Lauren said, “I’ve never done it in a closet before.”
“Me neither, actually. And Lauren, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine, don’t apologize. Do I look okay?”
She looked gorgeous. A little disheveled. He reached over and smoothed down her hair. He tugged her shirt back into place. “Your lipstick is smudgy.”
She hopped off the table. “My bag is in the office. Come with me.”
He followed her down a short hallway to an office. She pulled a purse from a drawer, produced a compact mirror and a couple of what looked like wet wipes. She tossed one at him. He saw it was an individually wrapped make-up wipe.
“You’ve got my lipstick smudged on your face,” she said, gesturing around her own lips.
He sighed and ran the wipe over his face as she fixed her lipstick. When she was done, she took the wipe from him, dabbed at a spot on his cheek, gave him a quick peck on the lips, and then ran her hands over his hair.
“Do I look passable?” he asked.
“You’ll do.” Lauren patted his shoulder. “All right. Let’s get back out there and pretend we still hate each other.”
Caleb laughed. “Don’t we?”
He couldn’t read her facial expression, but she managed to twist it into a smile. “Let’s go.”
He trailed her back into the main room, where the party was still in full swing without them. The blond woman who worked as the event organizer glared at Caleb, which seemed about right. Evan bent his head to talk to Lauren out of Caleb’s earshot.
He should probably just leave the party. Bow out before he gave anything away about what had just happened between him and Lauren in a closet. He did want to get to the bottom of whether or not Lauren was offended and dodging him or if she really didn’t care what he said. Maybe she actually liked it when he criticized her, which was kind of fucked up. Then again, he’d kind of started it with the whole fighting-with-you-turns-me-on thing.
He could wait for Lauren and try to talk her upstairs or back to his place, but that felt an awful lot like something a boyfriend would do.
He sought her out in the crowd. Now she was talking to someone Caleb didn’t know, laughing as if she’d just heard the funniest joke, and he knew she would be just fine here.
He turned to leave. On the way out, he paused near the woman handling adoption paperwork, who he thought might be named Yvette or Monique or something French. He said, “I’m Caleb Fitch. I’m one of the vets from next door.”
The woman smiled. “I know.” She pointed her pen at his T-shirt.
“Right. I just wanted…to let Lauren know I had to leave, but I think this is a great event. I hope it ends up being as successful as it looks.”
“We’ve found forever homes for four cats so far.”
“That’s great! Just, um, tell Lauren I had to go. I’ll see her soon. Okay?”
The woman gave him an odd look, but she said, “Okay. Have a good night. Dr. Fitch.”
Chapter 14
“I’m happy to report,” Paige said the next afternoon, “since it may have gotten lost in the alcoholic haze at the end of the party, that six cats were adopted. Trey from Pet Kind is bringing over five new cats this afternoon.”
The Cat Café staff was sitting in the cat room for a staff meeting-slash-postmortem on the event. They’d raised nearly $1,000 for shelters as well. Brian Randolph had made quite a significant contribution, which Lauren found curious.
Lauren nodded. “We did a great job, team. That was our best adoption event yet.”
“It was the alcohol,” said Monique.
“That’s cynical,” said Paige. “I mean, free drinks obviously got some people in the door, but it didn’t open their wallets or convince them to take a furry friend home.”
“Do we know anything about the new cats?” Lauren asked.
“Trey emailed me some stuff,” said Paige. “If I remember correctly, three are girls, two are boys. All are adults, but I don’t think any of them are older than four.”
