Josh knew he was a sucker. He pet Mr. Knightley’s head. “I will consider it.”
Chapter 8
The Cat Café was starting to feel as familiar to Josh as the law student bar he’d hung out at in DC. He walked in Friday night to meet Paige so that she could go with him to a nearby pet store to buy everything he needed for Mr. Knightley. He found her in the cat room doing something on her laptop.
“Hi,” she said when he walked in. She smiled brightly. “I’m just finishing up the schedule, I’ll be right with you. Have a seat.”
“Okay.” He sat beside her at the table. A little calico cat lay next to Paige’s laptop and looked at Josh as though he were not to be trusted. Josh reached over and pet the cat.
He looked around. He didn’t see Lauren, but Monique was at the counter helping customers, and a guy with tattoos on both arms that Josh did not recognize wiped down the unoccupied tables.
“Are you closing tonight?” Josh asked.
“No. Monique and Victor can do it. We’re trying a new thing where we stay open later on Fridays, but we haven’t been advertising well, so, as you see, it’s not exactly bustling. Lauren said it’s fine for me to go, and she’s right upstairs if these guys need help.”
The tattooed guy—Victor, he presumed—went back to the front of the café, effectively leaving Josh and Paige alone. Paige was looking at her laptop, so she didn’t see Josh move toward her, cup her cheek, lean close, and kiss her. He lingered there, tasting her, letting her taste him. If he could kiss her all day, all the time, he’d die a happy man.
When he pulled back, she smiled at him. “What was that for?”
“You’re pretty.”
She giggled. “Okay. Now leave me alone for three minutes so I can finish this.”
Josh sat back in his chair and surveyed the room. A couple of the cats were snuggled up with each other on one of the sofas. One of them hopped onto one of the nearby tables and stared at Josh for a second before beginning to groom itself. And the chubby one—Sadie, the café’s permanent resident—sashayed over to Josh with her tail in the air.
“I’ve never seen cats strut around with their tails up straight like that.”
Paige looked up. “Oh, yeah. Sadie does that all the time. I saw a documentary about cat behavior that kind of explained it. Apparently, in feral colonies, cats do that when they approach each other in a friendly way. It’s a way of showing they come in peace. I don’t know if that’s true of Sadie. She’s not exactly the brightest bulb. But I like to think she walks around wanting to be friends with everyone.”
Sadie walked over and sniffed Josh’s shoes before rubbing against his leg. He bent down to pet her and she arched up into his hand. She immediately started purring like a freight train. Then something must have caught her attention across the room because she took off running.
“Cats are so weird.”
“Sadie’s a bit of an oddball, but she’s very sweet.” Paige closed her laptop. “Okay. Schedule’s done. I’m just gonna grab my bag from the back and we can go.”
As Paige walked into the backroom, Josh stood and tried to picture what having one of these little guys in his house was going to be like. Most of the cats in the room were sleeping, although a little black and white cat was going to town on a toy mouse with a neon green feather for a tail.
Paige returned with a smile. It made her whole face light up. She casually draped her bag over her shoulder and held out her hand, so Josh took it and led her out of the café.
“The big pet store two blocks away should have everything you need,” she said.
“Yeah. I found it on the map before I walked over here. Is it really across the street from a prison?”
“Well not exactlyacrossthe street. More like kitty-corner.”
Josh laughed. “Downtown Brooklyn is a strange place.”
Paige pulled her phone out of her pocket and tapped the screen as they walked. “Look, I made you a list of everything you need.” She handed Josh the phone.
It was a lengthy list. Josh marveled again at Paige’s type-A tendencies. “Wow, thanks. This is quite a lot of stuff.”
“You don’t needallof it. Some of these things are just suggestions. See, I color-coded everything. Necessities in green, helpful but not necessary things in yellow, and just for fun stuff in purple.”
He found her listmaking endearing and almost leaned over to kiss her again but refrained since they were outside. “Let’s go inside,” he said, nudging Paige toward the pet store.
* * *
Josh seemed overwhelmed as they walked through the pet store. It was a big chain place that carried everything, so she instructed Josh to get a cart.
