It was as cosy and inviting as it had been on the night of the macaroni fiasco. A ball of black and white fluff was tucked into one corner of the sofa. Kit was cuddled under a blanket with a book open on his knees, his skin glowing pale gold in the light of candles flickering on the coffee table.
He turned to smile at me, but his face fell when the ball of fluff launched from the sofa and hurled itself at my legs.
‘Oh, no. Sorry.’ Kit fought his way out from under the blanket, his book thrown to one side. ‘Kat has absolutely no manners and I’m sorry if she claws you.’
I looked away from his flailing to the cat peering up at me, my shins vibrating with the force of her enthusiastic purring. ‘I think I’m okay?’
Kit walked around the sofa, staring between me and his cat. ‘Kat likes you? She doesn’t like anyone. Not even me.’
I crouched to rub between her furry ears. She fell onto her back in a fit of ecstasy, but her tail twitched when Kit took a step closer.
‘Did you get her recently? Aster never mentioned a cat.’ I would have heard stories about Kit’s pet if he’d met her. Aster talked about the pygmy goats of the island as though they were his children.
Kit shook his head and the cat glared at him for daring to move in her presence. ‘Ah, no. I got her a while ago, but there was a bit too much noise for Kat while Aster stayed here.’
‘Her name is Kat?’ I stroked her exposed belly, the fur ridiculously soft. ‘And you’re Kit?’
‘Yeah, I know.’ Kit kept his distance as his pet allowed me to rain attention down on her. ‘I didn’t come up with it; Louisa did. By the time I realised no one was going to bother calling her Katrina, it had stuck and KitKat was born.’ His chin dipped into the folds of his light green scarf as he looked fondly at his cat. ‘At least visitors to the bookshop get a kick out of it.’
The oven timer pinged. I gave Kat one last tickle under her chin and stood. ‘I promise I’m not running off upstairs to avoid you. I’m covered in hair and probably other stuff from being at the surgery today. What you’ve made smells amazing, but I want to change and wash up before I eat.’
Kit smiled shyly at the compliment almost buried in my over explanation. ‘It’s pizzas, and the timer was to swap them around. You’ve got another ten minutes until they’re ready.’
‘Perfect.’ I side-stepped the cat desperate for my attention and hurried upstairs. I opted for a quick shower to clean the dried drool and other animal essences off me, then bundled into a hoodie and a pair of pyjama bottoms.
I didn’t let myself think too much about how I looked as I walked downstairs, my damp hair dripping onto my shoulders. It was impossible that I’d ever look as effortlessly good as Kit. Today, he’d matched his scarf to a navy jumper, his long legs covered by deep green trousers.
He was wielding a pizza cutter as I hopped down into the living room, nudging Kat out of the way with one sock covered foot.
‘Can you take care of your admirer for a second?’ he asked as the ball of fur wound around his ankles. ‘I’ve made a tiny cat pizza for her but she doesn’t understand the concept of letting it cool and she’s more likely to wait patiently with you than with me.’
I bent to pick up Kat, and my knuckles brushed the inside of Kit’s shin. He sidestepped out of the way, then went back to chopping up two huge pizzas and occasionally fanning a small third.
He didn’t seem too bothered by my accidental touch, but it reminded me of what I’d noticed the night before at Joshua and Bonnie’s. I bit my lip. That felt like more of a conversation to ease into, perhaps after we’d established if we actually could be friends.
‘When did you get Kat?’ I asked, opting for a much safer topic.
Kit might be warmer and kinder than anyone else I’d met, but he was exactly the same as everyone else in one respect; pet owners loved talking about their furry friends.
‘We arrived on the island five years ago.’ Kit sent me and Kat a beaming smile over his shoulder before he went back to slicing up the pizzas. ‘She was a sneaky stow-away in one of my boxes. I got a nasty shock when I opened it and an angry beast jumped at my face.’
Kit’s back was turned to me, but I would have noticed if he had scars. His first meeting with Kat couldn’t have been too bad.
‘Despite trying to maul me at every moment except from when I fed her, Kat stuck around.’ Kit transferred the pizzas onto a couple of big plates. He placed the third into a bowl and pressed one finger into the dough to check the temperature. ‘Errol shared lost cat posters on the mainland, but no one came forward to claim her.’ He raised one eyebrow as he placed the bowl on the floor and Kat yowled from my arms. ‘I can’t think why.’
Most animals liked me more than they did the average person, but I wasn’t about to put that to the test by getting between Kat and her food. I placed her on the floor and she arrowed straight for her bowl.
Kit carried the pizzas over to a small table by the window that overlooked his back garden. ‘I guess being good with animals is helpful in your job?’
We spent the meal chatting about how I’d become a vet after Aster noticed the effect I had on pets and wildlife alike. Getting into veterinary college was hard. It was only with his not so gentle encouragement that I kept trying when my A-Levels were horribly difficult.
I managed to limit my compliments to how freaking awesome the pizza was, rather than mentioning how lovely Kit’s laugh was, how his smile made me want to smile, or how his eyessparkled each time they caught the light of the candles across the room. Generally, it was a perfectly ordinary meal shared between two new friends.
I was feeling optimistic about having gotten through a whole day without making things weird when Kit asked if I wanted to help him with a new puzzle.
I followed him to the sofa, but veered to an armchair on the other side of the coffee table. ‘I’ve never completed a puzzle before.’
Kit gestured across the coffee table, the fabric covered square propped on his knees. ‘You’ll find it hard to help from over there.’
