A dog barks up the street, sending a crow scampering from the white picket fence out front. I don’t answer her as she takes the place in. I want to be the one asking all the questions. “Did you plant those?” I say when the first one comes to mind.
“Yes,” she confirms.
She said she wasn’t brave enough to come back here, but I know that’s not true. I’d never have noticed the pink peonies tucked behind the fence slats if there wasn’t a vase of them blooming in my kitchen. I moved them inside after Quinn’s box fort fell apart.
“They were my favorite part about this house.”
She’s more confident than she thinks, and stronger than she knows. Still, I didn’t want her to have to do this alone.
Her breath hitches as a flash of orange dashes across the sidewalk and dips under the cracked garage door.
“Do you trust me?”
If she said no I wouldn’t blame her. We’re both taking a risk by being here.
Her eyes are wide when she looks at me. The woman who has sky-dived and swum with sharks, yet she’s afraid to get her cat back. I won’t let her live without it.
“Do. You. Trust. Me?” I repeat, waiting for her to answer.She gives a jerky nod before I slip from the car and jog through the shadows to the garage doors.
It’s second nature for me to glance around for security cameras. To my benefit, the only one this home has is by the front door. For whatever reason, the crack under the garage looked a hell of lot larger from across the street. I have to flatten my body against the pavement, skin grating on rough cement, to inch under it.
I’m well aware this is breaking and entering—the last thing I should be doing as a public figure with a career already on the line. Not to mention, I’m putting Summer at risk with her ex. For all those reasons I make quick work of it, scouring the garage. My eyes adjust to the dim light leaking beneath the door when I spot her cat in the corner, lapping at a bowl of water.
She sees me and freezes. I take a careful step closer. She flees behind a cardboard box.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I’m a friend of Summer’s.”
What the hell am I doing?I’m speaking to a cat as if it knows what I’m saying.
I inch closer until she’s cornered. If I can just… reach…
She springs in the air, latching onto the cardboard box, and claws her way up the side. She leaps, nails digging into my shoulder through the sleeve of my shirt and launches off me. I clamp down on my bottom lip to keep from letting out a hiss of pain. A yowl fills the space as she scampers underneath the garage door.
Great.I bring Summer all the way here and I can’t even catch this pet. I don’t know what I expected—purring maybe?—but I just got taken advantage of by a cat.
Back to an army crawl, I shimmy into the moonlight.
“Who’s there,” a voice booms from the front door. I don’t have time to react when Summer grabs my hand.
“Come on, come on, come on,” she chants. The cat isalready clutched in her arms, bobbing up and down as we dash back to the car.
The engine revs—so much for a subtle exit—as I start up the vehicle and flip a U-turn.
“Go! Go! Go!” Summer is bouncing up and down in her seat, tapping the dashboard, eyes glued to the rearview mirror. She’s still grinning and laughing, and I’m drunk on the sound, barely keeping my eyes on the road. I need to pull over before I hit something. We whip around a corner on a random side street and I park against the curb.
“Did you see that?! Did you hear him?! That was incredible! That was?—”
Summer launches herself across the center console and crushes her lips to mine. I hardly register she’s kissing me before she pulls away.
Her hand lifts to her mouth. “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I shouldn’t have done that. I got swept up in the moment and… oh my gosh, Everett, your shirt!”
I’m still trying to figure out what just happened when she draws my attention down to where a jagged stretch of fabric flaps open on my sleeve.
“It’s nothing,” I tell her.
Well, actually, it was your cat.She’s a vicious little thing. Orwas. Now she’s purring and relaxing in Summer’s lap.
“It’s notnothing. Here…”
