7. Cat
7
CAT
I made it into my bedroom, closed the door behind me, and then leaned back against it. I closed my eyes and just took deep breaths for a few moments.
Oh. My . God . I couldn’t believe it was actually V . The man I wrote to for almost an entire year and who had held a place in my heart in the years since. Vince . In all the time we wrote, I never actually thought about what his real name was because I didn’t want to pretend it was something when I didn’t know for sure.
And Lord , was he handsome. His navy henley long-sleeved tee wasn’t tight per se, but it fit him in all the right places. It stretched across his broad shoulders and muscular arms. I knew most people in the military were fit—they had to be for their job—but Vince’s body looked like he went above and beyond what was required in the fitness department.
He was tall, too. My guess was just above six feet, which was more than half a foot taller than me.
Where I had curves and a little extra padding in my hips, chest, thighs, and butt, Vince was solid rock. I’d noticed he was fit when he first walked into our apartment, but when he’d stepped up behind me and wrapped his arm around my waist, pretending to be my boyfriend in front of Steve , I could feel all that muscle everywhere.
Vince was definitely the type who never missed a workout. I , on the other hand, was the type who never missed a meal and then thought about working out but usually never did.
He had dirty-blond hair that curled at the edges like a surfer. He had a distinct five o’clock shadow surrounding his jawline, like he had forgotten to shave the last few days, but it looked good on him. His green eyes were dark like emeralds, a color I had never seen before in a guy, but I loved it on him.
My mind was racing. On one hand, I couldn’t believe he was here. I was slightly annoyed with the situation with Steve and was also stressed because Vince and his team were able to locate us. Oh , and now Val was packing up, ready to move to another state.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Val had never, and I mean ever, wanted to move. She had been the one to always push me into staying put so we could make friends and start to live a normal life, and I was always the one to move her around for our safety, or because the Marshals told us to.
I needed to talk to Val about this, but I felt bad leaving Vince out there. Val and I had separate bedrooms, but they were connected via a Jack and Jill bathroom, so I went through and knocked on her door quietly before poking my head in.
“Val,” I said as I walked in and noticed she was actually packing.
She had her suitcase out and was grabbing clothes out of her drawers.
“I know what you’re going to say,” she said, holding her hand up to stop me from interrupting her. “ I hate it here. This is by far the worst place we have ever lived, and I want a real life.”
She paused and sounded a bit exasperated.
“I want to make friends, have a real job,” she said. “ I’m an extrovert, and I want to be around people. If Vince and his friends are as good as they appear to be since they found us, which we were told by the Marshals is not easy, then they can keep us safe. They can find us a place to live that is safe, get me a job that is safe, and we can start to be normal people again. I want that, Cat . Please .”
Her eyes were pleading with me, and I felt so much guilt. I wasn’t an introvert by any means, but I wasn’t the super outgoing extrovert that Val was, and I knew this living-in-hiding situation had been hard on her. Hard on both of us, but especially hard on her.
“Okay, let’s talk about it,” I told her. I saw her want to push back, but I did the same thing she did a minute ago and held my hand up. “ I’m not saying no, and I hear all of your points and they are valid, but you know me, and I need to talk this out.”
She smiled, nodding.
“Is he still out there?” she asked, and I nodded back. “ Why don’t we do this? Tell him to go back to his hotel or wherever he’s staying and come back with breakfast in the morning so we can chat. Thanks to Steve , we’ve already given him plenty of crazy for one day. He doesn’t need to see us bicker back and forth on this for the next few hours until you come around to the dark side with me in the end.”
She winked, and I chuckled a little because she knew me so well. I nodded, and we both walked out her door to find Vince on his phone on my couch. He instantly looked up when we walked out.
I was about to tell him the plan when Val started speaking first, “ Okay , Vinny , here’s the plan.”
“It’s Vince . Only my grandma can call me Vinny , and that’s only because I hate telling her no to anything,” he said, giving her a small smile.
I swooned a bit, knowing he would let his grandma call him by a name he didn’t like just because she was his grandma.
“Whatever,” Val said, rolling her eyes overdramatically. “ Vince , I think this is a great idea to move to Atlanta , but my sister, the overthinker here, needs to make a list of pros and cons and go over it with a fine-tooth comb at least seven times before she finally comes around and decides that you and I were right the whole time.” She finishes with a wink to him. “ She likes to be in control and know what is happening, along with every possible exit strategy in case something goes wrong.”
“Understood,” Vince said, but nothing on his face let me know what he was thinking.
“How about you go get a coffee or chill at your hotel while we have some girl time to chat, and then come back with breakfast in the morning, and we’ll have a decision for you—which, judging by the fact that I already want to move immediately, and the fact that my sister has had a secret thing for you ever since your letters, I know I can talk her around.”
“Val!” I yelled, but he cut me off.
“With all due respect, I don’t trust your neighbor not to try something once I leave,” he said. “ If you need time to chat, you can do it, but I want you both to put my cell number in your phones and call me if he tries to pull anything. Don’t answer the door, not even with the chain, if he comes back. Just pretend you aren’t here. Can you do that? It would give me peace of mind.”
“That’s fine,” Val agreed.
“We know how to defend ourselves, Vince ,” I explained to him a little defensively. “ The Marshals taught us how to shoot a gun, some self-defense moves, and extensive security measures. We’re not idiot damsels in distress.”
“I didn’t say you were, and sorry if I implied that, but the fact of the matter is, Steve isn’t the type to be happy that I just walked all over what he thinks is his, so the moment I leave he’ll return.”
“What does he think is his?” I asked.
“You,” both Val and Vince said at the same time.
My head pulled back in a flinching motion.
“He wants you. That’s very obvious,” Vince said. “ He seems like the type of guy who is willing to bide his time for you to come around—until I showed up.”
I knew Steve was interested in me—this was obvious every time he asked me out, invited me over or even sometimes invited himself into our home—but he didn’t strike me as the type to go gonzo about it.
“I’ll meet you back here tomorrow morning, and we can either pack everything up, or we can just spend the day catching up on life, but promise me you will call my number if anything happens,” he said, looking at both of us. “ Promise .”
“Deal,” Val said and handed him her cell phone so he could program his number in.
Realizing this was what I had asked for, and he wasn’t being completely unreasonable, I promised him the same and also handed over my phone.
Instead of programming in our phones, he used them to call his own phone, first mine and then Val’s . As he handed them back, he gave me a charming grin. “ So now I have both of yours as well.”
Then he made his way to the front door and turned to me as I followed him.
“Sorry for kind of kicking you out,” I told him and looked into his eyes. “ I really am happy to see you. Not being able to write to you again once we were put in WITSEC was really hard. I missed writing to you. I’m sorry you thought I didn’t want to write anymore, or I didn’t care. That’s not true at all.”
“I know that now, sweetheart, and it’s all good,” he said, bringing me in for a hug, and it felt amazing and warm and comforting.
“I’ll see you in the morning,” he said to the top of my head.
The sweet endearments, the way his body felt hugging mine… I could get used to this. A guy like Vince would make that so easy.
He walked out the door, and I locked everything back up and turned to see my sister standing there with her arms crossed with the biggest grin on her face.
“He so wants you,” Val said, giggling.
“He’s just being friendly,” I replied, and she laughed.
“Sis, I know we haven’t had a lot of experience with men, but I’m not blind,” she said. “ That man did not call me sweetheart or hug me . Just saying.”
I’d noticed that as well but didn’t want to think about it at that moment, so I chose to divert.
“Let’s talk about Georgia ,” I said.
“Let’s do this,” Val said back. “ You make your pros and cons list like usual, then come find me when you’re done, and we’ll discuss.”
“What are you going to do until then?” I asked.
“Keep packing,” Val said, grinning, and walked back into her room.
I sighed as she closed the door but realized she was doing this for me because I didn’t like distractions while I made my lists. I sat down at the kitchen table with my notebook and pen and started my lists.
Over the next hour, I wrote down my thoughts while simultaneously thinking of Vince . How good it was to see him in person, how much I’d missed writing to him, how good he looked, how great it felt to be in his arms, how oddly safe I felt when he was here, what it would be like to have someone from our previous life join up with the new life. I had also looked up his security company—you can never be too careful—but that only triggered even more thoughts about Vince .
By the time the threat was gone for us and the Marshals Service told us we were on our own and free to live life as we wanted, our abuela had died. Our mom was an only child, but my father had two brothers, our uncles, but we weren’t that close to them or their families, so we opted not to take any chances by re-opening communication with them.
Having Vince around would help me feel more like I used to before the robbery, when life was less complicated.
My list was done, but I wasn’t ready to talk to Val yet, so I went into the kitchen and started cleaning some dishes. Then moved to swap out some laundry. While I was folding clean towels, Val came up behind me.
“Let me guess… You finished your list but don’t want to talk about it yet because you know I’m right?” she asked with a knowing smirk on her face.
Sometimes, living with a person who knew you so well was great, and other times, it was aggravating. I sighed, and she just chuckled. Definitely not fun living with someone who knows you well.
“Come on. I’ll make dinner and you can read me off your list,” Val offered.
I pulled out the list, sat on a stool at the kitchen counter bar, and began reading her my list as she cut up some vegetables. We discussed some of the items, line by line, and for others, she just nodded. One of the last items on my list was that we didn’t know Vince very well and that was moving in with someone we didn’t know was probably not a smart decision.
“Cat, that’s a valid concern, but we’ve been moved around with so many people the last few years via the FBI and the Marshals . To me, this isn’t much different,” Val said. “ I know those people were slightly safer because they were paid to protect us, but Vince and the guys he works with were able to find us, despite the marshals telling us we had a very minimal footprint for anyone to figure out our location. This may sound weird, but I think I would actually feel safer with someone like him than some of the Marshals we had.”
I thought back to one of the men who protected us in the beginning who was constantly sleeping while on shift and not really good at “watching us.”
A knock at the door took me out of my thoughts. Had Vince forgotten something? I walked over to the door and looked through the peephole. And closed my eyes. I walked the few steps back to the kitchen and whispered to Val that it was Steve again.
“Vince said ignore him. Don’t open it,” Val whispered to me.
“He knows we’re here. I’m just going to tell him we’re busy and to come back tomorrow,” I told her and walked back to the door.
I opened it with the chain still attached and peeked out at Steve , his hair now a bit disheveled, and who appeared to be a bit distraught.
“Hey, Steve , now’s not a good time. Val and I are making dinner,” I told him.
“That’s good because I need to talk to both of you. Let me in,” he said and started to push the door.
“Steve, no. We’re just going to have a girl’s night tonight, but we can catch up with you maybe tomorrow,” I told him and found myself hoping Vince was here when Steve came back.
“I need to talk to you both about us before your boyfriend comes back. Let me in. This won’t take long,” he said a bit more impatiently, and once again tried to push the door.
Getting angry myself that he wouldn’t back off because he had never been this unpleasant or disagreeable, I told him to have a good night and proceeded to close the door, but he stepped his foot in, blocking me from doing that.
“Catherine, this is serious. We need to talk about our relationship, and Valentina should listen too so she knows not to let that other man into the apartment if he shows up again,” he said clearly irritated and angry.
Two could play that game. There was no relationship with me, and I was shocked he ever thought there was one. More importantly, I was done with him pushing his way in and I ended this conversation.
“No, we are not in a relationship,” I told him as forcefully as I could. “ Go away, Steve . This conversation is done, or I’m calling the cops.”
I pushed the door with everything I had, and he released his foot just before the door slammed. I switched all of the locks into place, and he instantly began knocking again and calling my name. Not loudly, but enough for me to hear him.
Turning to my sister, I saw she was on the phone, and I paused to hear her talk.
“Okay, we’ll see you soon. Thanks ,” she said into the phone. After she hung up, she told me, “ I called Vince . He’s on his way back.”
Ugh. Great . Now , he was really going to think of us as damsels in distress.
“You shouldn’t have called him, Val .”
“He made us promise,” she countered. “ And honestly, Steve has never been that forceful before, so I’m not taking any chances.”
I knew she was right, but still. One of the things Val and I had in common was the need to feel independent after living in WITSEC for so many years. Having had to rely on Vince for something like Steve did not make me feel independent, and I didn’t like it.
“At least when he gets here, we can tell him we’re moving to Georgia ,” she said to me with a grin on her face. “ Your list proves we should, and you know it.”
Then she dropped the grin, and took a more serious tone. “ I’ll make you a deal. If it doesn’t work out, we can leave his house and go stay at a hotel somewhere until we find a place of our own. I won’t even fight you on it. But I just want to try this Cat , and I think this could be a really good option for us.” She paused and then looked at me with a pleading face. “ Deal ?”
I sighed and sat down on the chair next to me. I knew she was right. If Vince really was the good guy he appeared to be and his security company was as good as he said, which they likely were since they’d found us, then they could help us find a safe, secure place to live. We could start over in a place where Val and I could start to branch out. Get real jobs, something I knew my sister was dying to have. She was way more social than I was. She wanted to be with co-workers and have friends to hang out with. I wouldn’t mind a little of that too. Plus , I had always been the one to decide where to move, so maybe it was time I let Val have a turn.
I sighed again, getting up from the chair to look over at my sister who was staring at me like she was patiently waiting for me to give her the okay.
“Let’s start making some food, and when Vince gets here, we can ask him what the next step is,” I conceded and immediately saw the smile grow on her face.
She started jumping up and down, clapping her hands, and then came over to hug me and giggle-shrieked the whole time.
Thirty minutes later, Vince was back, and he had a duffel bag and a large military backpack with him. As soon as he walked in the door, he informed us that he had checked out of his hotel and was sleeping on our couch that night because he didn’t trust Steve .
“Cat, I finally found you after seven long years. I’m not going to risk losing you all over again because of that dickwad,” he said.
I felt like he was giving Steve way more credit than he deserved, but I had also learned that you could never be too careful, so I let it go. Instead , I chose to focus on the fact that he didn’t want to lose me now that he’d found me, and it made my belly flutter.
We ate dinner together then told him we would move to Atlanta with him. While we would move in with him when we got there, this would only be temporary. I didn’t want to be a freeloader, but this would give us time to find a safe and secure location, thankfully with Vince and his team’s help.
After talking it through, the plan was that the next morning, we would go with Vince to drop off his rental car and pick up a small towable U - Haul for our stuff. We’d rented a partially furnished apartment, so we didn’t have much in the way of large items. Val and I had one vehicle we shared—a silver, very non-descript, mid-size SUV . It wasn’t much, but it was big enough that we could load up most of what we had in a hurry if we ever needed to leave quickly. Vince pointed out, though, that we now had a cat with a whole bunch of stuff, plus Vince and his things, so we opted to get a small towable trailer and attached it to the SUV .
Vince said he’d had a feeling we would come around, so he’d gone out and picked up several boxes for us to pack our stuff up in. So , after dinner, he made a few phone calls while Val and I finished packing up.
Here’s to our next adventure.