”
Okay, so it seems this gorgeous man is definitely a massive dork.
Charlie stands up and settles into the chair.
“I’m Nick, by the way,” says the gorgeous dork.
“Charlie,” Charlie smiles. “Looks like we’re going to be stuck here for a long while.”
“Yeah,” Nick says. He doesn’t sound too worried about it.
Daisy cautiously goes over to sniff T’Challa’s carrier. A single paw wriggles its way through the gap beside the carrier’s door and bats – claw-free, Charlie’s pleased to see – at her nose.
“So, what’s T’Challa in for today?” Charlie asks.
“Just getting his shots,” Nick smiles. “An annual torture. But he gets a tin of tuna at the end of it, so…”
“I wish I got treats for going to my appointments,” Charlie sighs.
“Right?” Nick says. “A mani-pedi for getting the car serviced. Maybe a cinnamon scroll per tax return.”
“Oh, don’t talk about cinnamon scrolls… I love cinnamon scrolls, and my favourite bakery closed down,” Charlie says mournfully.
“You mean the Soggy Bottom Boys on High Street?” Nick says. “Pfft. My cinnamon scrolls are better than theirs.”
“You bake?” Charlie says. He can actually hear the cartoon hearts where his eyes used to be.
“Yeah,” says Nick, a little… breathily? “I love baking. Cakes, bread, pastries. It’s a great way to unwind. Teaching can be stressful sometimes.”
“What do you teach?” Charlie says eagerly.
“Primary,” Nick says. “Year threes. They’re pretty cute, but it’s chaos, and the education system is more of a hindrance than an ally… and our last principal tried to make me take my bisexual flag out of my pencil mug, can you believe it?”
Charlie’s brain screeches to a halt like it’s run into a wall.
Bisexual.
Flag.
Charlie suddenly finds his gay panic is back in full force.
“He never,” he says, covering the fluster with outrage. “Is he trying to end up in the papers?”
“Thankfully he retired,” Nick says. “I’m sure his prize-winning dahlias won’t mind his homophobia too much.”
“Well, as a card-carrying gay, I forbid him to grow anything but grey flowers,” Charlie declares. “We gays have spiritual ownership of everything colourful.”
Is that a hint of a blush Charlie detects in Nick’s cheeks?
—
Nick’s just telling Charlie about the time he accidentally made mushroom gravy with sugar instead of flour, Charlie nearly in tears laughing, when someone calls ‘Nick and T’Challa Nelson?’, quite loudly and in a way that suggests it’s possibly not the first time it’s been shouted.
He’s been dimly aware of people coming and going around them, but when he looks up, Charlie finds not only a vet waiting with that look like their arms are definitely not crossed, but also, that the place is actually almost empty. The cockatoo is gone. The huskies are gone. The chihuahua has gone. There’s a single person in the Cat Corner with a large white rabbit in a carrier, and over in Dog Corner, a person with a Frenchie and a pug.
But surely they’ve only been here for five, maybe ten minutes?
Nick scrambles awkwardly and confusedly to get up as Charlie, looking at his phone, realises it’s actually been over an hour.
It must have been more than ten minutes, because he feels like he’s known Nick forever, Charlie realises as Nick picks up the cat carrier, lifting T’Challa away from a clearly disappointed Daisy. He’s heard about Nick’s mum, his arsehole brother, his lesbian besties, his flat, his ex, his inclusive rugby team and his glittery eyeshadow at Pride March. In return, Charlie has told Nick about his editing job, his friends, his own ex, his siblings, his slightly overbearing mother and, to his shock, his mental health challenges.
But now there the vet is, waiting for Nick to stop chatting so she can see his cat and no doubt go home to a hot bath and a stiff drink. Charlie’s little bubble has popped. Nick’s hurrying after the striding vet. He tries to wave to Charlie and say something, but before he can do much more than raise his fingers, he’s being ushered into a consult room.
The five minutes after Nick goes in are infinitely longer than the hour before them; Charlie’s hoping desperately that Nick might get out before he goes in himself, so he can screw up the courage to ask for Nick’s number. He fidgets with a magazine, checks his phone several times, and learns a lot more than he really needs to know about canned cat food, but there’s no sign of Nick when his own vet calls him in.
Daisy, as it turns out, has probably stepped on a bee.
“Or it could be a wasp,” the vet says, pointing at a large reddish dot just visible through her fur. “Classic localised swelling and red circle.”
“Oh my god, you ridiculous drama queen,” Charlie groans.
“She’s very healthy otherwise,” his vet says. “Good you brought her in, though. It could have been something more serious. Splinters can cause serious infections, and dogs can get their toes stuck in all kinds of things and break bones pulling them loose. You never know what they've been up to.” The vet draws a line around the red dot and tells Charlie to come back if the red area grows or if she seems to be getting worse.
“Maybe you can give her her shots a month early while I’m here,” Charlie says resignedly. “Might as well get something actually constructive done.”
Daisy smiles unrepentantly as the vet gives her the injections.
As they exit the consulting room, Charlie finds his eyes drawn like a magnet to Cat Corner, hoping formlessly that there might be a golden-haired stunner waiting for him with a cat carrier. But there isn’t. Instead, he pays at the front counter – cursing Daisy for being an expensive idiot – and smiles good-naturedly while the receptionist comes around for another fur-ruffle, even though his heart is broken and the love of his life has left, never to be seen again.
Except that, as he exits the second set of double doors to leave the clinic, Nick is waiting for him, a large black cat sitting on the pavement next to him, wearing a black fabric harness printed with colourful doughnuts. Nick’s got a mile-wide grin on his face.
“You’re— he’s— “ Charlie says articulately.
“We thought we’d wait for you to get out,” Nick says. “T’Challa prefers the leash to the carrier, so we came out here.”
Daisy, meanwhile is overjoyed, wagging her tail like a propeller.
“Gentle,” Charlie says, and gives her a bit more leash. She carefully walks over to sniff T’Challa, who sniffs her cautiously in return, and then places a paw on her nose. She whuffs and sits down.
“Oh my god, did your cat just tell my dog to ‘sit’?” Charlie laughs.
“Looks like,” Nick says, delighted. Then he gets an odd look in his eyes. “Um… This might be me, uh, barking up the wrong tree, but… would you maybe like to go on a date or something?”
“I’d love that, Nick,” Charlie says, feeling a little bit like his chest is full of sunbeams. “Maybe somewhere that’s pet-friendly?
“This is probably a bit much so feel free to say no, but my place is actually not even five minutes’ walk from here, and I made some fresh kouign-amann this morning. They’re not scrolls, but they are cinnamon flavoured, and I could make you a cup of tea? Or we could just go past mine and pick up the kouign-amann and go to the park?”
“I’d love a cup of tea,” Charlie says. “And if you’re planning on murdering me, I’m sure Daisy will defend me by voraciously licking your face.”
“I mean, if it goes well, maybe I could at least kidnap you for dinner and a Marvel movie?” Nick says.
“What a cruel and unusual torture,” Charlie grins as T’Challa leads the four of them down the street, away into happily ever after.