This I don’t relate to as much. I went everywhere with Mom.
“I doubled down on learning a lot about space so I could impress them,” Jack adds. “I thought that if I could connect with my parents, be interesting enough to them, then they wouldn’t go away so often. But… people leave.”
“Yeah,” I say, pulling at a string on my sleeve. “People do leave.”
Jack sets his plate of cake down on the grass. “I want these kids learning about STEM to know that they have options. I don’t want them to feel pushed in one direction or another like I did as a kid. There’s a whole world out there to explore. They show up every month eager to learn.”
“Like how you were as a kid,” I say, feeling emotional about thethought of a curious young Jack enthusiastic to learn as much as he could. I imagine he had a lot of questions growing up. And that he liked to test things.
“Right. They listen, they’re open-minded, they want to know everything,” Jack says, dragging his fork across the plate to scoop up the remaining crumbs. “And I want to help them understand all of it. I want to inspire them.”
“Maybe you don’t think your team needs the inspiration in the same way that the kids do. But what if they do?” I ask.
Jack goes quiet, but there’s a trace of a smile. He takes my plate from me, gathering it up with his own.
“All I know is that there’s one person in particular who does need inspiration,” he says, locking eyes with mine.
A meow from behind Jack startles us both. A white cat with gray dots appears, rubbing up against Jack’s leg.
“Pinot, how did you get out here? You’re going to get eaten by coyotes,” Jack says, lifting the cat into his arms.
I grab our plates from Jack and follow him into the house. “Olivia, Pinot was outside. The doors must’ve been left open.”
Olivia looks confused. “Not sure who you’re holding,” she says, pointing over to the real Pinot with rust-colored fur sitting protectively next to June. “That’s Pinot.”
Jack’s eyes go round as he looks at the cat lying calmly in his arms. “Then whose cat is this?”
I look at the collar. It says Sprinkles with an accompanying phone number. Jack dials the number a few times, but no one answers.
Jack furrows his brows. “I don’t feel good about leaving her outside to fend for herself. We need to find her parents.”
Seeing Jack being overly protective of this cat is incredibly endearing. My heart squeezes in my chest.
“How perfect that a cat named Sprinkles found you. You love icecream, and cats love milk. What is ice cream if not frozen milk?” I ask.
He frowns. “Most cats are actually lactose intolerant.”
“Look at that! You’re already an incredible temporary cat daddy!” I say.
A small grin cracks through Jack’s look of concern. We make a game plan to continue calling the number on the collar, check in with the local shelter, put up flyers, and talk to neighbors. I reassure him that we’ll get Sprinkles home. In the meantime, Jack will take his new pal back to his apartment since mine doesn’t allow animals and Talia is allergic.
“How did we go from zero lost things to two?” Jack asks, shaking his head.
I pet the top of Sprinkles’s head. “In time, I think we’ll know why.”
Chapter 17
JACK
Rooney’s staring into the open jaws of a T. rex. Her head is angled, like she’s trying to figure out something.
“He could’ve put his entire mouth around my head and plucked it off like a grape,” she says.
“Add a little cheese and salami, and that dinosaur’s got himself a nice afternoon. Okay, we should probably give the ID to the Lost and Found,” I say, analyzing the map to the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. “Olivia said Lucy has been on vacation for the past week but she’s back today. We passed the Help Desk on the way in but if we go back—”
“We love trying to understand where we came from,” Rooney says, clasping her hands behind her back. She’s clearly ignoring our mission. Which should be okay. That’s the point. To see where each Fate Test takes us.
I nod. “It helps us understand where we’re going.”
