“Where is—” I paused to squint at Leon, who’d gone back to eating. “Hold on. Where do you keep getting that toast?”
“Oh! Jake said you should eat when you woke up,” Leon informed me. “Something about you skipping breakfast.”
With that, he picked up a plate I hadn’t noticed before and handed it to me. I looked down and found myself staring at a plateful of scrambled eggs with three pieces of triangle-shaped toast.
“Jake made me scrambled eggs?” I asked haltingly, staring down at the plate.
“They’re the only thing he knows how to make,” Leon toldme. He must’ve misunderstood my confusion, answering why Jake decided to make me eggs instead of why Jake would bother cooking for me at all. “Well, the only thing he knows how to make without setting anything on fire. He tried to make fajitas in our hotel room one time. It didn’t turn out well.At all. But the manager on the night shift was unexpectedly nice.”
I stared down at the food. Jake stayed. Jake made me breakfast.
What did that mean?
“Jake must really like you,” Leon commented. “He never makesmeeggs and toast.”
“Don’t chew with your mouth full,” I said instead of acknowledging his comment.
Rolling his eyes, Leon took a gulp. “Jeez, you even sound like him.”
I turned, glancing around the room. “WhereisJake?”
“Back at the café,” Leon answered, clearly not caring about the details as he waved his hand carelessly toward the door. “Do you need anything?”
Answers. Help. Some guidance. A miracle.
“No, I—” Cutting myself off, I stared at him. “Are you still eating my toast?”
Leon blinked at me. “No,” he said, before setting the second triangle he’d already stolen and taken a bite out of back on my plate.
I laughed. “Just finish it, Leon.”
He snatched the toast back, shoveling it in his mouth like a starving alley cat.
Another thought occurred to me. “How’s the café?”
“Yeah, Jake said you’d ask about that. Don’t worry about it,he runs a tight ship,” Leon said, wiping his hands on his pants. “Jake’s got Phillip and Aspen taking care of everything. All water bowls have been changed. Kibble dishes have been refilled. All the cats have been brushed and attended to like they’ve got personal butlers.”
My mind reeled at the fact that a band on Billboard’s Hot 100 was currently running around doing my chores for me. What was this life?
“It’s good you made sure the café stayed open, because several customers stopped by,” Leon commented. “Some nice old lady came in and Phillip introduced her to Skittles. She was, like, super charmed and wanted to adopt both of them, but we told her only Skittles was available.”
“Skittles? Really?” My heart warmed instantly—he’d been having a hard time getting adopted because he was one of our older residents. They’d found him a home?
“Uh-huh.” Leon nodded, not quite understanding my excitement but smiling back anyway, like he was happy I was happy. “We didn’t know how the whole adoption thing worked, though, so Jake promised to pass the news on to you or your mom and not let anyone else adopt Skittles in the meantime. He’s got her number. Or, well, Phillip’s got her number. I think she wanted a British grandson.”
“Oh my God, that’s fantastic.”
Feeling happy for the first time today, I took a gigantic bite of my eggs.
“By the way, what did you and Jake talk about?” Leon asked curiously. “He seemed kind of...offwhen I saw him.”
I froze, my fork halfway to my mouth and my eyebrows knitting together.
What had I said?
Frantically, I searched my memory, but it came back clouded, like an out-of-focus Polaroid filled with sun glare. I’d been so loopy on the allergy tablets before my nap, I couldn’t remember most of what happened other than he’d made me come home.
I remembered thinking I probably shouldn’t be telling Jake something, though.
