Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 430(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Things that’ll never happen.
I shove those thoughts aside when my phone pings with a text. I swipe it quickly, nerves prickling. Maybe it’s Garrett again.
But it’s a text from Hollis, and there’s a video attached. “Hollis sent me something,” I say, intrigued since the thumbnail is him and Jack.
I waggle the screen at Aubrey and Dev, and we stop in front of an awning in front of a bar. I hit play. “Thought you might want to know your cat and I are besties. Check him out,” Hollis says, then strides across my home with my cat riding his shoulders.
“You have a parrot cat,” Aubrey says, awed.
“Evidently.”
“Does he do other tricks?”
“He’s never done a single trick for me,” I grumble, but with begrudging admiration for Hollis’s determination to teach a cat.
A second video lands.
I shake my head, but I’m laughing. I can only imagine what he’s sending now. I hit play once more.
“High five,” Hollis says to the cat, who’s sitting across from him at the kitchen table. The cat lifts his paw and high fives my cousin.
“Ohhh! He is the cat charmer,” Dev declares.
“Dude, you’re killing me,” I say to the video.
Hollis turns to the camera almost like he’s heard me. “Sorry,” he says with zero contrition. “Should have called it the high paw.”
He smiles and the video ends.
“Your teammate is too charming,” Aubrey says to Dev, then to me, she asks, “And the cat? Is he named Jack because he has only one eye? Like Calico Jack the pirate?”
“No. It’s short for Jackass because ever since I adopted him from Little Friends Animal Rescue, he’s been a jerk,” I say, feeling terrible now I named him that.
Aubrey pats my back. “Maybe you should have named him Calico Jack. Maybe he’d have liked it more to have a badass pirate name.”
I heave a sigh. “You might be right.”
With her other hand, she taps her chin for a few seconds. “When did you get him from Little Friends?”
“Couple years ago. At the Hockey Hotties calendar fundraiser in the park.”
“I remember that! That’s when Trina and the guys announced their relationship,” she recounts.
“And distracted the media with their romance,” Dev adds.
“Now everyone’s used to hockey throuples,” Aubrey says with amusement, then she meets my gaze again. “So you got a cat that day? Was it…sublimation?”
I scrunch my brow. “For…what?”
“Trina said she thought you were checking me out then,” she teases, giving my back a bit of a squeeze now.
I flash back to that day. To noticing Garrett’s little sister in the park. To thinking she was off-limits, but so damn pretty too. “Trina’s right,” I admit. “But then I met Marla shortly after, married her quickly, then lost her just as quickly.”
Timing. It’s really everything, isn’t it? Maybe if I hadn’t been so worried about her being Garrett’s sister, I’d have said something that day. But maybe not. “Guess I should have swooped in before Aiden did.”
There’s regret in my tone.
In Dev’s sigh, too, when he adds, “And I was with Eva.”
Aubrey goes quiet for a few seconds, maybe contemplating her own what-ifs as well. Wondering what it’d have been like if we’d all connected when we were truly free.
“Well, one good thing came out of it. Or two, really. I started volunteering with Little Friends, and you got a cat. Who’s probably getting a new name very soon.” That’s Aubrey. Looking on the bright side.
“Calico Jack,” I say, trying that on for size.
She doesn’t let go of my back for the rest of the block. I want to walk all night. But when we reach the corner, we’re clearly at the place Aubrey picked out. I crack up at the orange name written across the window in a vintage font. Melt Your Heart. “You did it,” I say to her, impressed.
She smiles proudly. We’re standing in front of a grilled cheese restaurant that she found for my friend. “Let’s make it National Grilled Cheese Day. It’s your cheat day, Dev,” Aubrey says.
Dev drops his head, shaking it in delight, perhaps trying to hide his smile but utterly failing. “I’m all in,” he says.
I bet there’s a double meaning there.
We go inside, and my pulse kicks up again. I want to kiss her. I want him to kiss her. I want to tell her that taking me to that plant shop and taking him to this grilled cheese joint is just doing it for me. Making me feel like I could escape into her. Because of what she does for me, for him, and for us.
Feelings are such dangerous fools though. Best to focus on food instead.
Ignoring the mushy thoughts and the squishy things she’s doing to my heart, I order a gouda on sourdough while Aubrey picks a cheddar and apple, then nudges Dev, who’s perusing the chalkboard menu. “Get the Ultimate. You can do it,” she goads.