Eighteen
Gavin
Leaving Mia after our kiss was pure self-preservation. I couldn’t bear hearing that it was a mistake. I was afraid she’d play
it off as nothing or ask me to pretend it never happened and I can’t. Not yet, at least.
So I didn’t stay long enough to hear her regrets, and all I can hope is I haven’t ruined things. The threat of losing her
was the entire reason I never asked her out back in college, bottling up my feelings until I thought they’d ceased to exist.
But the trope tests loosened the lid and our kiss knocked the jar open and out came every pent-up desire.
I turned off my phone, scared of getting a text making it clear our friendship was over, even though in a way, I want it to
be over, traded in for whatever comes next. But if it’s the choice of going back to what we had or losing her, I choose friendship
any day. What scares me is knowing I might have cost myself that choice.
Desperate to find an outlet for my jumbled feelings, I set to work on the pergola. By the time I installed the last of the rafters it was well past dusk, but my body was still humming from kissing Mia and sleep still didn’t come easy.
With my phone off, I overslept the next morning and had to rush out to the site, glad for a busy day of volunteering to keep
my mind off the way I obliterated any doubts Mia might have about my feelings. But she kissed me, too. Passionately, like
she wanted nothing more. Has she changed her mind about us? Or was this just the consequence she warned me about—fake dating
getting in her head and creating emotions that aren’t real?
She might not ever want to see me again, upset we ended up where we swore we wouldn’t... lost in each other. But when I
hustle up to the crew, Mia is there, handing out doughnuts, laughing with Riley. Seeing her here where I least expected, sparkly
and radiant, my heart twists.
Walking over, I shove my hands in my pockets to keep from wrapping my arms around her waist, not knowing how to play this,
but certain we haven’t made the jump to PDA, whatever her thoughts are on last night’s events. “Didn’t think I’d see you here
today.”
She looks up at me with a shy smile that sends my stomach flip-flopping. Our eyes meet, hers a rich oak brown in the sunlight,
and something tender takes root in my chest. It’s the look she gives me when we’re sharing a secret, and my heart starts beating
again for the first time since I left her place.
“Figured since I couldn’t make it out for day two, I could at least bring breakfast,” she says. Her bandages are gone, and
she’s holding the box of doughnuts gingerly, but I resist the urge to check her palms. “Probably more useful than me working
anyway.”
“Please, you were a natural,” Riley says. She swipes the apple fritter I had my eye on and takes a big bite. “And you even
made it here before Gavin. Late night?” she asks me, brows raised.
I can only imagine what I look like, wrecked after a night of no sleep and hoarding thoughts of Mia’s lips on mine, knowing
I might never get the chance to kiss her again.
“Speaking of late, where’s Morris?” I say, to change the topic. His name was on the volunteer sign-up for both days, but he’s nowhere to be seen, which is surprising given I’m pretty sure he could smell fresh doughnuts from a mile away.
Riley finishes chewing and says, “At the other lot. They were doing a shed teardown and asked for his help.”
“Yeah, that’s where he found the kittens,” Mia says.
“The what?”
“Kittens,” she repeats. “Did your phone die or something? He found a mother cat and her kittens at the other lot. You should
see the pics. Adorable.” Mia is clearly thrilled about this, but my brain has snagged on a detail, and it’s not kittens.
“Morris texted you?” I drag my phone from my pocket, powering it on.
“He said he couldn’t get ahold of you.”
“He has your number?” I’m not jealous, I’m just... intrigued.
She frowns. “We all exchanged numbers yesterday. I told him and Riley I wanted to take them out for drinks for putting up
with me.”
“Putting up with you...” I pinch my forehead. “You did more than your share of work yesterday.”
“Like I keep telling her,” Riley interjects.
“Yeah, yeah,” Mia says, like she doesn’t believe us but is willing to play along. “But kittens. Focus, Gavin.” She reaches
down to unzip the belt bag slung over her chest, pinching the tab between thumb and forefinger. She bites her lip to hold
off a wince, and without thinking, I step closer.
“Let me.” But in my eagerness to spare her discomfort, I didn’t factor in the placement of the bag. Right in the middle of
her chest, which is currently only covered by a thin tank top. Well, and her bra, of course. Though... is she wearing a
bra?
Whether or not Mia is wearing a bra isn’t something I ever let myself dwell on, and picturing the possibilities now... The timing is inconvenient, to say the least. I yank my hand back. “Sorry. I was just... Sorry.”
I can feel Riley smirking, but don’t dare give her the satisfaction of looking her way.
Meanwhile, Mia has gotten her phone out and shifts closer to show me the screen. On it is a scrawny calico cat with three
fluffy kittens nestled alongside her on what looks like a ripped couch cushion with stuffing bursting out of it.
“Morris wanted me to show you. Apparently he thinks I can do a better job than he could of convincing you to keep them.”
“He wants me to take them?”
“Well, my place doesn’t allow pets. And Morris says when he was six he killed a goldfish. Accidentally,” she hurries to add.
“He overfed it. But he’s worried he doesn’t have what it takes to adopt kittens. I told him maybe that’s something he needs
to explore with a therapist, because it’s been over twenty years—”
“These were all texts?” I shouldn’t be gritting my teeth, but geez, how much have they been talking? It’s barely 9:00 a.m.
“I called him on the way over.” She tilts her head, eyes narrowed. “Oh my gosh, are you jealous?”
“Of Morris?” My voice lifts an octave, and she breaks out in an incredulous smile.
“You think he’s angling for best friend position?”
Morris is most definitely not angling for a friend position, best or otherwise, but the fact that Mia’s thoughts have turned
in that direction is both reassuring and unsettling. Reassuring that she isn’t interested in dating Morris, but also, we kissed
last night. That’s more than friends to me, but maybe Mia’s thinking of a friends-with-benefits situation. Or a forget-it-ever-happened
sort of plan.
My heart sinks. Maybe I should’ve stuck around last night, after all, and talked through things. Can’t very well have a conversation now with Riley right here. I do my best to laugh it off. “I know for a fact he would never put on a sheet mask for movie night, so I’m not worried.”
Mia’s smile dips, her expression guarded. “About last night—”
My phone rings, and I check it and find Morris the Great displayed on the screen, along with a winking selfie, complete with duck lips. That’s what I get for leaving my phone in
the truck while we’re working. I slam my thumb onto the accept call button. “I am not adopting a family of cats.”
I walk up my driveway two hours later with a box full of cats. After a harrowing trip to the vet, where my eyes glazed over
from the amount of information thrown at me and the size of the bill, which Mia insisted on splitting, I’m on autopilot. She
came back to help me get them settled, claiming she feels partially responsible since she bullied me into adopting them. When
she notices I’m headed toward the side of the house, she steps in front of the gate.
“Where are you going?” The suspicious tilt of her head makes me think she’s not planning to lend a hand unlatching it.
“To the shed.”
“The potting shed?”
I raise my brows and shoulders, like, obviously .
She crosses her arms. “No.”
“They were found in a shed,” I remind her. “It’ll feel like home.”
“It’s not climate-controlled.”
“They’re animals. They don’t need air-conditioning.”
“ Domesticated animals,” she says. “Humans took away their ability to survive when we invited them into our homes.”
There’s a lot to unpack there. “Um—”
“Shut up, you know what I mean. They’re teeny widdle babies.” She shifts into a cutesy tone, making kissy lips and bending
over the box. The mama cat hisses and swipes bared claws at Mia’s nose.
Biting back a smile, I say, “Domesticated, huh?”
“She’s defending her young.” I’m not at all surprised she’s sticking up for the cat, though she does take a few steps back.
I lower the box a smidge, in case the mama decides I’m a threat, too. But her movement disturbed the kittens into a bout of
mewling, and she sets to licking their fur to calm them. “And it’s not about her manners,” Mia says. “It’s about keeping everyone
safe.”
It’s adorable how she uses the term everyone as if the fate of a litter of kittens affects global welfare. “What about predators?” she asks.
That touches a nerve. “No coyote is getting in my shed.” I rebuilt it myself last summer.
“Raccoons can open doors.”
Do raccoons eat kittens? I’d better add that to my list of questions to google later. “Pretty sure you’re thinking of the
velociraptors from Jurassic Park .” I can’t help but goad her, even though I’m starting to agree with her. I glance down into the box at the tiny furballs
clustered around their mom. Ferocious as she is, all of them seem pretty vulnerable at the moment.
Ignoring my joke about the raptors, Mia says, “It’s supposed to storm, and they could get spooked. What if she abandons them?
You want to hand-feed three kittens around the clock?”
I was nearly convinced by the temperature argument, but this is enough to put to rest any hopes I had of keeping my house
cat hair–free. We all make our way to the porch, and Mia swings the door open in a proprietary way that makes my heart do
a happy swoop, and announces in a singsong voice, “Welcome home, babies!”