“I wanted to thank the both of you for everything you’ve done for the café this summer,” Mom continued. She set her crutches against the counter, then reached out to briefly squeeze one of my hands and one of Amber’s. “But it’s down to the livestream tomorrow. If we don’t see a significant change, we’re going to have to close by the end of next month.”
“What?” The month deadline felt like a sucker punch down to the cold, hard ground. “So soon?”
Reality hit.Hard. I knew this might be something we had to deal with, but I always thought of closing the café as a looming danger, something we could still keep putting further and further off and maybe never deal with at all. Now, it was actually happening.
“What about the boys?” Amber asked, gesturing toward the cat room. “They clearly love this place. What if they donated something?”
“Well, as generous as that would be, it wouldn’t fix the real problem,” Mom explained. “This place needs to be sustainable on its own. The whole point of it is to get cats adopted out. If we don’t have guests, there’s no reason to stay open an extra month or two. Our resources would be better put toward trying to find safe, alternative options for the cats.” Mom sighed. “I didn’t want to put pressure on any of you by saying that whether we permanently close our doors or not depends on the livestream, but...”
“But it depends on the livestream,” I echoed.
“Yeah,” Mom nodded. “It really does.”
Or else everything I treasured would be gone within a month.
I glanced over at Jake through the glass.
If it wasn’t already gone this week.
***
The livestream was in less than twenty-four hours. Everything came down to that moment, and it decided if I got to keep this place I loved so much or not.
But, right now, all we could do was wait.
Jake was rehearsing, one last time. Aside from the group vocals, Jake’s guitar would be the sole source of music. We decided that too many other instruments would bother the cats.
But from what I could tell, the cats seemed to like his guitar. Bunny was curled up inside the plush, emerald-green lining of his guitar case, while the other cats were watching his fingers move across the strings with fascination. Rumple, in particular, seemed riveted by the music. Then again, he might merely have been waiting for an opportunity to steal a guitar pick.
Out of nowhere came the thought:What if these are some of the final moments I get to spend in the café?
And how much longer would the boy strumming the guitar be in my life?
The music stopped. “What’s wrong?” Jake asked.
Looking up, I saw Jake staring at me from across the café.
“Just thinking,” I said quietly.
Jake shifted the curve of the guitar over his thigh. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Thanks, but you know what? I actually don’t.”
I’d been worrying about so many things for so long that Ijust couldn’t anymore. I’d have to face it all tomorrow, but until that moment came, in a weird way it felt like time was suspended. Twilight settled over the café. Streetlamps sent a low, peaceful glow through the windows. Jake strummed his black guitar, filling the air with music.
Right then, the café felt something like liminal space—an empty, nearly surreal place of transition, like an airport terminal or hotel hallway. A slice of quiet caught between the chaos.
Rising, I crossed the café toward Jake, stopping to pet Bunny. As I leaned down, I caught the smell of something sweet interlaced with spice.
I stilled, my fingers coming to a stop in Bunny’s fur.
Memories of Jake’s second day here flitted through my mind. Us in the pantry. His arms accidentally caging me in against him. The hypnotic heat of his breath against my skin. The scent of his soap flooding my senses.
Except the scent wasn’t soap, after all. Or even cologne. It was coming from Jake’s guitar.
“You okay?” Jake asked, watching me with a peculiar expression on his face.
“The guitar smells nice,” I admitted.
