Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Connor unlocked the door to his apartment and set the cat carrier inside the door along with his overnight bag.
“Be right back,” he told Butch.
He went back to his car to get the box of cat supplies that Tessica had sent with him, and brought it in.
Butch meowed plaintively at him when he came back.
“I know, little man. It’s been a crappy day of traveling. I’ll let you out in just a minute.”
Connor quickly set up the cat box in the bathroom, and then took the cat carrier in as well. He shut the bathroom door behind them and unzipped the cat carrier.
Butch tentatively stepped out, looked around, and then meowed plaintively yet again.
Connor sat on the bathroom floor with his back against the door.
“Welcome home.” He reached out and let Butch sniff his hand. Butch took a few more steps over to Connor and accepted some petting.
Connor let Butch explore the bathroom for a good ten minutes, and made sure he’d sniffed at the litter box once before getting up and opening the bathroom door.
“All right, Butch. I’m going to go unpack and then look in my freezer for dinner while you explore.”
For the next half an hour, Connor noticed Butch in different rooms exploring the small apartment while Connor went about his usual routine. Once Connor’s dinner was ready, he poured some kibble in a dish. That sound brought Butch running into the kitchen, and Connor put the food down next to the water dish.
He patted Butch as the cat ate. “Don’t blame me if you’re still hungry after this. Doctor’s orders. Gwen says you can have a full meal with canned food tomorrow morning if you keep this down.”
Having explained the meager one-fourth cup of kibble to the feline, Connor took his own plate to the kitchen table. Frozen dinners weren’t his favorite, but he ended up eating them at least once a week. His work schedule made it difficult to shop often, or to use up fresh ingredients before they went bad if he bought a lot at once. He ate out three or four times a week, made one or two meals a week, and frozen dinners unfortunately comprised the rest of the week.
As he chewed the rubbery frozen lasagna that tasted more like tomato sauce than meat, his thoughts wandered to Tessica. He wondered what she would think of this meal. After that thought crossed his mind, he realized he missed her. Frowning at his plate, he shook his head. He couldn’t miss her. They’d barely started dating. But he knew his pathetic frozen dinner wouldn’t feel nearly as pathetic if he was sharing it with her.
He knew his son, his grandkids, and his best friend would all be happy if he moved back to Oregon and now he could add Tessica to that list. “Maybe I should make a pros and cons list.”
“Meow.”
Connor glanced down at Butch sitting beside his chair.
“You’re not getting any lasagna if that’s what you’re after. Gwen and Tessica would have my head if I made you sick with people food on your first night.”
Butch rubbed up against Connor’s legs and purred.
Connor finished his meal, put the container in the garbage, and then picked up Butch. He carried him to the couch and sat down. He took his phone out of his pocket and sat it on the couch beside them.
Butch quickly settled himself on Connor’s lap, and purred loudly.
“I could get used to this.” He absently petted the cat and turned on the television. He put a cooking show on, but wasn’t planning to focus on it. Instead he picked up his phone, opened a text to himself, and typed up the pros and cons of moving. Fifteen minutes later it was clear that the pros vastly outweighed the cons. Frowning, he deleted the text, put the phone down and tried to focus on the television.
His mind kept going back to Tessica and all the things they’d done over the past few days. Normally when he got home from a trip, he was able to relax and let go of the stress of the day, but right now all he could think about was counting down the hours until he would see her again.
As the television droned on, his phone vibrated. He picked it up and saw a text from Tessica.
How is Butch settling in?
Connor took a picture of the cat in his lap and sent it to her before typing up a reply.
Seems happy in the moment. He ate his kibble and kept it down.
Great!
His fingers hovered over the phone. He wanted to text that he missed her, but refrained. Instead he sent: Wanna call and tell me how the interviews went?
Less than a second later his phone rang. He smiled and warmth spread through his chest. Maybe she missed him as much as he missed her. But then he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. He answered the call and put the phone to his ear.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she said.
They talked at length about her interviews and eventually the topic moved to his trip home with Butch.
Connor heard a buzzing over the line.
Tessica said, “Sorry, I’ve got to go. My son is calling.”
“No problem. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Okay, bye.”
He opened his mouth to say more, but she’d disconnected the call already. Sighing, he pulled the pone away from his ears. His eyebrows went up when he realized they’d been talking for well over an hour. He would have guessed half that time.
He glanced down at Butch, who was currently sound asleep on his lap. The cat was nice, but Connor knew without a doubt that he’d be happier if Tessica was sitting beside him. He focused on his phone and googled homes for sale in Beaverton. The rest of his evening was spent searching for houses in Oregon, even though he firmly told himself that he wasn’t going to act on anything for at least six months.
Three days later on Tuesday morning, Tessica went to meet her new employee, Kelly, at the shelter. It was Kelly’s second day, so Tessica shadowed Kelly while the young woman fed all the animals and got the lobby ready for Fur-ever Friends to open.
“Good job,” Tessica said, once everything had been done. “You can unlock the door and put the sign out front.”
Once they were open, Tessica went over how to post available pets to social media sites, and Kelly seemed to pick it up quickly.
After lunch, Tessica set up her laptop in the far corner of the front counter, and let Kelly handle a few customers by herself.
Tessica pulled up the six forms she’d created over the past three days. Once she had the idea to help Littles get adopted, she’d let her imagination run wild. She didn’t count the hours she’d spent creating the forms as ‘work’. It had been fun and exciting to come up with them, and it helped her not to miss Connor.
First was the sixteen-page multiple-choice compatibility test. That had been the most difficult to come up with. She took bits and pieces from dating site questionnaires, kinky questionnaires, and personality tests to compile the right set of questions. It had originally been almost thirty pages, but she’d whittled it down to sixteen. She’d have to put it to the test to see if the form need any adjustments.
Second was the three-page essay questionnaire that went with the compatibility test. That one had been easy to make since it mostly consisted of blank space for the participants to fill out. But she thought the questions she asked were essential for figuring out what a person wanted from a kinky relationship.
Third was the waiver form that participants would have to sign. That one she basically copied and pasted from the waiver at Connections with a few minor changes.
The fourth form was a list of dating rules form that participants would have to sign. That one she made up entirely on her own. She needed to make sure the Littles in her care were safe, and this was the best way to do that. They would know in advance what was expected of themselves, and more importantly, what was expected of their date before they left her office.
Fifth was the after-date summary form that all participants would be required to complete. That way Tessica could tell how things were going. If it was obvious a couple wasn’t compatible, she could let them know before anyone fell in love.
The sixth and final form was a certificate stating that someone had found their ‘Forever Daddy’.
Tessica looked over each form, checked for errors, made little changes here and there, and then saved the documents again. She stared at the computer without actually seeing it, and fantasized about telling Connor all of her matchmaking plans. It had been difficult not to blurt them out over the phone when they’d spoken on Saturday, but she didn’t want to tell him about a half-baked plan before she had time to carefully figure it all out. And after Saturday they’d texted every day, but they hadn’t spoken over the phone again. Now that her plan was firmly established, she wanted to tell him about it in person.
She hoped he’d be as excited about it as she was. But even if he wasn’t excited about her plans, she thought she could at least talk him into filling out all the paperwork along with her in a trial run to see how their compatibility scores matched up. She couldn’t wait to hear his opinions on the list of rules and the multiple-choice questionnaire. Hopefully he’d have some suggestions for improving them.
And a very small part of her hoped that eventually he’d want a certificate stating he was Little Tessy’s forever Daddy. Just thinking about that made her stomach clench with nerves and excitement, which seemed odd since that was such a small part of who she was. She chalked it up to generalized excitement over the whole project.
Even if Connor wasn’t excited about the project as a whole, she sincerely hoped he’d be supportive of her new venture, and that it would bring them closer together as a couple.
“Tessica?” Kelly called.
Brought out of her fantasies, Tessica focused on her new employee. “Yes?”
“This lady says she wants to adopt the toy poodle, Toby. She was here yesterday to meet him.”
Shutting her laptop, Tessica got up with a smile for her customer. “Yes, of course. I remember you. Welcome back.” She focused on Kelly and put all thoughts of matchmaking out of her mind. “I’ll show you how to do that paperwork.”