Blanche squirmed in her hands, purring.
“Maybe you’ll go home with that theater actress,” Eve told her. “I met her. She seems nice.”
Blanche grabbed Eve’s thumb between her front paws and bit down, hard.
“Well, you’ve turned into a handful, haven’t you?” She sat on the couch, rubbing the kitten as she rolled across Eve’s knees. White fur clung to her black dress. “Listen, I have to get back to work, but I know Josie will make sure you go to a great home. She’s good at that.”
She pressed a kiss against the kitten’s fuzzy head, laughing at the lipstick stain left behind. As she rubbed it away, Blanche nuzzled her head against Eve’s chin, still purring. Her whole body vibrated with the effort. Eve set her in the playpen, where she immediately pounced on Phantom, rolling him to his back. Hamilton joined the fray, while Pippin raced from side to side, chasing a ray of sunshine.
“You guys are cute,” she said. “I’ll miss you.”
Nigel walked over and sat down in front of her, staring as usual. She reached out and rubbed him beneath his chin the way she’d seen Josie do, and he immediately began to purr, rubbing his head against her arm affectionately. Maybe it really had been that easy all along. She’d made him uncomfortable with her own discomfort.
And now, it didn’t matter. After giving him one last pat, she stood and left the apartment, closing the door behind her. She went down the steps, attempting to brush cat fur off her dress, so distracted that she ran headlong into Adam in the hallway. “Sorry,” she murmured, stepping back to let him pass.
But he stood his ground. “You have a lot of nerve coming here tonight, running around like nothing happened.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me,” he said. “You broke her heart, and still, she invites you into her bar, sends you up to her apartment…”
“I was going to tell her to change the combination.”
“That’s not the point. You weren’t here this week to see the damage you caused.”
She refused to flinch. “I’m sorry for that. I never wanted to hurt her.”
“Then why did you do it, Eve?” He crossed his arms over his chest, filling the hallway, blocking her path to the bar.
She didn’t feel threatened, though. There was nothing threatening about Adam. It was like being growled at by a puppy…or maybe a kitten, if kittens could growl. If anything, he deserved a hug for being a good friend to Josie. But she didn’t know what to tell him. There was no way to make this right. She’d fucked up. “It was supposed to be casual.”
“Bullshit.”
“Look, I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“You didn’t treat her like a casual hookup,” he said. “I saw you guys together, remember? You looked at her like she was everything, told her all your deep, dark secrets—”
She recoiled involuntarily, her skin flushing hot. “Fuck you.”
She was shaking now, furious with him for cornering her like this and with Josie for betraying her confidence. Her vision swam, and she refused to blink, refused to cry in front of him.
Adam held his hands out in front of himself, his expression suddenly apologetic. “Look, she didn’t tell me your secrets, only that you’d been through a lot.”
Oh.She looked at her shoes, searching desperately for her composure.
“My point is that you treated her like she meant something to you. You let her fall for you. And then you just kicked her to the curb because her feelings were inconvenient?”
“She did mean something to me,” she said quietly, forcing herself to meet his eyes. “She does. But I can’t be what she needs. I just can’t. I’m sorry.”
Adam shook his head, looking almost sad. “You’ll regret this someday.”
28
“Glad that’s over,” Josie said, pushing a strand of hair out of her face as theDo Overvan pulled away from the curb outside.
“Me too.” Adam leaned his elbows against the bar, looking as exhausted as she felt. And they still had five hours until they closed for the night.
This week had been never-ending. She’d decided to tough it out for a few weeks before she hired someone new, to make back as much as she could of what she’d lost before she added another salary to her budget. That meant she’d been on her own until tonight, and while she’d tended bar alone at Swanson’s, it was different with Dragonfly. She’d been so busy, she barely had time to pee, let alone eat a meal.
