I stared at Isaac with the kitten and then it hit me. He hadn’t been talking to meearlier.
“Wait, your cat’s name is Max?”
Isaac blushed the most adorable shade of red.
“Er, yeah. Come with me. I need to feed him before he attacks again.”
I was sure my face showed my confusion.
“I didn’t name him because of you,” he said while taking a tin of cat food from the cupboard. I couldn’t see his face, and he was rambling so I let him.
“Well, not entirely. I was at the beach a few months ago to surf. I was about to go into some dangerous waves and was feeling… Well, never mind. Anyway, I was walking toward the water with the surfboard under my arm when something hit me. I turned around but couldn’t see what it was, and when I turned to walk again, something hit me one more time. I couldn’t see him because his color blended so well with the sand, but when his big dark-brown eyes looked at me, it was like… I sat down on the sand and he curled up onto my lap. That’s when I saw he had a name tag. It said Max.
“Shortly after, a coast guard came over to warn me not to get in the water because they’d just pulled someone out who got stuck in the undercurrent. Max saved me. I nearly lost him, too.”
He looked at the cat that was now enjoying his dinner with admiration. I felt a pang of jealousy toward the feline.
“He had a tag,” I said.
“I left the beach and took him to the vet. Max wasn’t very impressed with me, or the vet for that matter. He didn’t have a chip on him, so I put the word out with some friends who frequent the beach to say I’d found a cat, but no one claimed him, so he became my roommate.”
“What did you mean?” I asked.
“When?”
“When you said you didn’t name him entirely after me.”
Isaac looked me straight in the eye. His gaze was tender.
“He saved my life, Max. I would have gone into the sea that morning. I wouldn’t have been on the beach by the time the coast guard came to warn me, I would have been on the water. I didn’t think about it until later when I almost changed his name. One Max saved me from a fire, and another saved me from the water.”
Max wrapped himself around Isaac’s ankles, having decided I was no longer a threat.
“He’s been saving me ever since.”
Well, that was nothing if not an ominous statement.
Isaac took two steaks from the fridge and ingredients to make a salad.
“I have baby potatoes, too. Would you like them boiled or roasted?”
“Whichever is easiest; I like both ways. Shall I prepare the salad?”
We got into a routine with our food prep without exchanging too many words. This felt too cozy, too right. The only thing that felt odd was the location. As much as I loved Isaac’s apartment and its stunning views, all my dreams of Isaac and I together were set in New York.
Considering we were nearing the end of September now, the temperature outside was mild, so we kept the balcony door open and then sat outside with a drink once we’d cleared up our plates.
“Won’t Max come outside?”
“He will. He likes it here, especially when it’s sunny, but he’ll only sit on the chair and curl up or stretch to catch the warmth of the sun. He practically owns this balcony and won’t move for anyone, not even me.”
Throughout dinner, Isaac had told me more about his brother, his wife, and their baby daughter, Sofia. I remembered Sofia was born while Isaac had been in New York last Christmas. We’d even stopped at Macy’s to buy a gift for her.
It was so adorable how in love he was with the little girl.
“I was right last Christmas, wasn’t I?” I laughed.
“About what?”
