Page 12 of Spiced!

“He’s very intelligent,” Sandra told me.

“The fish?” I asked.

“His name is Squishy.”

I looked at Squishy. He came to the edge of the container and stared back at me.

“He knows things,” she said.

“I’m sure he does,” I said, wondering if I should call for a psych eval on the owner.

I excused myself to grab a chart from my office desk. It was somewhere between Cracker’s second inappropriate word and Sandra’s fourth printed page about Squishy that Marcus appeared in my office doorway and said, in a considered tone that was unlike our affable front desk man, “Your brother is here.”

I looked up, my brows bunching. “Alan’s here?”

“He brought sandwiches,” Marcus said with a shrug.

Alan appeared behind Marcus holding a paper bag. He was twenty-eight, five inches shorter than me, and looked like he’d woken up that morning and decided today was a good day to involve himself in someone else’s business. He was also my best friend, which was the main reason I hadn’t changed the locks.

“I was in the area,” he said.

“You work on Harbour Island,” I said.

“It’s very close.”

“It’s twenty minutes.”

“Only with traffic. Besides, I had a break.” He set the bag on my desk and slumped into the chair across from it with the settled confidence of someone intending to stay. “Oh, and Marcus texted me.”

“Marcus texted you?” I asked flatly, then shot Marcus a glare. Ever the chicken among hawks, he adjusted a pen on the corner of my desk to a precise ninety-degree angle, shot through the doorway, and disappeared.

“He said you had a granola bar for breakfast. He was concerned.” Alan opened the bag and produced two sandwiches. “He’s a good person, your Marcus.”

“Marcus is supposed to manage the front desk, not my diet.”

“Marcus manages the front desk and apparently also you, which is a lot to ask for one salary. You should give the guy a raise.” He pushed a sandwich across the desk. “Now, stop grousing and eat. Tell me about your weekend.”

“I’m not grousing. I’m reviewing charts.”

“The charts will be there after you finish your sandwich.” He unwrapped his own and took a bite. “Did you do anything? Go anywhere? Exist outside this building for any portion of the forty-eight hours between Friday evening and this morning?”

I picked up the sandwich. “I went somewhere Saturday.”

Alan went very still, staring, unmoving, the same way I would with a frightened animal on their first visit to my exam room.

“I went to a bar,” I said. “In Ybor. Peter mentioned it at a work thing a while back.”

“Peter, the vet surgeon Peter?”

“Yes.”

“The same weird Peter who says approximately twelve words a week? That Peter recommended a bar? Where actual people go? To socialize and talk and drink?”

I cocked my head in the “fuck off” way brothers do. “Peter’s not that bad. Apparently, he’s dating one of the guys who works there. They might be married now. I’m not sure.”

Alan nearly dropped his sandwich. “Dear God. Peter is dating an actual human. What’s this world come to?”

“Alan, come on.”