“Oh, really?” he says, eyes twinkling. “What do you read?”
“Fantasy mainly.”
“I’m a sci-fi nut myself.” He grins again, and it’s so cute I might keel over. “I’m delighted to be sharing with a fellow reader.”
Hmm. I suspect he won’t be saying that in a few weeks.
Sometime during the night, my eyes open onto a ceiling in darkness, and I blink around for a second or two—Des’s apartment.The bed is like sleeping on a pillow. I stretch my arms out like a starfish. I’ve never slept in a big bed before. Sounds reach me from outside: distant traffic thump-thumping on the bridge, a drunk guy singing up the street. Footsteps shuffle past the door to my room, and I turn toward it, heart beating double time, but then they move off down the corridor, and the tap starts in the kitchen. James is getting a glass of water. The blinds are casting intricate patterns across the ceiling like a row of ancient runes, and despite the heavy thump of my heart, I don’t think I’ve ever felt so safe.
Chapter 11
James
“Sign here!” the delivery guy says, holding out a clipboard.
Darius called me from the lobby five minutes ago to say a package had arrived and that I needed to come down. Whether I’d actually call it a package is open to question.
It’s a cat carrier. A loud, caterwauling, cat carrier.
I fold my arms over my chest. “I didn’t ask for a cat to be delivered,” I say over the racket emanating from the floor. “Is it for someone else in the building?”
“James Royce? Apartment 6D?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s for you. And that thing has been howling like a banshee in the back of my truck for the best part of forty minutes, man, so sign the damn form and take it before I wring its neck.”
I raise my eyes to the ceiling. Who the hell would send me a cat? If this is someone’s idea of a practical joke … This is the last thing I need first thing on a Monday morning. “Do you know who ordered it?”
The guy peers at me over his glasses. “You forgot you ordered a cat?” he says incredulously.
“Clearly, since I am surprised by this delivery, I did not order a cat. So now I’m wondering if this is some kind of prank.”
He hands me a piece of paper from his clipboard with a sigh, and an invoice is attached to the back. It has Des’s name on it.
“Des bought me this ... this ...” I start. “Hang on.” I hold up my hand, and he rolls his eyes and glances at his watch. Seoul is thirteen hours ahead: It’ll be 9:30 p.m. there. No way will Des be asleep.
“I’ve got over forty other deliveries to make, man,” the delivery driver grumbles, but I just glower at him.
The phone takes ages to connect, but then it rings in that international dial tone and Des picks up.
“James!”
“You got me a cat?”
“Good morning to you, too. And technically, it’s on loan.”
“What the fuck, Des? What do you meanon loan?”
“The shelter loans out cats because they have too many that don’t have homes. They get depressed sitting in cages for months on end and start eating their own fur. Being in someone’s home gives them a break and some company.”
I bend down to examine the cat in the carrier. It’s black with big green eyes. But it’s clearly not expecting my face to suddenly loom at it through the wire-mesh door, so it jumps backward in surprise, hissing and flattening its ears. “Wonderful to meet you, too, sunshine,” I say.
“I’m going to kill you for this,” I say into the phone.
“I thought a pet might help you and Sadie settle in. And how cruel and heartless are you, Jimmy-boy? Did you not hear the bit about them eating their own fur?”
I’ve often wondered about Des’s propensity to do crazy things in the guise of helping. “You can expect revenge” is all I say and hang up on him.
