‘If only you hadn’t badgered him about going to the hospital you could have saved yourself a whole heap of trouble,’ Savannah said, shaking her head mournfully. ‘It was Britt’s ex,’ she explained, seeing Nick’s confusion.
‘He was put on antibiotics and everything was fine,’ Jenny cut in, trying to smooth over her daughters’ dramatics. ‘Fat Cat is just a little … temperamental sometimes.’
‘Interesting name,’ Nick commented, eyeing the animal, who continued to lay there looking like anything but the lethal weapon the rest of the family was describing.
‘When we got her she was tiny, so we called her Little Cat, but then she developed some kind of food allergy and packed on the weight, so she ended up Fat Cat,’ Chloe explained.
Maybe it was just him, but somehow it felt wrong to be fat shaming a cat. Still, he supposed they weren’t really wrong. It was an extraordinarily fat cat. ‘Hey, Fat Cat,’ he said soothingly.
‘Don’t say it to her face!’ Savannah gasped.
‘You said that was her name,’ Nick said, eyeing the horrified glances surrounding him.
‘We don’t actuallycallher that though … Jeez, what kind of monster says that to a cat?’
He sent a bewildered glance to Jenny, who briefly closed her eyes before giving him a reassuring smile. ‘It’s fine. They’re only kidding. Girls, stop it.’
‘Actually, we’re not. If you want to call her, just say, “puss, puss,”’ Chloe advised him and for the life of him, he couldn’t decide if she was serious or not.
‘Right. Sorry,’ he muttered.
‘Don’t apologise to me—apologise to her,’ Chloe said, nodding towards the feline spread out on the floor like some centrefold model.
‘Sorry … Puss, puss,’ he said obligingly, but felt like an idiot as Beth chuckled. What the hell had he gotten himself into?
Jenny lowered the platter of food to the coffee table and smiled weakly, her shaky confidence sending a pang through him. He gave her a reassuring grin in return. He could handle this. He had to if he wanted this thing between them to be more than a casual affair.
‘So, what’s it like having a famous sister?’ Savannah asked, after reaching over to scoop some dip onto a biscuit. She leaned back. ‘I’ve seen all those photos of her in the magazines, cruising on yachts in the Greek Islands and sitting in the audience at fashion shows. You must have had some pretty awesome holidays visiting her?’
‘To be honest, I never visited her when she lived overseas.’
‘What? Why not?’ Chloe asked, looking shocked.
‘We weren’t that close when I was younger, and then I was in the army and it never really worked out to visit.’
‘If I had a sister worth a gazillion dollars I’d havemadeit work out,’ Chloe said.
‘Chloe,’ Jenny hissed, clearly horrified by her youngest daughter’s observation.
‘Well, it’s true.’
‘You don’t just go and make assumptions about people’s family like that,’ she said, lowering her tone slightly.
‘I wasn’t. All I said was if Sav and Britt were rich, I’d be pretty much living with them.’
Nick chuckled, ‘It’s okay, Jen. I guess, if we’d have been closer growing up, I probably would have hung out with her more, but she’d already left home by the time I came along—she and my parents had a falling out and were estranged when she ran away, so I really didn’t know her that well.’
‘Her life must have been amazing,’ Beth said. ‘From a teenage runaway to a successful businesswoman. That’s pretty impressive.’
‘Yeah, she’s always known what she wanted, apparently.’ He shrugged.
Chloe pouted. ‘Why couldn’t either of you have married some filthy rich guy who owns a yacht?’
‘Hey, there’s still time,’ Savannah said, flicking a crumb from her lap.
‘Not if you never leave here,’ Chloe shot back.
‘Shut up. At least I’ve been out there and seen a bit of the world.’
