Betting on the Brainiac: a Sweet Romantic Comedy

14. Chapter Fourteen

I can’t remember the last time I looked forward to work this much. I like what I do, especially since working on the startup. But now that a day at “the office” is spent playing with kittens and making Madison laugh, I wake up excited to get to Gatsby’s.

This isn’t good. I know it’s not good. I like Madison more every day that I’m around her, and it’s obvious that her feelings for me are deepening too—her feelings of friendship.

I should be okay with that. I’m not.

I need to do something about it. Give up the idea that I can resist her, for starters. Then shoot my shot, obviously. But how? This is a shift in gears, and I need to think it through.

Thursday morning, I clear out another mouse before Madison gets in. She’s been leaving the office door open so Tabitha can get out to use the litterbox in the storage room, so I visit with the kittens before I head to my nearby booth.

Madison arrives twenty minutes later, and I hear her coo over the kittens before she comes to say hello to me.

“Hey,” she says.

I fight to keep my smile a normal size when I return hers. Be chill, Oliver. She doesn’t need another fanboy at Gatsby’s.

“When does the rest of the staff come in?” I ask. “It’s event setup day, right?”

She nods. “Around 3:00. Sorry for the inconvenience, but at least it’s only once a month.”

“Not a problem,” I say. “What’s the rescue situation?”

“No openings yet.” She slides into the booth across from me and scrubs her hands over her face, the first time I’ve seen how much this worries her. “I called them all before I left this morning to make sure, but no. Nothing so far.”

“I’ll take them with me. I can hang on to them until something opens up.” A few days ago, I might have hidden a sigh before offering, but maybe I am under the spell of the furballs. Or maybe I don’t like seeing Madison so stressed.

She props her chin on her hand and drums the tabletop a few times as her eyes wander around the club. Then she blinks and straightens. “I might have a better idea. You know the storage shed in the back? Next to the dumpster? I’m going to see if that might be a good place to put Tab and the babies.”

“That sounds like a band that sings kids songs.”

“It is. They’re dropping their first album soon. I’m their manager.”

I love how quick her mind is. “Cool, cool. What’s the first song I should keep an eye out for?”

“Itsy-Bitsy Spider Gets Squished.”

“Dark.”

“Itsy-Bitsy deserved it. No one invited her. Besides, it’s an emo band.”

“Not trying to be a bummer, but the kittens don’t come across as emo. I think it’s the fluffiness.”

She stands and waves off my concern. “I’m going to dress them all in wallet chains and leather cuffs.”

I can’t fight a grin at the idea of tiny leather kitten cuffs. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“Duh. Want to go on a field trip to the shed?”

No. I want Tab and the Babies to come to my house, but then I’ll never leave, and I’ll fall behind on this climate data integration tool. Failing that, I want Madison to have made the shed invitation with a slightly salacious second meaning.

I slide out of the booth. “I’ll chaperone your field trip.”

“We don’t use the shed,” Madison says as she grabs a key from the office wall. “It’s mainly for seasonal decorations and miscellaneous barware.”

If I ever thought about the shed, I’d describe it as small, but when I stand in front of it considering it for a cat habitat, it’s bigger than I’ve noticed before. A single bulb illuminates the six-by-eight-foot space, and everything inside is organized in labeled bins and stacked against the walls, leaving a four-by-six-foot area of open space in the center.

“What do you think?” Madison asks as she makes room for me to step inside.

I scan the stacks and look up at the light. “This could work. But we have to make sure Tabitha can get in and out, and I’ll see how easy it is to make that light motion-activated. Or if a cat could even set it off. I’ll rig a night vision camera too.”

“I don’t want it to be too noisy for her out here,” Madison says. “How about we do a sound check? I’ll go crank the PA system inside and you tell me if you can hear it out here with the door closed?”

“Will it scare the kittens since they’re inside?”

“Oh, right.” She bites her lip, thinking.

I’ve seen other people with this habit. But I’ve never wanted to reach over and run my thumb over that bottom lip to tease it loose and feel it against my skin.

“—the sound.”

Whoops. “Sorry, what?”

She repeats herself. “Let’s figure out if we can even make an exit for Tabitha, and if we can, we can move them out here and test the sound.” She points to the far wall and a vent cover a few inches below the ceiling. “What about that vent up there? It backs up to the property wall, which is probably about six feet high. If we uncover the vent and make it easy for Tabitha to get to it, can she do whatever cat mama things she needs to do?”

“You want me to set that up or do you want me to research if Tabitha would even use it?”

“I’ll call Mrs. Lipsky,” she says. “How about you be Bob the Builder?”

“On it.”

I move toward the vent while she steps outside to call Mrs. Lipsky. By the time she comes back in, Madison’s stomach gets loud. I politely ignore it and gesture for her to inspect my engineering. Tabitha has a ramp straight up to the bins below the vent, and it’s an easy jump from there to get out. It’s only about a foot down to the outside fence, so she can come and go as she likes. I’m not sure why I have faith in a cat who got her own babies stuck halfway between the ceiling and floor inside the club, but I do.

We do a sound test. I shuttle the kittens out in the carrier. Once we’re in the shed, I text Madison. A moment later, I feel more than I hear a soft rhythmic thumping. When I close my eyes and imagine sleeping, I don’t think it would be an issue for me, but it’s Tabitha that matters here. She’s sitting beside the carrier, her tail twitching, eyes fixed on me.

Too loud or okay?

Watching Tabitha. Give it a few minutes.

Madison changes the song, which changes the beat. Smart. Tabitha doesn’t show any reaction. After another minute, she gets up to explore the shed, sniffing around the edges of the bins.

Seems okay. Bring kibble?

Madison taps on the shed door a couple minutes later before opening it. I can hear the music slightly more, but it’s almost like hearing the shape of a sound more than the sound itself.

She closes the door behind her and tilts her head, listening and watching Tabitha conduct her exploration. “It’s not bad at all.”

“She seems fine with it,” I say. “Kittens are asleep. I want to get her up the ramp so she knows how to get in and out.”

“Good plan.” Madison holds out her clenched hand and I meet it with mine, cupped so she can drop the food into it. Her fingertips graze the heel of my hand, and the touch shoots straight up my arm like an electric current.

She walks over to Tabitha, like she didn’t feel a thing.

“I’ll give her a couple pieces while you make a trail to the vent,” she says, crouching to offer Tabitha the food.

Three minutes later, Tabitha is at the top of the ramp, sniffing the outdoors through the uncovered vent.

“This should work,” Madison says. “I’ll put some kibble on the wall outside, and if it disappears, we can assume she’s got it all figured out.”

“How about leaving the back door of the club cracked so she can wander in if she wants? Or do you have to worry about theft?”

She watches Tabitha examine her penthouse exit. “I’ll risk it. We have security cameras, so if anyone does sneak in, at least the police will know who murdered us.”

“Probably an honor killing to avenge Itsy-Bitsy.”

She turns to glare at me. “I’m telling you, she had it coming.”

I hold up my hands in surrender. “You’re a reasonable woman. I believe you.”

“So anyway, when I called Mrs. Lipsky, she said I have to make the shed an environment no cat would ever want to leave so Tabitha won’t move the babies again.” She takes my shoulders and turns me, pointing me toward the shed door. “You are going back inside to work while I figure that out.”

I obey for about ten minutes until I hear her talking in the storage room and go to investigate.

“—so I’ll be using the shed for the kittens, Heinrich.” She sees me, points to the phone at her ear, and holds up her finger to indicate she’s almost done. She nods, and finishes with “Of course I’ll send a picture for Ilsa. Yes, I’ll include mama cat. You too. Tschüss.”

She lowers the phone. “Back to work, Oliver.”

“You’re not my boss.”

“I know that, but if I keep letting you get distracted, you’re not going to want to work in here anymore, and I like having you here.”

A warm feeling floods my chest. “You do?”

“Yeah. Go to work.”

I nod at the phone. “Your boss is okay with the kittens being here?”

She grins. “When are you going to believe me when I tell you that I make the decisions around here?”

“Okay, okay, I’m starting to.”

“Back to work.”

I obey for another two hours, but when Tabitha walks past my table, I take a break to check on the kittens.

Madison has turned the shed into a cat habitat. A crowded one. Maybe she had another delivery, or maybe this was all hiding in her car, but now a scratching post sits in one corner next to a soft cave-looking cat bed with cat ears on top, several bright toys strewn in front of it. Two futuristic-looking machines now face each other from opposite sides of the shed, one about the size of an office wastebasket, the other more like a Keurig machine.

The kittens look sound asleep except the one Madison named Tuxie, who stirs.

“Pspspsps,” I call, and his noggin wobbles as he slowly lifts it. “Come here, little man.” I scoop him up before I examine his new robot overlords. They’re white and sleek with round lines, but one has a large circular opening, and I have a guess what it is. I peer inside: yeah, cat litter. I’m about to investigate the other one when Madison appears at the shed door.

“I needed a break,” I say. “This is not a distraction. I like what you’ve done with the place. Question, though.” I point to the other machine. “Did you get them an espresso maker?”

“Automatic feeder,” she says. “The pet store will deliver anything for you. And that other one is a self-cleaning litterbox.”

It’s none of my business how Madison spends her money, but it seems like overkill for animals that will only be around for a few more days. “You’re still planning to give them to a rescue, right?”

“Of course.”

“Didn’t the stuff kind of . . .”

She tilts her head at me.

“Didn’t it cost a lot?” I finish.

She shrugs. “I figure it’ll sweeten the pot for a rescue to take them if they’re getting cool cat gadgets to go with it.”

That’s generous. “Makes sense. But the bed, Madison?”

She beams. “So cute, right?”

“They have to climb into a giant cat mouth to go to sleep.” I pretend to shudder.

“It’s luxurious. Tabitha is a lady. I can tell she’s used to nice things.”

Tabitha is not a fluffy white angora princess. She is, at best, two steps above a feral alley cat. But sure, let the lady have nice things. I decide not to tease Madison about it anymore. “I need to take off soon. Want help weighing them before I go?”

“Yes, please.” She pulls out the food scale, and in a few minutes, we verify that they’re still growing.

“Are you kitties or piglets?” she asks one of the striped babies, gently tickling its tummy. It gives a sleepy meow. “Guess that answers that. Good job of growing, babies.”

She settles them all down and we leave the shed again, Madison pulling the door shut softly behind us.

“I’m going to install a camera and a motion-activated sensor for the light before your coworkers get here. I won’t be here tomorrow, and I can check the camera on my phone, but do you mind if I text you to check on the kittens?”

“No,” she says. “How come you won’t be here?”

“Meetings.” I hate meetings, but some I can’t miss, and tomorrow we’ve got investors coming to do their due diligence. Prospective investors, which means I have to spend the day acting like a corporate guy instead of a developer, talking about the product instead of building it. It’s not my favorite, but my partner is adamant that I can’t miss these.

“You won’t be back until Monday?”

Does she sound slightly disappointed by that? “Yeah.”

“But . . .” She does the bottom-lip-biting thing. “What if there’s a problem?”

Oh. She wasn’t disappointed about me not coming in tomorrow; she’s worried about solo cat-parenting. I give her a reassuring smile. “Call me. I’ll come over as soon as I can. Or Mrs. Lipsky. Or any of the rescues. But I’ll check on them through the camera, and you’ve got this. You’ve been great with them so far.”

“Thanks.”

We walk into the club in silence, but she stops short in the storage room, and I bump into her with a soft oof. She turns and hooks her finger into my hoodie pocket. “I can call if there’s a problem?”

I look down at her. I think of her as tall, but she barely reaches my chin. Hers is tilted up, but she keeps her eyes down, studying the name of a different software company printed across my chest. I probably smell like cat, but her caramel scent is playing havoc with my brain.

“Madison,” I say, trying to keep my tone even and reassuring. Her eyes flick up to mine. “Of course. I’m not a delinquent cat dad. If they seem off at any point this weekend, I’ll bring them back to my place. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Tomorrow night is going to be pretty late for you, isn’t it? With the mask thing or whatever?”

“Two AM at least.”

“I’ll come check on them Saturday morning. That way you only have to come in for your regular shift that night. And I’ll make sure you can check the camera on your phone too. Does that help?”

She nods and steps back. “It does.”

I wish I hadn’t done quite such a good job of reassuring her. But it’s too late. There are no slender fingers plucking at my hoodie pocket, and the caramel scent is already fading.