A Vet Saved a Mafia Boss’s Dying German Shepherd at Midnight — Then Discovered the Owner Was the Boy Who Stole Her First Kiss and Vanished 14 Years Ago

Chapter 7

The next morning, Jen was in the clinic with Caesar when the front door chimed. The woman who walked in had long red hair, a teacup poodle with a pink-jeweled harness in her arms, and the energy of someone who had never once arrived anywhere quietly. All of this was manageable. What was less manageable was the dog, which was sparkling — in the literal, rhinestone-adjacent, throwing light in four directions sense of the word.

“Hi, I heard you’re the best vet in New York.” She beamed. “I’m Ruby Calveti, and this is Gucci, and she deserves only the best.”

Jen kept her expression professional and crouched slightly, her voice shifting to the warm, unhurried tone she used for nervous animals and their more nervous owners. “Hi, Miss Calveti.” A beat softer. “Hi, Gucci.”

Gucci sneezed immediately and appeared personally offended by it.

“Spring allergies,” Ruby announced. “Like me. Dogs take after their owners, right?”

Jen leaned close to the fur. The answer arrived before she’d finished the question. She straightened. “Miss Calveti. Did you spray perfume on her?”

Ruby leaned in. “I tried a new fragrance.”

“For you, or for the dog?”

Ruby considered this with genuine seriousness. “Yes.”

Jen worked through the coat next, fingers finding what she already suspected — glitter particles woven through the top coat, catching the light with complete indifference to the damage they were doing. “These are affecting her respiratory system. No perfume, no glitter.” She looked up. “Gucci needs a clean girl era.”

Ruby’s fingers drifted up to one of her diamond earrings — the ones that had absolutely no business being on a tracksuit but were there anyway. She nodded slowly. “Okay, clean girl. I can work with that.”

When the exam was done, Jen straightened. “By tomorrow the sneezing will be gone, eyes will be clear. But no perfume, no glitter. We have a deal?”

Ruby smiled. “Deal.” Then she stepped forward and wrapped both arms around Jen, fully and without warning. Jen’s hands came up slowly. She patted Ruby’s shoulder once, eyebrows somewhere near her hairline.

Ruby pulled back, still beaming. “Oh, I really like you. You know what? I just donated five million dollars to an animal welfare foundation.” She said it the way someone else might mention they’d tried a new coffee place. “I love animals. I also have two parakeets. Selena and Justin.” She winked. “We’re hosting a gala for the foundation next week. You should come.”

Jen’s hand came up in a small wave that meant not really my scene. “That kind of thing isn’t really—”

“I’m insisting.” Ruby’s shoulder lifted, easy and certain. “I’ll introduce you to everyone. Good for your practice. Good for you.” She tilted her head. “You’re a vet. You absolutely have to be there.”

Jen looked at her. There was genuinely no counterargument available. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?”

“Amazing.” Ruby blew a kiss, tucked Gucci under her arm, and walked out the door exactly the way she’d come in — like the room had been arranged specifically for her exit.

Jen was still standing in the middle of the clinic, looking at the door. Was that? Caesar looked up from the floor with the resigned expression of a dog who had also witnessed the whole thing and had no answers.

On Saturday afternoon, Jen pulled the door open to find Nick standing there in a gray sweatshirt and jeans, hands in his pockets — and she was wearing a gray sweatshirt and jeans, and the universe apparently had opinions. His eyes dropped to her sweatshirt, came back up to her face, and the corner of his mouth was already moving.

“Don’t.” She was already laughing.

He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek — something he had apparently decided was simply what they did now — but this time he stayed a breath longer than usual, his face close to hers, the warmth of him carrying that cologne she had already made the mistake of associating with him specifically. Jen’s heart did something she was choosing not to formally acknowledge.

“Come in.” She stepped back.

Cleo was in her usual corner, watching Nick with the unblinking focus of a border official who had not yet decided whether to let him through.

Across the street, in a car that had absolutely no reason to be there, Jerry had the binoculars pressed to his face. His whole vibe changed. “Sweatshirt. Jeans. Hands in his pockets.” He shook his head slowly. “I can’t call him boss right now. I physically cannot. I want to go over there and slap him on the back of the neck and say, ‘Hey, Nick. What’s up?'”

Tom was working through a donut with the focused patience of a man who had opinions about very few things. “You’re very into appearances, Jerry.”

“I’m observant.”

Upstairs, Jen was already talking as they climbed. “I was trying to figure out what to cook you, and then I thought — chicken pot pie.”

They both said it at the same time. “Cream sauce.”

Nick stopped on the second step. She turned, and they were eye level, which was unusual and slightly alarming, and he was smiling at her with a warmth that had nowhere to hide at this distance. “You remembered.”

“Of course I remembered.”

The apartment was small, and she had cleaned it so thoroughly that morning that even the corners had corners. But she was not going to tell him that. “It’s cozy.” He was looking around, and he meant it — she could tell he meant it, which was worse than if he’d been polite. He was taking in the bookshelves, the mismatched chairs, the little kitchen that smelled like pastry and butter and brown sugar. “This is what home feels like. I’ve missed this.”

“Your place is probably very impressive.”

“It’s impressive.” He set his jacket on the chair she’d left clear for exactly this reason. “But impressive and this — are not the same thing.”

They ate at the little table by the window. Outside, Brooklyn was being entirely itself — a siren somewhere, someone’s music bleeding up through the floor, the city going about its business with complete indifference to what was happening at their window. Nick took a bite, his eyes closed, and stayed like that for a moment, fork midway to the plate, like a man in the middle of a very private realization.

“Oh my god. This is better than I remembered.”

“I left out the celery.” She refilled his glass. “You’re allergic. Remember two thousand ten?”

Nick opened his eyes. “The emergency room. Your mother arrived and told mine that she had no business feeding you without a full medical disclosure.” He shook his head slowly. “I completely forgot. God. I’m sorry about her.”

“I was terrified of her.”

“For good reason. Most people are.” She picked up her glass. “She means well, in her way.”

“She loves you.”

Nick’s mouth curved aggressively. “Yes. I have to admit she’s obsessed with me.”

Later, he was talking about the early years in New York — arriving at eighteen, a company to run, no map for any of it. And Jen was listening. She was. But she was also cataloguing things she had no business cataloguing — the slight dimple on his right cheek, the way his hand moved through his hair when he was searching for a word, the way his voice dropped when he was saying something he actually meant. Fourteen years, she thought, and it’s still there. How is it still there?

He stopped mid-sentence. He was watching her. The room was warm and close, and Jen was on her feet before she’d made a conscious decision to be. “Dessert.” She said it a little too quickly. “We need dessert.”

She pulled the apple crumble out of the oven and set it on the counter. Nick straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the doorframe. “Oh, no. Is that apple crumble?”

“I absolutely.” She turned around with the oven mitts still on her hands. “Vanilla ice cream.”

“Do I look like someone who would make apple crumble without vanilla ice cream?” She was already reaching for the freezer. “Apple crumble without vanilla ice cream is like a Christmas tree with no lights. It still exists. But why?”

They both laughed, hard. He was standing right beside her now, close enough that their arms were touching, and she was scooping with the careful concentration of someone diffusing something. The scoop slipped. A cold ribbon of vanilla landed on her forearm. Her eyes dropped to her forearm. His did, too. Nick reached over, lifted her arm gently, and brought it toward him — and for a moment he just held it there, her arm in his hands, close enough that when he exhaled she could feel it against her skin.

Neither of them moved. The ice cream was melting, and nobody was doing anything about it. Then his eyes dropped to her forearm, and he ran his tongue slowly along the inside of it. Deliberate. Unhurried. All the way.

“Vanilla,” he barely whispered, his eyes not leaving hers.

Jen’s lips parted. Her pulse was somewhere in her throat. The scoop was still in her hand, and she had completely forgotten what it was for. Nick leaned in and drew her toward him, pressed a soft kiss to her lips — barely there, unhurried, like a question. Then he pulled her closer, and this time it was different. Certain. Decided. The serving spoon hit the counter, and neither of them noticed.

She wasn’t entirely sure how they ended up on the sofa. One moment the kitchen; the next, his hands were in her hair and she was in his lap and he was kissing her jaw, her neck, the soft place below her ear, his mouth warm and deliberate like he had nowhere else to be. His hand slid under the hem of her sweatshirt, warm against her skin — and Jen caught her breath and pulled back, just slightly, just enough.

He stopped immediately. Completely. His hands stilled where they were, and he waited, watching her face with an attention that felt more intimate than everything that had just happened. He whispered against her lips, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No.” Her voice was uneven in a way she couldn’t help. “We just—” She laughed a little, embarrassed in a way that felt oddly comfortable, like being embarrassed in front of someone who already knew everything about her. “That was really good. But I’m not— I think I need to—”

“Hey.” His hand moved to her hair, smoothing it back from her face. “I got carried away. I’m sorry.” His thumb traced her cheek, gentle. “We go at your pace. We can just watch the movie.”

For a moment neither of them moved. Her hand was against his chest without her quite knowing when it had gotten there. His heartbeat was fast under her palm. He was flushed and completely serious about this — no edge, no frustration, just this. And that was worse than everything else.

“Okay,” she exhaled. Her hand moved to his face and stayed there for a moment. “Thank you.”

He covered her hand with his. Then she climbed off his lap slowly.

Cleo appeared from nowhere, stepped between them with the calm authority of a building superintendent, and sat down. Then came the growl — low, pointed, and entirely directed at Nick.

Nick looked down at her. “Did I miss a background check?”

“You failed it.”

Nick nodded once, like he accepted the ruling. Then Cleo, apparently satisfied that order had been restored, turned in a tight circle and settled at Jen’s hip.

They watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower with their feet tucked under them and the apple crumble between them, mostly eaten. They’d seen it at least five times together the summer of 2012, and neither of them mentioned this. At some point he reached over and took her hand, and she let him, and neither of them commented on that either. When the tunnel scene came on, Jen glanced at him. “That was always your favorite.”

“Still is.” He didn’t look away from the screen.

“Why?”

He kept his eyes on the screen. “Because for a few seconds, they looked completely free.”

She leaned her head back against the cushion. When she glanced over, he was asleep — head slightly back, completely gone, with the defenselessness of someone who has only fallen asleep somewhere they feel safe. She sat watching him. This man, she thought, and stopped herself before she finished the sentence.

She got up carefully and found the spare blanket — the cotton one, the soft one, not the wool one — and pressed her lips together as she spread it over him. Then she settled back into the other end of the sofa, pulled the wool one over herself, and sat there with the city going on outside and him asleep beside her.

Since Milbrook, she’d never found this. Not his warmth. Not the laughing at the same things. Not the understanding that passed between them without either of them having to say it. Maybe it was unreasonable to look for all of that in one person. But then — what if you actually found it? What if you’d had it once, and then you’d seen it again, and now you couldn’t imagine letting it go?

She watched him sleep and didn’t have an answer. She wasn’t sure she needed one yet.