Page 85 of Coiled Tight

“Sounds good.”

“We also need to get them an appointment in person, anyway,” I mused. “I mean, I know they’re healthy, but neither of us is specialized in dogs, and they need to get their shots, too.”

Sofía had mentioned we could just order the vaccines and do it ourselves, but I refused to have my future children hateme from the get-go. They could have a standard dog life where they hated the vet, and they didn’t associate me with any of it.

“I know, darlin’.”

Daddy had been the one with the idea that we’d take care of them in-house. And like, look, if something happened to them, I wasn’t going to waste precious time driving them all the way to the vet or the nearest hospital. But regular stuff?

Nope. Not doing it.

There was a reason why I chose to specialize in big carnivores. One was that it frustrated me that there weren’t enough people treating them right. Another was that they didn’t depend on us humans to the point dogs and even cats did, all jokes about their independent status aside.

I got attached quickly. It was easier to cope with that attachment when taking them home was not even a possibility.

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Ugh.

Wasn’t breathing supposed to work?

I’d been at it for the past six minutes. I knew because I couldn’t take my eyes off the corner of my tablet. It was easier than completely focusing on the video call app I’d opened twenty minutes ago because I clearly had no chill and had woken up in a mood.

Daddy had already been out. At least I’d woken up awake enough to remember he was out because he started working at the dawn of time and there were no real days off for him. Kindof hypocritical if you asked me, but I was not thinking about that.

No, I was counting down the seconds to seven o’clock, when Kara would start the call, and my tablet would buzz with it, and I’d have to accept it, and words would get trapped in the back of my throat, because I had nothing to say, and it would just be a fucking mess.

Maybe she expected me to start the call instead.

Oh, shit.

Hadn’t we specified?

She usually let me know, but that was when we were close, and she knew I had panic attacks and got overwhelmed, and, and, and?—

“Fuck.”

Could I reschedule?

No.

No, rescheduling was bad. Real bad.

I’d already done enough bad when it came to her.

This wasn’t even…

I didn’t know what our… talk was going to be like. I didn’t know what Kara wanted to say, or what she wanted to hear, or…

I didn’t know anything.

Oh, fuck. I should’ve talked this through with Daddy more. Maybe rehearse a speech? Write down something I needed to say? It would have helped, but the few times we broached the topic, I just got downright depressed and beat myself up for how terrible I was, and no amount of cuddles or making out helped convince me otherwise.

So, avoidance it was.

And now it was too late to realize I’d made the wrong choice again.