Chapter 1

1

“You care about him, Neil. You know you do,” Janet Logan said. She sat on her brother’s bed in the bedroom of the apartment Neil Logan shared with his good friend Jordan Dennison and watched him pack.

“I do. I do care about him—very much. But I just don’t feel the same way Jordan does about us,” Neil responded without looking at her.

“So, you’re just going to run off without tell—”

Exasperated with this conversation, he threw several pairs of socks into his suitcase. “I’m not running off!” Neil said in a voice bordering on a shout.

“What would you call it then?”

Neil took a steadying breath. “I’m leaving to take a summer position,” he said, his tone more under control.

“Okay, you’re leaving to take a summer position, but you’re not going to tell him how you feel?” Janet asked, looking at her brother, her expression disapproving.

Neil sighed. He made eye contact with his sister. “Yeah, I think it’s better this way. I like Jordan. He’s my best friend, and I don’t want to hurt him.”

“Tell me again—just how is leaving without his knowing you don’t feel the same way about him as he does about you such a great plan, and how that’s not going to hurt him?”

“Well, to begin with, I’ll be twelve hundred miles away. I think that with time Jordan’s feelings for me will cool, and both of us will just move on,” Neil said, trying to be patient with Janet as he folded a shirt and put it into his bag.

“You both will just move on?” Janet shook her head. “Y’all may have graduated magna cum laude from vet school, but you’re a flunk out in the school of life.”

Neil stopped packing and looked again at his sister. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he snapped, irritability overtaking his attempts at patience.

“Ever heard that absence makes the heart grow fonder?”

“Ugh,” Neil grunted, “that’s just some old proverb like…a stitch in time saves nine or…don’t count your chickens, blah, blah, blah. They don’t mean anything.”

“They’re based on truth. Besides, you’re only going to be gone for seven months. You guys have been together for more than six years. You really think seven months is long enough to erase feelings he’s developed in all the time you’ve spent together?”

Neil shrugged. He didn’t want to hear stuff like this, stuff that might undermine his determination to carry out his plan. He couldn’t see any other course of action. Why couldn’t she see this was the only way to keep from hurting Jordan? Why did she have to be so…so…reasonable?

“I still think it’s a rotten thing for you to do. Jordan’s a good guy. Y’all are gonna regret this.” Janet got up and walked to the bedroom door. “Call me when you’re ready to leave for the airport, and I’ll come over and ride along with you guys,” she said over her shoulder as she left the room.

Neil watched her go. He sat down on his bed and heaved a sigh.

Neil met Jordan at Texas A&M University where they were undergraduate pre-vet majors. Neil found the man to be witty, smart, and compatible in many ways. He also found Jordan to be very attractive. The attraction proved to be mutual, and they soon began a relationship that lasted for all of their four years in veterinary school and through their year of internship.

To Neil it was a wonderful friendship with benefits. Neil was not a player, and to be good friends with a handsome young man who met Neil’s physical needs as well, suited him just fine.

After finishing his year as an intern, Neil was going to stay in College Station for an extra year of postgraduate study in advanced equine science and then add an extra semester to get his hoof and leg specialist certificate. Jordan, a small animal major, had taken a job as a vet in a practice in Dallas.

That was when Neil began to realize Jordan had a different perspective on their relationship than he did. Out of the blue, Jordan had announced that he’d taken a job at a local veterinary hospital, so he and Neil could be together while Neil did his year of postgraduate study. Neil thought back to that afternoon. He remembered it very well. It was two weeks before they were to finish their year as interns.

Jordan was all excited as he burst through the door of their apartment. “Neil, I’ve got a surprise for you.”

Neil had looked up from his studying, “What’s that?”

“We won’t have to be separated when we finish our internships after all!”

“Jordan, what the hell are you talking about?” “You’ve got a vet job in Dallas and I’m staying here. I’m not planning on commuting. Are you?”

“No! I won’t have to commute. I decided not to take that job in Dallas. I saw an ad for a position in an animal hospital right here in College Station!”

“But I thought you said you’d exhausted the possibilities of a vet job here. There are too many vets in the area because of A&M vet school being so close.”

“You’re right, but they needed a vet tech. So I took the job!”

“What? A vet tech! Why would they hire you? You’re over-qualified.”

“I told them my mom needed me. I said that she was sick, and I needed to stay in town to care for her.”

“You’re mother lives in Wichita, and she’s not sick. What did you tell them that for? Jordan, you’re about to get your DVM. You’ll be a full-fledged veterinarian! Why would you lie just to take a job as a tech?” a bewildered Neil asked.