I breathe. Slowly. The way my therapist taught me. The way I practiced for months until it became muscle memory, until my body learned that tightness is not a heart attack, that heat behind my eyes isn’t the end of the world, that the feeling of every cell in my body screaming at me to run does not mean I actually have to.
The counter is cool. The kitchen is quiet. Somewhere in the house next door, a man covered in chocolate is cleaning up a disaster with a white cat supervising, and he has no idea that the woman on the other side of the fence is standing in her kitchen trying to remember how to breathe.
I delete Louis’s text, and I leave the invitation on the fridge.
Back in my study, I sit at my desk and return to my manuscript for book two. The cursor blinks where I left off, in the middle of the blackberry crumble story and Nana turning almost nothing into magic. I read the last sentence I wrote, then add another, and the squeeze in my chest loosens because I love writing about Nana. The book. The recipes. The stories carrying the memory of a woman who never apologized for who she was, how she cooked, or the space she took up in a room.
Maybe that’s the part I need to remember.
Nana never made herself smaller so people could accept her more easily. She burned things, swore at pastry, laughed too loudly, and once told a town councilman that his wife’s scones tasted like building insulation. Everyone still adored her.
I stare at the page, and something inside me steadies just enough to keep going.
One sentence becomes two.
Two become a paragraph.
And for the first time all day, I’m not thinking about the internet or Louis or all the ways my life has gone sideways. My thoughts circle my new neighbor.
The one I still can’t believe is the online celebrity from the bookstore.
3
CLAIRE
Atrill sound cuts across the backyard.
Low, musical, the sound a bird would make. I glance up from my laptop, half expecting to find Brody leaning over the fence, but it’s just sun-bleached wood and the tops of his hedges swaying in the breeze.
Then I see him. Not Brody. Damien, from all the baking videos where he’s always observing or knocking things over.
The cat is crossing my lawn with the slow, purposeful stride of a creature who knows they are in charge. His fur ripples in the breeze, impossibly white, so thick and layered that he looks upholstered. He trills again, golden eyes fixed on me, and I’m grinning crazily because I’ve watched so many videos of this cat in the past week and he’s even more magnificent in person.
I stay very still on my sun lounger. Laptop on my thighs, iced water sweating on the side table, bowl of grapes warming in the afternoon sun. My shorts are mini and my tank top is cropped. I didn’t dress for a celebrity encounter, yet here we are.
Damien reaches the lounger. Sniffs the metal frame. Evaluates it, then springs up onto the foot of the chair, and the whole thing rocks under his weight.
“Oh. Hello.”
He’s huge. On camera, he’s a fluffy white blur darting across Brody’s kitchen, but up close he’s a wall of silk and muscle. He steps onto my shins, and the pressure is immediate, warm paws kneading once, twice, before he moves higher. His fur brushes against my bare legs, and it’s absurdly soft, the texture of cashmere if it had a heartbeat and a five-million-follower website.
@DamienKnocks. Merch line, fan-art page, a paw-print rating system for every recipe Brody bakes. The cat outperforms me on every metric that exists, and I’ve decided to respect it rather than spiral about it.
He reaches the side table and stretches his neck toward the grape bowl, whiskers twitching, nostrils flaring. One white paw stretches out and bats a grape. It rolls. He watches it with the intensity of a predator assessing prey, then lifts his head and turns away with a full-body pivot of disgust.
“Sorry. No fancy cream here.” I scratch under his chin, and he pushes into my hand, purring instantly, a mechanical rumble I feel through my fingertips and into my wrist. “But if this is going to be a regular thing, I can get you some treats?—”
“Oh, please don’t,” says a deep voice from across the fence, warm and threaded with amusement.
My heart slams into my throat. I glance up to find Brody leaning over the wooden fence that reaches his chest, muscular arms folded on the top rail, chin resting on his forearms. The breeze catches his dark hair, pushing it across his forehead, and he’s wearing a shirt today, a navy Henley with the sleeves shoved up past his elbows, which feels almost modest compared to what I’ve been watching on his channel.
He’s staring at me with blue eyes that are brighter in daylight and a grin that starts slowly and spreads until it takes over his entire face.
“He’s on a diet,” Brody says. “Vet’s orders. And Damien is furious about it.”
As if understanding every word, Damien releases a squeak. High-pitched, indignant, and so absurdly small coming from a cat this size that I almost choke on my own breath.
“Did he just?—”
