“Never mind. Same difference. It’s a great name.” Her voice is too bright. Too agreeable. She’s doing that thing where she smiles too wide and won’t quite meet my eyes. “He looks like a Sylvester. Very distinguished.”
I narrow my eyes. “Charlie.”
“What?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
She bites her lip, clearly wrestling with something. Even the cat looks between us with the detached interest of a creature who knows drama is unfolding but can’t be bothered to care. He yawns pointedly, as if we need to become aggressively more entertaining, fast, if we want him to stay.
Charlie huffs out a breath, shoulders dropping in defeat. “I may have…already named him.”
“Already named him.”
“Like, a week ago. Maybe longer.” She winces. “I’ve been calling him Toothless.”
“Toothless.” I stare at her. “Like the dragon?”
“Well it matches more than Sylvester!” She says it defensively, like this is a completely reasonable choice. “He’s all black with big eyes and he does this thing where he retracts his claws when he’s happy, just like Toothless retracts his teeth in the movie. And I know there’s probably thousands of black cats out there also named Toothless, but itfits, okay? He responds to it and everything. He looks up when I say it. Well, sometimes. When he feels like it.”
I’m laughing before she finishes. Full, belly-deep laughter that shakes my shoulders and makes my eyes water. Charlie swats my arm, but she’s grinning too, the tension of the morning temporarily forgotten in the absurdity of the moment.
“Maybe we should let him pick,” I say.
“Good call. Sylvester?” Charlie calls. Nothing. “Toothless?” she says in a tone that is far more honey-sweet, trying to stack the deck for her pick. Still, nothing.
“Black Cat,” I gruff out. His ears perk, he catches me in his periphery in a look that says,you rang? “Oh damn. Damage might be done, Charlie.”
She shakes her head in defeat. “We now have a black cat, that’s named Black Cat. Sure…let’s roll with that.”
I don’t care what we call the damn cat. I just like how she saidwe.
The cat in question yawns enormously, displaying all of his very much present teeth, then hops down from the counter and saunters toward his food bowl like this conversation is beneath him. His food dish sits empty, yet there he perches beside it, eyes narrowed to hostile slits that silently communicate we have failed at our most basic duty as his human servants.
This is what I want, I realize. Not just the big dramatic moments—the declarations and the confrontations and the passionate nights in blanket forts. But this. The small, mundane intimacy of a shared morning. Coffee she hates. A cat with two names. The easy rhythm of two lives beginning to intertwine.
“Hey.” I catch her hand, tugging her back toward me. She comes willingly, a pastry in her hand, crumbs already on her lips that I plan to kiss away. “Why me? You’ve met a lot of strangers. Why did you keep me?”
She nods knowingly. “Mostly because all the other escorts that came before you were incredibly disappointing?—”
“Charlie,” I growl. “Be serious for me. For once.”
She smiles. “Remember the night we met?”
“Of course.”
“I begged my mom that night to send me a sign. A message from beyond of whether to give up or keep going. I didn’t expect her answer to come in the form of a behemoth of a man carryinga two-pronged vibrator that could double as a jackhammer, but you ask the universe for gifts, you don’t really get to pick the packaging.”
A chuckle escapes me, soft but genuine. “So you think your mom sent me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But all I know is that night I was paying attention. On any other night, maybe I would’ve let you slip away.”
I hold up my coffee mug. “Well, cheers to your mom.”
“Yeah,” Charlie says with a distant look in her eyes. “Cheers to my mom.”
The doorbell buzzes—sharp and insistent. Sage, here for the reckoning.
Charlie takes a deep breath, straightens her spine, and pulls away from me. But she pauses at the threshold of the kitchen, looking back with an expression that makes my chest ache.
