“I’m at a critical pasta juncture. You can’t just walk in and start this.”
“You had flour on your face.”
“So you kissed me? That’s your solution for flour?”
“Best solution I could think of.”
She shoved me away with the spoon and went back to scraping the bottom of the pot, which was definitely burned. I leaned against the counter and watched her. Buddy pressed against my leg from where he’d been lying in the doorway, his tail thumpingonce on the floor. I dropped my hand to his head, scratching behind his ears. The dog leaned into it, trusting in a way he hadn’t been capable of a month ago. He’d filled out since the first time I saw him at Andrea’s place, ribs no longer visible, coat getting thicker. He still flinched at sudden movements when Andrea wasn’t in the room, but here, in her kitchen, with her voice and her warmth filling the space, he was calm. She did that to things. Dogs, cats, wolves, kings. Made them feel safe without trying, without even knowing she was doing it.
She was muttering about the sauce being “fine, it’s rustic, rustic is a style” and my wolf was so settled it was practically asleep.
We ate on the couch. She was telling me about a new intake at the shelter, a three-legged cat she was already in love with, using her fork to gesture, sauce on her lip that she didn’t know about and I didn’t tell her about because watching her talk with tomato sauce on her face was one of the best parts of my day.
“He has opinions, Finneas. Strong opinions. He hissed at Mary and then immediately fell asleep on Peter’s lap. That’s a power move. That cat knows exactly what he’s doing.”
“You want to bring him home.”
“I want to bring all of them home. I always want to bring all of them home. That’s my problem.”
“It’s not a problem.”
“It is when you work sixteen-hour days and the house is empty most of the time. It’s not fair to them.”
Buddy lifted his head at his name, then put it back down when no food materialized.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I ignored it. It buzzed again.
“You can check it,” she said.
I pulled it out. A text from a number I didn’t have saved but recognized immediately. Lorraine.
We need to talk. It’s about your mother.
I read it. My face didn’t change. I put the phone back in my pocket.
Lorraine texting about Margaret. After two weeks of nothing. The two of them connecting in the silence, building something while I sat here eating pasta and pretending everything was fine. Shit.
“Everything okay?” Andrea asked. She was watching me, fork paused.
“Yeah. Just pack stuff.”
“You went tense.”
“I’m fine.”
She looked at me for a beat. I could see her weighing whether to push, could see the question forming behind her green eyes, the same careful calculation she’d been doing for weeks when my jaw tightened or my phone buzzed at the wrong time. She didn’t push. She went back to the cat story. I listened, my hand finding her knee, and she leaned into me.
The text sat in my pocket like a coal. My gut was screaming at me to deal with this tonight, right now, before whatever they were building finished taking shape. Luca’s voice in my head:Get ahead of this, Finn.
I stayed on the couch. I ate burned pasta, listened to Andrea describe a three-legged cat’s personality, kept my hand on her knee. Didn’t check my phone again. Because she was here, warm against my side, telling me about a damn cat with opinions, and I wasn’t ready to let the outside world back in yet. I wasn’t ready to let it touch this.
She fell asleep against my shoulder an hour later, the TV on low, Buddy snoring at our feet. I sat there in the blue glow of the screen with her weight warm against my side, the phone burning in my pocket. I knew I was going to regret not answering that text tonight. Knew it in my bones, the way you know a storm is coming before the sky changes.
I stayed anyway.
20
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