“You feeling any better today?” Jake asked cautiously.
“I am, thanks,” I replied, just as carefully.
Why were we being so guarded, like this balance between us was something delicate?
“Thank you too for, you know, pretty much everything yesterday,” I told him. Why did I sound so stilted? We were several years and too many stories past that. “I appreciate it. You didn’t have to do any of that.”
He shook his head. “I did.”
Jake didn’t make it sound like a chore, though. It sounded more like a something he couldn’t stop himself from doing.
Carefully, I held my index finger out toward the kitten in his arms, letting her say hello. I gave Jake’s shirt-turned-blanket-slash-napkin a knowing look, before glancing up at him sideways.
“Got you wrapped around her paw already, I see,” I commented, trying to get back the easiness and lightness between us. I grinned down at the kitten. “Good job.”
“Like she doesn’t have you too,” Jake replied, watching as I dabbed the formula dripping off the kitten’s delicate white whiskers. “I was with your mom when the shelter lady came and talked about how there was nowhere else they could go because the shelters are so overcrowded.” He shook his head, a frown touching his lips. “There are so many cats who need homes, and they’ve been waiting formonths.She said she’s trying her hardest to keep them out of the kill shelter, and I just...”
He looked back down at the kitten in his arms, who gazed up at him like he was everything—which wasn’t too far from the truth. She was just meeting the world now. Jake was one of the first people she was seeing, and hopefully she’d only have to encounter people just as kind.
“I didn’t realize things were that bad. I can see why this place is important and special to everyone,” he said, his eyes locking on mine. “Why we have to save it.”
I nodded, glad he saw what I did.
Jake watched me for a moment, hazel eyes shifting from soft to intense, then back again, before looking away and down at the kitten. “Listen, I owe you an apology for that first night.”
“First night?”
“My first night back,” he elaborated, before his mouth crooked upward in a closed-lipped, lopsided grin. “You know, when you about took my head off.”
“I’d never.”
“Right.” He gave me another amused look. “But to jog your memory since you clearly blacked out how you almost attacked me—”
“The key word here beingalmost.”
“Pretty sure the key word here’sattacked.”
I reached over the cradle of Jake’s arms to tickle the kitten’s tummy, my fingers gliding over her silky, mosaic-patterned fur. “Don’t worry about him, he’s a lyricist. He loves a dramatic turn of phrase.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Anyway, I told you Marie sent me down here.”
“Right.” That hadn’t exactly been the best moment.It’s not like I had a choice, he’d told me. Why was he bringing it up?
“Well, that’s not the whole truth,” Jake confessed, eyes flickering away. “Mariewaswith me, but she didn’t send me here. She wasn’t even a fan of the idea at all until I called her about the livestream and she thought it’d be a great way for her to get promo while getting the band back together.”
What? I froze, my arm unmoving as it draped over Jake’s to reach the kitten, the pads of my fingers paused over her fur.
Coming down here hadn’t been his manager’s idea, it’d beenJake’s?
Of course it hadn’t been Marie’s, I realized. She’d created the bad boy image. Why would she need to fix it? I’d been so distracted: The fighting (and forgiving) band. My allergy bender. The truth bomb from my mom about the money situation. My old feelings surfacing anew. It didn’t even dawn on me what the truth about Jake’s personaalsomeant.
“I should’ve been honest at the start,” Jake admitted.
“So why weren’t you?” I asked, trying to figure things out. “Why keep up the whole charade?”
He squinted, scrunching up his face. “I don’t know—stupid reasons, I guess. Like, when I first came back, I thought maybe you’d be happier to see me. Then when you weren’t, I thought maybe I should act like I didn’t want to be here either. You being defensive made me defensive.”
That made sense. I hadn’t exactly been welcoming. I’d been so thrown by him showing up like a thief in the night; when I thought he’d been throwing attitude at me, I tossed some back at him.
