I chuckle, because it really is that. Truly bad luck.
“Are you worried?” I ask.
He nods. “I’m not worried about me, but yeah ... I have ... cats.”
At that my eyes widen. “You? Have cats?”
“They were my nan’s,” he explains quickly, as though he’s confessing something. I don’t say anything else, because as a dog person, I never know what to say about cats. Cats are fine alone, right? Don’t they prefer that? Does it really matter if he’s gone? But he continues. “They’re mine now, and I sort of ... dote on them. So I’m a little worried that they’ll get flummoxed if I don’t come home.”
I don’t want that to melt some small corner of my heart, but it does. I can’t help but let an image of this bombastic, overt, know-it-all man softening around little animals run across my mind.
“What kind of cats?” I ask, before I can stop myself. The need for the visual is too great.
He hesitates, but then relents. “They aren’t like a specific breed or anything. My nan adopted them, and she never put much stock into thinking any animals were more special than any others.” I think about my little mangy mutt of a George and couldn’t agree more. “But they’re both sort of ... I don’t know ... white and floofy?”
“‘Floofy’?” I choke out, trying not to laugh.
“Well, yeah. Their hair makes them look three times larger than they actually are. It sticks out straight, as though they’ve been electrocuted. So I don’t know how else you would describe it. ‘Floofy’ is colloquial enough to make sense.”
“You live with two porcelain-colored giant shedding maniac cats?” I ask, trying to mentally wrap my mind around this updated image of his home.
“I never said they were maniacs,” he responds with a roll of his eyes. But he’s not denying the rest either.
“That’s surprising,” I say.
He fixes me with one of his smirks. “Why?”
I purse my lips in thought. I can’t say the sort of gross patriarchal thought that’s floating through my mind. He’s toomasculinefor cats. Forfloofy cats. But maybe, on second thought, it makes sense. “I guess I could see that,” I finally say. “Cats are sort of prickly and arrogant.”
He bursts out a laugh, and I’m surprised that he seems to enjoy the roasting.
“And as a dog person, you are ...,” he leads.
“Oh, well, dogs are devoted,” I say without hesitation. “They give of themselves. Dogs have no judgment. Dogs are the best.”
“Right, thedogsthemselves might be the best, but maybe that means the people who own them are insecure, praise-hungry clingers.”
I snort out a laugh. Nicely played.
“What are your cats’ names?” I ask, trying to picture them. And from the embarrassment that crosses his expression, I’m particularly delighted to have asked.
“Paws and Whiskers,” he says, and now my laugh is even louder. “What?”
“Those are the kinds of names a toddler would come up with.”
“I think you’re going to feelreallybad when you learn that my sister’s kids named the cats.”
“Actually?” I ask, unsure.
He pauses. “I have no idea, to be honest,” he says and slumps a little more. “But it would make a better story, right? It’s not inconceivable, since my sister does have two little kids.”
I roll my eyes back at him and he smiles. It’s funny how much his face changes, depending on the angle and expression. He’s not classicallyhandsome—it’s why I never gave it much thought over video. Well, that and obviously the fact that he was sort of my patient. But in person he’s dynamic. He’s megawatt. And that smile seeps into whoever it’s directed at. It’s that masculine energy again, which is so much of what I dislike about him from afar. But up close it’s captivating.
And it makes it even more obvious when the smile goes away.
“I didn’t talk to my nan as much in recent years as I used to,” he says quietly, surprising me with the subject shift and his sudden morose candor. I guess being stuck with an indefinite stretch in front of you makes you immediately let go of airs. “I spent every summer with her as a kid. We had kind of the same brain, only hers was more mathematical and mine was more linguistic. So we were very bonded. And I think my mum thought it would be nice for me to get out occasionally, away from London and everything. But lately, I didn’t call her as much, because I’ve just been so damn busy. I still would’ve said we were close. When we talked, it was like nothing had changed. But I took her presence for granted, and I really regret it.”
The sun is starting to set even more now, and he looks out into the sky, pink hues shifting the light.
