8. Katy
Katy
A ndrew’s house was exactly as I remembered it, except for one thing.
“Is that a cat?”
I stared at the angry creature hissing at me in the entryway. It looked like a cat, but it was the largest cat I’d ever seen. She – he? it? – was easily twice as big as any house cat I’d ever seen. The cat had long orange hair with stripes of lighter gold running along the flank. It was missing part of an ear and an eye, both on the same side, and its tail seemed to be bent in half.
“This is Goldie,” Andrew said in that voice people used to refer to their small children and favorite pets. “She’s my baby.”
He picked up the massive cat and I couldn’t help but notice the way his biceps bulged with the strain. For her part, Goldie continued to glare at me.
“Say hi to Miss Katy,” he told the cat. As if the cat was going to respond.
My gaze went from the cat to Andrew and back again. Goldie continued glaring. For some reason I wouldn’t have pegged Andrew for a pet person.
“How did this happen?” I asked, leaning forward to look at the cat more closely.
Goldie hissed at me, and I jumped back away.
“Be nice,” Andrew chided the cat before answering my question. “Mom found her hanging out by the dumpster behind city hall and thought she’d be a good companion for me.”
“Does your mother hate you or something?” I asked.
Andrew laughed. “Goldie’s a sweetheart once she gets used to you. Come on, I’ll set up the guest room for you. I wasn’t expecting company, so I haven’t changed the sheets or anything.”
Andrew had kind of a suite on one side of the house. There was a large bedroom with a little sitting room and a bathroom. It was huge, although smaller than the master suite on the other side of the house. We worked together to change the sheets, me using only my left hand, while Goldie glared at me from the doorway.
It was only mid-afternoon but my hand was throbbing, and I was exhausted. Who knew a fracture in a tiny bone could take so much out of you?
“I think I’m going to pop some ibuprofen and take a nap if you don’t mind,” I told Andrew.
He gave me a long, searching look that I couldn’t interpret. He was holding Goldie in his arms again and for some reason that made him even more attractive. It was really unfair that the man was four years older than me and still looked that good. I worked hard to maintain myself and still my body was succumbing to the ravages of age. Like thinning bones, apparently.
“I’ll let you rest,” Andrew finally said. “My mom invited us over to her house for dinner.”
“I, uh…”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Andrew’s family, not exactly. I didn’t want to be a bother. And I really didn’t want to get too comfortable with these people, it would make leaving even harder than I already knew it would be. Plus I was willing to bet that Marianne would restart her matchmaking efforts while I was in town since Andrew and Patrick were both still single.
“She’ll just insist on coming over here to see for herself that you’re okay,” Andrew interrupted. “At least this way we have control over our exit. Plus Mom’s making her famous breaded pork chops. You really don’t want to miss that.”
“Okay,” I sighed, then realized I sounded ungrateful. “I’m sorry. This whole thing has thrown me for a loop, and my hand hurts.”
His eyes softened. “I’ll grab you a bottle of water, then you take your pills and rest. Everything will be okay, Katy. I promise.”
A few hours later we walked into Marianne Lawson’s house. Andrew’s mother immediately pulled me in for a hug, rocking us from side to side like I was her long lost friend. I’d spent quite a bit of time with her last time I was here – more than I had with Andrew in fact. Back then she was the mayor’s secretary and had been instrumental in getting her son the mayor to work with Steph to bring the small town of Lawson in compliance with the state requirements for emergency response plans. I’d come up for two days to help Steph with training – and provide a little buffer between her and Christopher.
“You look a little pale, dear,” Marianne said as we pulled apart. “Don’t worry, we’ll get you back to health. I’ll make you some bone broth tomorrow.”
“Please, don’t go through any trouble on my account.”
“Nonsense. Any friend of Andrew’s is family to me,” Marianne said.
“Hey Katy, nice to see you again.”
I sent a grateful glance to Andrew’s younger brother Patrick. He was tall and broad, with nice muscles after his time in Fire & Rescue. Like all three brothers, he had that tousled boy next door kind of look, like in his youth he was the stereotypical captain of the football team who helped his team win the state championship and dated the head cheerleader.
I’d hated those people in high school but then again, I’d always been an outsider. The girl wearing thrift store castoffs and eating sandwiches made out of government cheese and stale bread.
My childhood had been less than idyllic. I had no idea who my father was, my mother had hooked up with him… somewhere. She couldn’t say where. I guess in those days she had so many hookups that none of them were particularly memorable. Mom waitressed at the local dive bar at night and slept during the day, leaving her precious little time for the daughter she only realized she was pregnant with when it was too late to do anything about it.
And then there had been the parade of ‘boyfriends’ through our house. Some stayed for an hour, leaving Mom with money on the way out, some stuck around a little longer and as I grew older, some of them paid way more attention to me than I was comfortable with. I learned fast to lock myself in my bedroom and keep a baseball bat by the bed just in case.
I studied hard in high school, avoiding any romantic entanglements, and got a full ride to University of Colorado – Denver. That’s where I met Steph. I knew she was a kindred spirit the instant I met her. Somehow we both gravitated towards Emergency Management, and as two of the only women in the program, we stuck together.
Growing up the way I had, I’d developed this fantasy of a Prince Charming kind of guy who’d fall in love with me at first sight and whisk me away to my happily ever after. I’d ‘saved’ myself for that happy day, one of the only twenty year old virgins in college. Until I met Jake. He was rich and handsome and charming and knew all the right things to say to talk me out of my panties. Then he dropped me like a bad habit soon after. We’d only dated for two months, but it was enough to show me that happily ever after didn’t exist.
After that I dated on my own terms and took control of my own sexuality. I wasn’t promiscuous – I chose my partners carefully and had long stretches of celibacy – but I also wasn’t afraid to ask for what I wanted and enjoy the pleasure of a man’s company whenever it suited me.
I’d never been tempted to have anything long-term. Never let my heart get involved. Until I met Andrew. The night we met I realized that my feelings were stronger after spending a few hours with him than they’d been for anyone else I’d dated since my disastrous relationship with Jake. And that scared the crap out of me.
Then Andrew started talking about love at first sight and I’d practically made a Katy-sized hole in his door trying to get away. Yet even after eighteen months, I still thought of him almost every day.
It was a problem. And I knew instinctively that the problem was going to get much worse after spending three weeks at his house.
Despite Marianne’s blatant matchmaking attempts, I had a great time at the Lawson house. They were all warm and friendly, and the way they teased each other made me laugh. Marianne’s food was delicious too. That was the best pork chop I’d had in my life.
“What are you doing tomorrow?” I asked Andrew on the way back to his place.
I had a giant bag of leftovers on my lap. Marianne had cooked enough for twelve adults instead of the four who’d been at dinner.
“I’m going to church with my mom and Patrick in the morning,” he answered. “Do you want to join us?”
“God no.”
He shot me a look at my horrified tone and I realized that sounded bad.
“I mean, thanks but I’m not really religious.”
He nodded.
“After church I’m supposed to go snow shoeing with Patrick.”
“Great,” I said a little too enthusiastically. “I was planning on just relaxing tomorrow, so I don’t have to worry about getting under your feet.”
I wasn’t totally sure how to relax, but I was sure I could figure it out.
He shot me another look but didn’t comment. As soon as we got back to his house I thanked him for about the tenth time for helping me, then scurried off to my room where I could be alone.