I delete the message.
Type it again.
Delete it again.
“Pathetic,” I mutter, throwing the phone onto the couch. I didn’t even follow her.
The kitten on the canvas watches me with Daisy’s eyes. Warm and hopeful.
I wonder if she thinks about me at all.
I should stop painting kittens with librarian glasses, and go to bed, but I’m too wired.
The night stretches on, silent except for the whisper of bristles against canvas. By the time gray light seeps through my windows, I’ve finished three more pieces. Each one has softer eyes than the last. Each has paws crossed in a heart shape, each cat holding on and hoping.
Just like me.
CHAPTER 4
DAISY
You keep touching it.”
Sarah’s voice cuts through my thoughts, and I yank my hand away from my collarbone like I’ve been caught stealing. Across the booth at The Busy Bee Diner, she watches me with raised eyebrows.
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
“A little.” I wrap my fingers around my warm coffee mug instead, forcing them to stay put. “But I also... I love it. Even incomplete.”
Three days, and I haven’t gone more than ten minutes without touching the outline of a Purrfect Kitten inked into my skin.
Sarah leans forward, elbows on the table. Morning light streams through the café windows, catching the steam rising from her coffee. “And the artist?”
My stomach flips. I’ve been wanting to talk about him so badly I could burst.
“I can’t stop thinking about him.” The confession rushes out before I can second-guess admitting it. “Sarah, I barely know him, but something about him—the way he was with me when I started crying, the way he said there was no shame in quitting. He didn’t make me feel like I failed.”
“Okay, that’s either the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard, or you’ve gone off the deep end.” She grins. “Tell me everything.”
So I do. The way his hands trembled when he pressed the stencil to my skin. Him giving me his personal phone number. The way my body heated and responded to him in a way that’s never happened before.
“He held the door for me when I left,” I finish. “It sounds stupid, but the way he did it…it was like he wanted to.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid.” Sarah’s teasing expression has shifted into something warmer. “It sounds like he felt it, too.”
“Or he was just being professional.”
“Daisy.” She reaches across the table and flicks my hand. “A man who gives you his personal number and then holds the door like he wants to watch you walk away? That’s not professional. That’sinterested.”
My heart kicks against my ribs. I want to believe her. Want it so badly I can taste it.
“So text him,” she says, like it’s the simplest thing in the world. “You have his number.”
“What would I even say?” I pull the card from my pocket—because of course I’ve been carrying it everywhere—and set it on the table between us. His name stares up at me in stark whiteletters.Knight. “Hi, you made me cry, but I can’t stop thinking about your hands?”
Sarah snorts. “I mean, maybe workshop the phrasing a little.”
“I’m serious.” I trace my finger over the edge of the card. “Every time I try to compose a message, I sound either desperate or insane. Last night I typed ‘thank you for being patient with me’ and deleted it because it was too formal. Then I typed ‘I can’t stop thinking about you’ and deleted it because—”
