“Mom? I cleaned my room. Can I have the Wi-Fi password now?”
“You can’thaveit, but I’ll come type it in for you.” April gave me a weak smile and a little wave before returning to her apartment.
I had the oddest urge to offer something to her. She was so bedraggled, kinda like my mother had been back when we were a family. Single parenting had become so hard for my mom then that she’d passed me off to Nana.
But I had no idea what to do for April to make her life easier. Surely, her kids were too old to need babysitting. She didn’t appear to need a petty personal assistant. Maybe the best thing I could do would be to leave her alone?
Once again downstairs, I paused outside Malone’s door. Technically, I had no reason to ask him about cats and kittens if Addie’s info was correct, but ...
I knocked anyway.
After much fumbling and more time than was strictly necessary for opening a door, Malone appeared wearing those damned aviators. Did he wear them to bed?
“Change your mind about pizza?” he asked.
“No.” My stomach growled. I’d had a granola bar after serving papers but had forgotten to eat anything more substantial. “Maybe.”
He stepped back and gestured for me to enter his apartment.
“But that’s not why I came by.”
“Oh?”
I started to ask my standard cat questions, but he hadn’t taken off his sunglasses. Inside. So instead I asked, “Your future so bright you gotta wear shades?”
He frowned, and I regretted my nosiness. Maybe there was a reason why he wore dark glasses. An eye injury, maybe. Why was it so important that I see his eyes anyway?
Because that adage about how eyes are a window to the soul held a great deal of truth. Being able to look into someone’s eyes was part of how I gauged their truthfulness. Did they make eye contact? Maintain it? Look at the floor instead? Look from right to left?
“Forgive me,” I said. “It’s none of my business.”
“Well,” he said with a sigh. “If I want you to share ... pizza with me, then I suppose I should take off my glasses.”
“Only if you want to,” I said, pulling out my phone. “What do you like? Plain cheese? Everything but the kitchen sink? A mighty meaty?”
That last one came out in a husky voice, and I willed my ears not to turn red. I was here to ask questions about a kitten. And apparently to get pizza. Not to make double entendres.
When I dared to look up, he was trying hard not to laugh.
“My safe word is ‘anchovies.’” I waited a beat. “Anchovies.”
He laughed out loud and took off his sunglasses, but he looked away from me. “Stark, you are a breath of fresh air. I’ll give you my pizza order if you promise not to freak out.”
“Freak out about what? You’re obviously not a pirate. Otherwise, you’d have a patch.”
He slowly turned to face me, and his eyes—one light blue and the other dark brown—met mine.
“Amazing.” I sucked in a breath, mesmerized and, truth be told, not quite sure where to look. Not that long ago, I’d been flippant about signs from the universe, and here was a big one. The little hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I told them to lie right back down because this was all a coincidence. Nothing more.
He arched an eyebrow—the one over his blue eye, to be exact.
“Seriously,” I said. “Why would you hide your eyes? They’re beautiful.”
His shoulders sagged with relief. “Order that pizza, and maybe I’ll tell you a story.”
“Mighty meaty?” I asked, this time with quadruple entendre.
He grinned. “Why not?”
