GREGORY AND I GETwater for the cats while my mom calls the vet. They still have plenty of food to get them by until tomorrow if either of them decides to eat, and my money’s on Waffles to devour it all. My mom’s just ending the call when we come back in.
“Dr. Valentine’s about to close up, and she said she’ll stop by to take a look on her way home.” I can tell by her tone that she’s annoyed, but it’s more exasperation than anger.
“Oh good,” I say, relieved. “Thank you so much, Mom.”
“Yes, thank you, Mrs. Madden,” Gregory says.
“Well.” She offers a small grin. “You named one of the cats after my mother, so really, what was I supposed to do?”
“That was all Amelia,” Gregory says. “I was responsible for the other one.”
“And?” my mom prompts.
“We call her Waffles.”
My mom laughs at that. “I like it.”
“Me too,” I say. I turn to face him. “Should we… clothe you?”
“Probably a good idea,” my mom answers for him. She stands and holds out her hand. “Why don’t I throw the dirty one into the wash?”
“Oh, you don’t have to—” Gregory starts, but my mom snatches it out of his hand. He laughs. “What I meant to say was thank you.”
I point toward the stairs. “My room’s up there.”
He follows me, and we start heading up.
“Keep the door open,” my mom calls out, and I die.
Is thereanychance Gregory didn’t catch that? I keep climbing and say nothing.
“Keep the door open, huh?” Gregory repeats. He comes up beside me, leans in close, and whispers, “What does she think we’re gonna do up here?”
I want to laugh or snort or roll my eyes, but I lose every train of thought except the one directing my entire awareness to the tiny sliver of skin on my earlobe that his lower lip just brushed. And then he winks—winks!—at me and hops up onto the landing as if he didn’t just short-circuit my brain.
He looks nice from the back without a shirt too. Dammit.
Gregory enters my room before I do. When I step inside, he’s in the middle, by the foot of my bed, just sort of looking around.
“Wow. It’s almost giving hoarder,” he teases.
“It isnot,” I counter. I may have a lot of things in here, but it’s clean and all in order. “You know when we were walking on thebeach the other day and you said that when you were a kid, you collected rocks?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I collect memories.”
He nods and starts a slow drift around the perimeter. “I see that.” He pauses for a long while at the wall collage of photos. I click on the string lights to give him the full experience.
“I like this one.”
I step closer to get a look at the one he’s pointing at. It’s a selfie of Kat and me, a close-up of our faces, with a bright orange sunset behind us. I always thought I looked pretty in that photo.
“I used to too.”
He looks over at me, and I realize then how close we’re standing.
I slide back a little. “It used to make me happy, but now when I see it, I just feel sad.” I should probably stop there, but something in his expression makes me feel like I can keep talking. “How does that happen? When Kat was around, it was a good memory. It was Fourth of July two years ago right before the show, and there’s nothing better than watching fireworks over the ocean. But now that she’s gone, it just feels totally different.”
