“Hug baby Gretta for me,” I told her. “And thanks for the heads-up. Getting a call from Charlie is always a jump scare.”
“Love you big.” She’d been saying those three words to me for as long as I could remember. As a kid, I’d always cried when we had to say goodbye and it was time for my parents to take over the duties of parenting so that Ruth—our faithful nanny—could have some precious hours to herself. So she stopped saying bye and every day ended withlove you big. I had the saying tattooed on my rib cage in a delicate cursive.
“Love you big,” I said back to her.
I closed the laptop and turned over on my side as Mr. Tumnus nudged his way through the cracked door of the guest room.
It had been two days since Isaac told me about his childhood nanny, and I’d lied about having one of my own. I felt strangely guilty, but it was a force of habit more than anything. If anyone could understand my upbringing though, it would be Isaac. But that didn’t matter. What did matter was finding his muse. The thought excited me. I liked the idea of matchmaking people. It was like playing with Barbies, but way more fun. Well, actually, my Barbies always ended up scissoring, so that was hard to beat.
A sinking feeling settled in my stomach at the thought of waking up tomorrow. Sometimes that was the hardest part about falling asleep. Surely, it was due to Charlie asking about me. Nothing good could come of that. My brother would rather forget I existed, so if he’d mentioned me to Nan, then it was only a matter of time before I heard from him.
Tomorrow, I’d find Isaac his perfect muse, and if I was lucky it would end in Barbie scissoring. Now, that was something to look forward to.
Chapter Six
Isaac
Ihad no idea what that sharky manager who wanted to revive my career would say if she could see me now, trying to nudge a catnip-filled toy toward a cat who was licking his paw with utter indifference.
“Come on,” I cajoled. “You know you want it.”
Mr.Tumnus continued to ignore me—and the finest mouse-shaped toy Amazon Prime had to offer—so I got onto my stomach to push the mouse even closer. And, of course, the floor of the upstairs hallway was fuckingfreezing. My nipples were drilling holes into the parquet wood.
My phone buzzed. With sniper-level stealth, I slowly moved my hand to my pocket to pull it out and look at the screen.
Judy:Did you give him the toy yet?
Betty:If it doesn’t work, try fresh catnip! I can send you a cutting from my garden, it’s very easy to grow.
Dee:Remember not to make eye contact!
I angled the phone so I could snap a picture of the toy on the floor next to an unmoved Mr.Tumnus and then I sent it to the thread. Judy, Betty, and Dee were fellow Crime Time detectives and the first people to offer me cat advice after I’d posted yesterday. In fact, they’d offered mesomuch advice that a mod had semi-politely asked us to move the conversation off the server because we were spamming the feed with cat content.
And thus, the official Cat Advisory Text Thread was born.
Judy:Now walk away! Don’t pressure him!
Betty:Once he has a healthy way to work out his energy, he’ll stop misbehaving.
Dee:Possibly. Or he’ll still eat your house.
Dee’s cat expertise came not from owning or loving cats but from a yearslong feud with her daughter-in-law’s cat—which had necessitated becoming an expert in her enemy, Sun Tzu style. As such, she had a fairly dim view of the species but was happy to share her intel on feline psychology, especially since it gave her a chance to be nosy.
Dee:So... how long has the cat lived with you?
I knew what she really wanted to know, which was how long I’d had a roommate, and how cozy said roommate and I were. The Crime Time group didn’t know I was Isaac Kelly, Former Heartthrob, but they did know that I was young and widowed and alone. Given that a not-insignificant portion of the server was made up of retired women with big-church-bake-sale energy, my age and widowed status meant that I was destined for some well-intentioned meddling.
But I really needed the help with Mr.Tumnus. Good advice doesn’t come for free, after all.
Me:Less than a week. But what if he hates me forever???
Dee:That could be a problem if this is a long-term thing with your roommate...
I decided not to answer that, at least not yet. Partially because I truthfully didn’t know how long Sunny would stay here, but partially because the idea of her moving out made me itchy and pissy and sad. It was nice knowing there was someone else around, nice hearing her humming in that out-of-tune way of hers as she wandered the halls. Nice seeing her in hoodies and messy buns, looking adorable and sleepy as she banged around the kitchen in the morning looking for coffee.
Speaking of, it was properly morning now, and I had plans for her. I got up from the floor, narrowed my eyes at the cat, who narrowed his right back, and then went up another flight of stairs to Sunny’s room.
The door was open, and I knocked before stepping inside, at first seeing only the four-poster bed, a leather briefcase full of embroidery floss, and an open suitcase that had somehow become an ecosystem of snarled leggings and loose socks. The whole space was the opposite of my room, which barely looked lived in, even after months of being here. I used to blame the pop star life—tours and press junkets and constant traveling made it hard to spread outanywhere—but that wasn’t the reason, not really. The truth was that I liked my room to match how I felt on the inside. Vacant. Bare. A showroom where a life could be lived, but wasn’t.
