I checked my watch again: 6:28. I would get to the shelter just before ten minutes to seven.
That was going to have to be good enough, because if I stood around my apartment for another minute I was going to explode. I grabbed my keys, stuffed my phone into my pocket, and made for the door.
***
My car’s clock showed 6:49 when I pulled into the shelter’s lot. I was relieved to see Jamison’s truck already sitting there. I parked and grabbed the two cat carriers I’d brought, then jumped out of the car, wondering if Jamison had already gone in or if he was waiting for me.
I had my answer when his driver’s side door swung open as I approached. Jamison wrestled a cat carrier of his own out of the passenger seat and waved at me. “Hey. Right on time. I’ve been here for like ten minutes.” He ducked his head. “I think I’m a little too excited for this one to meet Solo, considering the low odds of success.”
So Icouldhave gotten here earlier. Hmph. I made a mental note to not be such a stickler for time the next time we met up.“Why do you think there’s low odds of success?” I asked as I fell into step next to him as he headed for the building’s door.
He held the door for me as I squeezed the two carriers in. “I dunno, it’s just…cats. They tend to be loners, you know.”
“Not true!” sang Sandra, coming up on us at a high speed that almost made me flinch. I guessed she was excited for tonight too. “Cats tend to live in groups when left to their own devices. Yes, they like their space and alone time, but they’re social animals and most cats get along with other cats when it comes down to it. Are you boys excited?” she segued without a breath. “I have a good feeling about your meetup,” she added, pointing at Hen. “And you -” she moved her finger to point at me, “- I’ve been talking to your girls all day to get them excited to go to their forever home. They mostly napped through it, I’m ashamed to say.” She shrugged. “Cats, what can you do? Come on, then.” Without waiting for us to answer, she turned and headed into the office. “Paperwork for Jamison, and I’ll bring Solo in to meet…what was her name again? Marie?”
“Curie,” Hen supplied.
“I was close!” She grinned and gestured us to the chairs. This time Hen ended up in the desk chair and I took the folding chair. “Sit, get comfortable.” She handed me a clipboard and a pen. “You, start writing. You -” She turned her gaze to Hen “- get your girl comfortable.”
I obediently took the pen and started in on the legal paperwork that would transfer ownership of Kellogg and Minnie from the shelter to me. I was filling in my address on the form when the office door opened again and Sandra walked in with Solo stretched across her shoulders and wrapped around her neck from the back. It was one of the cutest things I’d ever seen, and I imagined Hen walking around his house with a living stole and almost lost my breath at the adorable mental image. “Here he is!” she chirped, patting Solo’s head. She walked over to whereHen sat with a somewhat puffed-up-looking Curie on his lap and bent down slightly. The two cats stared at each other. Curie hissed weakly. Henry gulped audibly.
“I’ll just set him down to wander,” Sandra informed us, and squatted until Solo could jump off her shoulders onto the desktop. He immediately walked to the edge of the desk and stood facing Hen and Curie. He reached out a paw, then apparently thought better of it and drew the paw back. Curie, firmly ensconced on Hen’s lap, just stared at him. She didn’t hiss again, though, so I was calling that a win.
I went back to my paperwork as Sandra pulled a pouch of what looked like catnip out of the desk drawer. “A little chemical icebreaker,” she informed us, sprinkling some ‘nip on the desk and a little on Hen’s knee. Both cats sniffed at the new substance, Curie taking a direct lick of her share and Solo dipping a paw into his.
By the time I had filled out the complete form, the catnip had done its work. Curie was still on Hen’s lap, but now she was stretched out and purring instead of balled up and tense. Solo was perched on the absolute edge of the desktop - I wasn’t quite sure how he was hanging on, honestly - and sniffing Curie’s head. As I set down my pen, he reached out a paw and bopped her gently on the nose. Curie’s purring increased.
“Holy shit,” Hen whispered as if he was afraid to disrupt the tentative peace, “I think this might work.”
Sandra and I shared a conspiratorial grin. “Social animals, I told you!” she crowed, somehow without raising her voice and startling the cats. She plopped down in the third chair and leaned over my shoulder to see how far I’d gotten in the paperwork. “Good, good.” She patted my shoulder, then reached down to a drawer in the desk .”Let me find their rabies certificates…” She started rifling through the drawer while Iapplied my signature to the first form with a flourish. Kellogg was mine; now on to Minnie!
“Look!” Hen whispered urgently, making my head jerk up. I found Solo creeping across Hen’s outstretched arm toward Curie, who was watching him with curiosity and a twitching nose. As I watched, Solo slunk down the length of Hen’s body until he was in his lap, perched on the leg opposite Curie, then sniffed Curie’s butt in a feline ‘hello’. Curie allowed it for a moment before twisting around and swatting at him playfully. Solo jerked away and regarded her solemnly for a long moment before doing the cat equivalent of a shrug and returning to his sniffing. Curie, to my surprise, also seemed to shrug; she began nosing at the hem of Hen’s shirt.
Ten minutes later, the forms were all signed and Curie and Solo were both asleep, one curled on Hen’s lap and the other on the desk. Sandra studied the tableau for a long moment, then smiled. “I’m just going to get the application paperwork out for you, hon,” she told Hen. “Because I think you’re out of excuses.”
Hen looked down at Curie on his lap and stroked a hand down her back. She chirped but didn’t open her eyes. “They seem…comfortable,” he allowed.
She nodded. “They look like they’re getting along, for sure. So if you want him…” She shrugged meaningfully. “I’m pretty sure he’s yours.”
Hen froze for a long moment, looking startled, then deliberately relaxed his muscles. “Yeah. Yeah, I think I do.” He reached out the hand that wasn’t petting Curie and patted Solo’s ruff lightly. “He’s sougly,” he said wonderingly, affection clear in his voice despite what could have been an unkind utterance.
“So ugly he’s cute,” I threw in as I handed Sandra my clipboard. She immediately slipped the forms off it and set them on the desk, then slapped a new set of forms onto it and passed it to Hen.
“And while he does that,” Sandra went on, “let me get your girls packaged up for you. These are for them?” she asked, gesturing to the two carriers I’d set near the door. I nodded. “Great. I’ll go load them up, and then when I’ve done that we can get Solo back to hisshort-term-” And here she wiggled her eyebrows “- home, and Curie back in her carrier. Sorry I can’t send everyone home all at once tonight, but reference checks are vital to the safety of our animals.”
“No, I get it,” Hen assured her. “It’ll give me some time to adjust, too, and maybe do a little shopping.”
Ooh, did I see another pet store run in our future? I grinned. That had been fun!
Wait, I realized with a start, why was I assuming I’d be going with him? He was an experienced cat owner; he was perfectly capable of picking up supplies without me tagging along. My smile faltered as I realized I could hardly just demand to go with him. We weren’t a couple. Sure, I was fairly confident we qualified as friends at this point -friends who frot?- but that didn’t mean we went on errands together.
“What’s wrong?” Hen asked me as Sandra exited the office and closed the door behind her.
I blinked at him, torn from my spiraling thoughts. “Huh?”
“You went all mope-y.” He waved his hand at me as if to demonstrate what he was talking about. “You were smiling and then it wentpoofoff your face.”
How closely had he been watching me, to notice that?Whyhad he been watching me? A little trickle of warmth burst in my chest. Maybe he was noticing me as much as I noticed him. “Oh, uh,” I stammered, trying to think of an explanation that didn’t make me sound overly clingy. “I was just thinking that, um.”Think, Jamie!“I wished I could go with you to do the shopping for Solo.” So apparently my mouth was going for radical truth-telling without waiting for permission from my brain? Okay then.
