Chapter 1 #2
“What’s that you said about not breaking any hearts senior year?” Lorenzo smirks.
Cam drapes an arm around my shoulders, giving me a shake. “Congrats. You’re officially a cat daddy.”
In the middle of the driveway, the cage sits silently in all its cutesy pink glory, mocking me for once again opening my mouth without thinking first. Then comes a tiny squeak of a meow from within, and I’m jolted into action.
“I was always a cat daddy.” I lift the cage and head for the house. “The definition’s just changed.”
“You have to change the name,” Reeve says half an hour later, yanking his beanie off and smoothing a palm expertly over his blond hair.
The man loves a mirror, but he’s practiced enough not to need one.
“No fucking way is ‘Mr. Jangles’ coming out of my mouth eighteen times a day.” Then he joins us in staring at the tiny kitten who, for some reason, is resting in the middle of our kitchen’s linoleum-topped island.
“Wait, you want to keep her?” I ask him.
“Don’t you?” Reeve nods at my hand, which hasn’t stopped stroking the baby-soft gray fur on the side of the cat’s cheek.
Do I? The last pet I had was the brown-and-white hamster I shared with my twin sister in fifth grade.
Can’t say I’ve missed having an animal around, but Mr. Jangles is pretty cute.
Short silky fur so gray it’s almost blue, pale-green eyes, and soft cheeks she won’t stop offering up to the nearest hand.
I guess Vee’s abandonment was a minor inconvenience that’s now safely in the rearview mirror.
“I don’t know. Is a party house the best place for a baby animal?
Lorenzo, maybe she’d be better off with you. ”
Despite our having an open bedroom, he never considered living in the football house—he needs his peace and quiet and lives in his own apartment down the street.
He skims his tattooed hand down the cat’s back. “No pets allowed at my place. Sorry.”
“We can keep him for now,” Cam says with a shrug.
“Her,” I correct.
“Right. Her. Mr. Jangles.”
That settles the matter. Cam doesn’t speak up unless he has something to say, so I guess he wants this cat. As we look on, she closes her eyes lazily, basking in our uncertainty.
“So…what do we feed her?” Reeve asks. “She’s a baby. Think she takes bottles?”
Cam cocks his head. “Isn’t that only if they’re taken from the mom too early?”
“Vee only brought cat food,” I say. “But I don’t know how much we give. Or when. You think she gets breakfast, lunch, and dinner?”
“I think you just throw some food down and they eat when they want,” Lorenzo says. “That’s how it was with our family cat.”
“Like a never-ending buffet? What if she eats too much?” More importantly, why am I so concerned about this random cat’s weight and health? But looking at her—tiny and fragile and eager for comfort—I’m stabbed by sympathy, wondering if she’s confused and scared.
“Read the back of the cat food bag,” Cam says, turning around to search for the box of supplies Vee left.
“It’s still out front,” I say. “I’ll get it.” But halfway to the front door, my phone buzzes with a text.
MAISY: You free? The bed just got delivered, and my friend bailed on me. I need to get it inside before too much snow falls.
CASH: Now?
MAISY: Whenever you can.
CASH: Yeah, okay.
I snatch the cat supplies off the stoop and drop them in the kitchen. “Well, I’m outta here.”
“Come again?” Lorenzo says.
“Maisy needs help with something.”
“What about the cat?” he asks.
“I trust you boys can handle watching a three-pound cat sleep for an afternoon.”
“Not the point, dude,” Reeve says. “She’s your cat now. What if she shits everywhere? Or scratches up the furniture?”
“She won’t.” I give her cheek a scratch. “Will you, baby girl?”
Reeve shakes his head. “You can’t just leave, Cash.”
“Come on, man, just do this for me. I’ll owe you one. All of you.” I grab my keys and coat and give my friends’ irritated expressions a final look. “What can I say? Duty calls.”
“Watch the walls,” my sister scolds while I push a seventy-pound box up the stairs, its wet cardboard buckling under my hands as the red oak creaks beneath the added weight.
Gritting my teeth, I shove the box up the final steps with a grunt. Once it’s safely on the second floor, I shake my head at my sister. “You could have told me this was a two-man job.”
“It’s not. You just did it.”
True. With the box in the tiny pistachio-green bedroom that makes up the entire second floor of Maisy’s rented bungalow, I pull out my pocketknife and work on slicing the cardboard open.
Beyond the wide casement window on the far wall, the brown grass in the backyard briskly disappears under a blanket of white.
“Remind me why I’m assembling a bed on a snowy Sunday afternoon for a total stranger who may or may not ever sleep here. ”
“For the tenth time, you have met her.” She flicks on the floor lamp, which does little to illuminate my workspace but does warm the winter-gray air in the room.
“So you say.”
“I can’t believe you don’t remember that.”
“Oh, that time my sister’s friend slept over when we were in fourth grade? Yeah, you’re right. Core memory from my childhood right there.”
“She stayed with us for at least a week or two. Mom and Dad loved her so much they’ve already made me invite her home for their anniversary dinner in February.”
I pull out the cheap pieces of plywood and lay them side by side on the yellow carpet.
“Anyway, you’re doing it because you’re my brother and you love me. And because Georgia could use some kindness in her life. She’s going through a hard time.” Maisy picks up a bag of screws and tears open the plastic.
“Can you not? I have a system.” I pluck it from her hands and put it back. “So what’s her story?”
“She spent all of fall semester working on a transfer to Shafer so she could take care of her great-aunt, only for the woman to die right after Thanksgiving.”
“Ouch. That’s a gut punch. So why is she still coming?”