But Johnny hadn’t told him that the physical trainer looked likethis. Easily five foot nine and with such a hot body, in any other situation, Ward would hit on her, only for the fact that she was there to help him and Johnny had warned him about any funny business.To say nothing of the fact that she also looked like she could easily beat the shit out of him with one hand.
‘Yeah,’ he told her now. ‘I feel like hell too.’
Shelley looked around his place, taking in the sparse furnishings, trophy display on the sideboard, plasma TV on the wall and closed curtains, and when she turned back to him, she said, ‘Yeah, this is about what I figured.’
He scowled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I got filled in on your backstory, so I already knew what I was going to find here. Turns out I was right.’
Ward felt himself start to get annoyed but he took a breath. ‘What were you right about?’
‘About how the reason you got yourself a problem is because you spent your whole life learning how to run from pain. Look at this place – it’s comfortable and safe. Nothing to chance. That’s why you went for the pills. They keep you comfortable and safe too, right?’
‘You don’t know the first thing about me, lady.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘My name is Shelley and that’s how you’ll address me. Anything other than that and you might as well watch me walk out that door.’
The two of them locked gazes until finally, Ward slowly nodded.
‘I need your help so I’d rather you stayed.’
‘Good. Johnny also told me you were smart. Looks like he was right about that too.’
Later that day, Ward crouched to his knees outside the open door.
‘Hey, I get it, OK?’ he coaxed softly. ‘I know that you’re scared right now. You’re in a new place and you don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on. Well, I can tell you this much – you’re safehere. You got yourself a new home. Just come out when you feel like it. No pressure.’
Moving slowly, he placed an open can of tuna on the ground and stepped backwards. A pair of watchful eyes flickered back and forth between him and the tuna, and then the cat hissed and he chuckled.
‘Yeah, I hear ya. You don’t know me, so why the hell should you trust me? I get it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that there’s no one out there you should trust, really. Everyone’s out for themselves and that’s pretty much the way it’s always going to be.’
Ward thought about Hannah again, but for some reason, the image rehab thing didn’t get him as riled up. At first, he’d resisted the idea of having a PR lackey handle him, especially this one.
But following the exchange about the ill-fated feline at the shelter that day, she had maybe gotten the point and stopped trying so hard to curate this fake image of him to sell to the public.
Or just given up probably.
Now, that same calico-patterned cat tentatively stuck her head out from the carrier and sniffed the air in his apartment. He pulled out a pouch of wet cat food from his pocket and opened it, setting it down near the tuna. She sniffed again and inched closer to the food but still seemed wary.
Ward continued to speak softly to her, reassuring her that she was safe. ‘It’s OK, girl, I’ve got you.’
After a few minutes more, the animal finally mustered up the courage to come out and cautiously approached the food. She ate hungrily, her eyes still darting back and forth between Ward and her meal.
Progress...
He smiled, relieved that she was now out of the carrier at least.He sat down on the floor and watched her eat, still speaking softly to her. She seemed to be responding to his words and he thought that maybe she was starting to relax a bit.
While he waited, he decided he might as well grab a snack himself since between this and Shelley’s appearance earlier, he hadn’t had time to pick up food on his way to the shelter.
That day of the PR thing, once Hannah left, he’d gone back and asked the manager about adopting the stray. The guy, Hank, hadn’t had a problem with it, but she’d needed more shots, a little more time to heal and her fur to grow back a bit before she could leave. So Ward had picked her up earlier.
‘Seems like that old wives tale about calico being lucky is true,’ the shelter manager commented, following up with a nature lesson about how the cat’s tri-colour black, white and ginger colouring happened purely by chance. Ward didn’t know anything about that; he’d just felt the need to help the wretched thing.
Now, he reached into his jacket and pulled out the leftover pretzel piece he’d had in the car on the way. Almost as soon as she spied the snack, the cat’s eyes lit up. She immediately stopped eating the food and slowly inched closer to him, her tail twitching in anticipation.
‘Seriously?’ He laid down a piece and she immediately shot out a paw and whipped it back to her. Then began to demolish it, her eyes still glued to him in warning.
‘Well, what do you know?’ Ward laughed softly, amazed at how well the name suited, given her colouring. ‘Pretzel it is then.’
