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“Are Shane, Elliot and Brooke here already?”

Abby nods. “They’re all busy with consults, but most of these people are here for you, Dr King.” My brows furrow, and I look around the waiting room. It’s mostly women, and at least a third of them don’t even have a pet, or an animal, with them. But they absolutely know who I am because they all smile and start whispering amongst themselves. It’s one giant red flag. And if I’m right, I think I know exactly what’s happened. I turn to Abby. “Have you looked at the hospital’s social media accounts? Instagram in particular.”

She frowns, and I understand her confusion because she’s not usually responsible for that stuff. “No, but I can check quickly?”

I deliberate what to do, knowing if I turn anyone away, they may think I’m an asshole, even if they’re not here with a pet. “Okay, here’s what we need to do…”

Four hours later, we’ve separated everyone into three groups: existing clients, new clients, and, surprise surprise, people who are looking to adopt, and wanted my professional opinion before they go to the Tarrytown Animal Shelter. I told Abby to focus on getting paperwork done for the new clients, and patiently ‘consulted’ with the women who wanted to adopt a pet. Though, if I’m totally honest, they made googley eyes at me more than they listened to what I had to say about whatever pet they were considering. I don’t often lose my patience, but this morning, I’m damn close, and even the doctors who work for me are fed up come lunch time. Fortunately, between the four of us, and Abby, we manage to thin out the crowd until all who’s left are existing clients, and they’re not too thrilled about the long wait. I have Abby close the doors, in case anyone else decides to show up.

“Fucking hell,” Shane mutters, rubbing his hands down his face. “What just happened?”

Elliot is just as worn out, and irritated, too. Brooke, the only other woman on staff, walks out of her consulting room, her phone in hand. She usually helps me with the social media stuff for the practice, and from her expression, it’s obvious she’s not happy. She looks up. “Mika, do you know a Dion Spencer?”

Ah fuck. “Yeah,” I sigh. “The fuck did she post this time?”

“Wait, is that the woman who ran down the street in a shirt, and her panties, chasing a bunny?” Elliot asks. “Because she seems hellbent on getting your attention, King.” Truth be told, Elliot doesn’t like me. Or the fact that I still have some kind of fame attached to my name. But I didn’t hire the bastard to like me. I hired him because he's brilliant at his job, and despite his ornery disposition, clients like him. The rest I honestly don’t care about.

“I saw that,” Abby says. “And I thought she’s hilarious, but if this morning’s clusterfuck is her doing, then she’s not hilarious anymore.”

“She’s the one who adopted that doe from Tarrytown, right?” Shane enquires. He’s the only other doctor here who volunteers at the shelter, and like me, is sometimes on call in case Josie needs something.

“That’ll be her,” I reply. “Brooke, what does her post say?”

She shakes her head, and then snorts, mumbling, “Oh, God,” from behind her hand. She glances at me, barely containing her laughter. “She didn’t only tag the practice, but your personal account and Josie’s account for the shelter. And a lot of people have seen it, Mika. She attached photos of you to the post.” I fear this might be the post I refused to look at the night before, and I could kick myself because maybe if I had, we could have avoided the shitstorm that was our morning. “Can you check if her previous post is still up?”

Brooke scrolls on her phone. “It’s only the video of her running down the street, and an actual Instagram post.”

“Oh,” Abby pipes up, “she did a live, something about entrapment, I think, but it was a live video, so that goes to your Instagram stories and disappears after twenty-four hours.”

I grimace. That explains why she said make me when I asked her to take the damn thing down. And I’m willing to bet she had a good laugh at my expense knowing I had no idea the post would disappear on its own.

“Ugh, I can’t be bothered with this shit right now,” Elliot says. “I’m going to lunch. Shane, you want to come with me?”

“Is the post defamatory, slanderous or libelous in any way?” Shane asks Brooke, who shakes her head. His concern is the same as mine. “Fine, then I’m going with Elliot.” He looks at me. “You going to handle this?” Meaning, will I make sure the shelter, more than the practice and me personally, isn’t affected by this in a negative way. “I’ve got it.” He follows Elliot out the back, leaving me with Abby and Brooke.

“Okay,” I exhale, “I’m going to check this out in my office, so if you want to take lunch too, that’s fine.”

I’m walking away before they can tell me what they want to do. Knowing them, they’ll sit behind the reception desk, and read the post, look at the photos, and look at the comments — I know the drill, women gossip.

But I still need to check it out for myself. Dropping into my office chair, I take my phone from my coat pocket, and grumble something like “for fuck’s sake” when I see all the notifications. And it’s not only Instagram that’s blown up, there are a few news articles from blogs in New Zealand that also clutter my screen. Reluctantly, I go to the source of all this chaos, and open Instagram, going straight to Dion’s account. She did, in fact, tag my practice, and the shelter, but my personal account too, which mostly has pictures of when I still played rugby. There are a few pictures of me with Dad, and me with Mum and Nyree, and some with my now former teammates. That’s a whole other can of worms I’m not going to open because I can see they’ve already tried to contact me. Jesus. If Dion knew the ramifications of what she’d done — mind you, what I know of her, and what I’ve seen, she probably doesn’t care. And judging by her post, I’m not wrong, either. I start reading, and almost choke on my tongue.

“Don’t look, actually, you might get pregnant doing that.” It’s a compliment, but what the… It gets worse. “Doggo needs shots? I’m sure Dr King isn’t shooting blanks.” Looking down at my crotch happens unconsciously, I can’t help it — my equipment happens to be in perfect working order, even if it hasn’t been used in a while, so I’m absolutely not shooting blanks. But what possessed her to mention that? Damnit. “He’s single and ready to mingle?” Really? She also mentions where I can be found, and that’s when finding any humor in her post flies out the window. Telling people where to find the hospital is one thing, but giving my location just pisses me off because she’s tagged my personal account, and I’ve already had one stalker, I don’t need any more finding out where I work. The next step will be giving the whole fucking world my address. The rest of the post pays homage to my good looks — like I care — and does give the shelter a shout-out, so there’s that. But it also explains why I had someone come in with a stuffed animal, and not of the taxidermied variety, just so they could see me, and another person who came in to ask me on a date. That one I blame on the “He’s single and ready to mingle with your sick fur-babies. I checked — there’s no Mrs. Dr King,” part of Dion’s little diatribe about yours truly. I take a quick look at the pictures, worried that she might have found one on the internet of me with Aroha. I don’t post pictures of her and I, but we have been photographed by journalists before. It’s just old rugby photos though, and one or two of me at the shelter. It’s obvious she went on a fishing expedition online to find images, but at least they’re not questionable. Either way, I want her to take it down, so I open the DMs, and type out: I’m not kidding, Dion. Take it down. I’m starting to lose my patience with you. I hit send, close the app, and decide I’m done for the day. After hanging up my coat, I grab my things, and let Brooke and Abby know we can all take a half-day. Nyree would have fetched Aroha from school by now and taken her home. An afternoon with my daughter sounds great after this hellish day. I’m a fool for thinking it’s over though because as soon as I get home, Nyree rushes to me, and shows me an article on one of New Zealand’s most popular sports sites.

“You’re everywhere, Mikaere. Is this because of that woman on Instagram? Do I need to kick her ass?” It’s rare that Nyree gets angry, but she’s fuming.

“No, I’ll handle it, Ny. Don’t worry,” I sigh, exhausted.

“But they found out where you live, and where you work. You’re still a freakin’ public figure, maybe you should reach out to Nina and —”

I shake my head. “No, that won’t be necessary.” Nina is the publicist for the All Blacks, and she still hates my guts after we fooled around, and I ended it before we got caught. “If this becomes that kind of problem, she’ll either let me know, or have someone else do it. Until then, just be careful when you take Aroha to school, and if you go out, yeah? The last thing I want is for you to be followed by some fuckwit looking for an easy payday by selling photos of you, and Aroha. Layla still doesn’t know exactly where we live, and I’m worried she’ll find out and show up.” I look around the living room. “Where’s Aroha?”

“Playing upstairs,” Nyree replies, still frowning.

“Kaua e manukanuka ki taua mea.” Don’t worry about it. We don’t speak Māori often, and when we do, it’s so that Aroha won’t understand what we’re saying. “It’ll blow over.”

It doesn’t. Dion ignores my message and carries on putting shit on Instagram. Wednesday is worse, and so is Thursday.

And by Friday, I’m fed-the-fuck-up because she puts a post up telling people the veterinary hospital has a “Get two for the price of one” special on bags of dog food, and vaccines. The cherry on top of that clusterfuck is that she also tells everyone we’re cleaning anal glands for free.

Just fuck my life.