Except it didn’t feel harmless. It felt like standing at the edge of something dangerous and exhilarating, wondering if the fall would kill me or teach me to fly.
“Fine,” I said. “One sip. But if I die from fermented ginger, I’m haunting you.”
“Deal.”
We made our way through the store, Samuel loading the cart with an alarming array of California wellness products while I grabbed the basics—coffee, bread, cheese, vegetables that didn’t require a degree in holistic nutrition to prepare.
He kept up a running commentary about everything we passed. The overpriced grain-free crackers (“They’re made from cassava! It’s a tuber, Farley!”). The selection of nut butters (“Almond butter is so 2019. Cashew butter is where it’s at”). The alarming variety of non-dairy milks (“Oat milk is superior to all other milks, and I will die on this hill”).
I found myself smiling more than I had in a month. Maybe longer.
We rounded the corner into the pet supply aisle, and both of us stopped dead.
Cat food. Rows and rows of it. Dry food, wet food, grain-free, organic, freeze-dried, suspiciously gourmet options that cost more per ounce than my own groceries.
Samuel looked at the display. Then at me. Then, very deliberately, started to push the cart past it.
“Wait,” I said.
He stopped. “We were told not to feed her.”
“I know.”
“Gladys was very specific.”
“She was.” I picked up a bag of premium grain-free kibble. Salmon and sweet potato. The reviews on the label claimed it promoted a healthy coat shine. “But it’s December. And cold. And she’s been spending a lot of time on my porch.”
“She’s been in my cabin a lot, too.” Samuel studied the bag in my hands. “That’s probably a good brand.”
“You know about cat food?”
“I had a cat growing up. Serena. Very dignified. She hated everyone except my mom.” He paused. “We should get the wet food too. For variety.”
Something about the way he said it—casual, practical, like we hadn’t just agreed to jointly violate Gladys’s explicit instructions—made my chest tight. This was just neighborly cooperation. Two people making sure a stray cat didn’t starve during a mountain winter.
It meant nothing.
“Right,” I said. “For variety.”
We loaded the cart in silence—kibble, wet food, even a small bag of treats that Samuel insisted were “good for dental health.” Neither of us acknowledged what we were doing or what it might mean that we were doing it together.
Because it didn’t mean anything.
It couldn’t.
We checked out without incident—Samuel kept his baseball cap on and his head down, and the teenager at the register was more interested in their phone than in whether Dr. Brock Blaze was buying forty dollars’ worth of cat food and fermented beverages.
“See?” Samuel said as we loaded bags into the Range Rover. “No mustache required.”
“The bar was already so low, and yet somehow you’ve still exceeded it.”
“Your compliments are really something special, Farley.”
“I’m known for my effusive praise.”
He laughed, and the sound wrapped around me like warmth. We were standing in a parking lot in suburban Charlottesville, surrounded by grocery bags and December cold, and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt this... light.
“Farley?”
