I stop and take a second to appreciate his perfect face.
It isn’t fair. This man wears age like a designer fashion statement.
Just the slightest hint of early grey silvering his hair.
If I’m lucky, he’ll have that distinguished silver fox look his father has, minus the thorny attitude.
The lines around his eyes when he smiles will absolutely slay me no matter how long we’re together. He always smiles like he means it too.
Sappy or not, I think I fall a little more in love with him every day.
Before we met, I couldn’t imagine crushing on an older guy, but here we are.
“I’ll take him downstairs,” Freya announces. She has to use both hands to hoist up the cat carrier. No matter how underfed and scrawny he is, she’s still just a seven-year-old.
“Easy! You know the rules,” I say. “Set him in there and make sure the door stays shut. Do not let him out. We’ll do that later, after dinner.”
“Fiiine.”
She’s been scratched enough times to count over the years. I’m going to trust she won’t “accidentally” let that door pop open, if only to save her own skin.
I don’t put that sort of faith in this cat.
But then again, he’s stopped hissing like a cornered snake.
Most animals handle children pretty well.
Freya certainly has good instincts, I guess. Brady insists she gets it from me, but while I’ve always been there to help, I haven’t ever had the same knack for making animals trust me.
There’s a difference between understanding the creatures you’re treating and having them immediately love you.
My heart unexpectedly brims at the thought of this starved, lonely cat experiencing real love for the first time.
It’s a big cruel city out there with a ton of strays around. I certainly wish it wasn’t.
Buttercup doesn’t know it yet, but he’s averylucky boy.
Just as long as he learns to share his heart with a bright-eyed seven-year-old girl who thinks it’s her life’s mission to save as many forgotten animals as possible.
I don’t think it’s possible to be this proud.
“I love you,” I call to Freya, who’s already bounded partway downstairs.
She turns and looks at me with a frown, her blue eyes puzzled and patient and too old for her years.
“Well, yeah,” she says seriously, lugging the carrier.
“Do you think she’ll be okay with our new friend?” Brady asks.
I wince.
He still remembers the time I brought home our last foster kitten. The little beast scratched his arm and barfed formula all over him the second he took away the bottle.
I kiss his cheek. “She’ll be fine. Freya has her father’s knack for new arrivals, and we’ve drilled it into her a thousand times, right?”
“Arewe really keeping Buttercup?”
“The ship has sailed,” I say with a sigh. “You know we’ll have a pint-sized mutiny on our hands if we don’t.”
