Chapter 5 #2
If it’s Brody leaving cookies again, I can catch him and then talk. Maybe not do the shoulder thing Nina demonstrated, but at least form words in his presence without forgetting how sentences work.
I open the door. There’s nothing there, just the dark porch, cool night air, and a large white cat sitting on my lawn, staring at the street.
“Damien? Did you get out?”
I glance at Brody’s house. Lights on inside, curtains half drawn, door shut.
The cat trills and trots into the front flower bed with the confidence of a creature who answers to absolutely no one.
“Hey. No. Come back here.”
I slide into my flip-flops and step outside just as the cat heads for the road.
“Damien, you crazy cat—”
I chase him across two front yards and around a hedge until I lunge and scoop him up with both hands. He twists away, attempting to escape, hind legs kicking, wrestling against my grip with surprising force for an animal made primarily of fluff.
“You were so cuddly last time! What happened? Am I not good enough for you without the sun lounger and the grapes?”
He writhes harder. His back claws catch my forearm, and I wince.
“Are you sneaking out to find a lady friend? Is that what this is? Does Brody know you’re out here prowling the streets at night?”
The cat releases a yowl so dramatic it bounces off the houses.
“Fine. Home. Now.”
I march to Brody’s front door, gripping a furious white cat against my chest, and ring the bell with my elbow.
Footsteps. A lock.
The door opens, and Brody is standing there in gray joggers and a black T-shirt stretched across his biceps. His dark hair is damp and pushed back, towel over one shoulder, and my brain does a brief, unhelpful shutdown at how hot he looks.
Except, tucked under his other arm, pristine and calm in a blue vest with tiny anchors, is Damien.
We both stare at the two white cats.
“Oh.” Brody’s mouth curves. “You got a cat. Just had to match mine, huh?”
“This… this is your cat.”
“Nope. My cat’s right here.” He lifts Damien slightly, who trills, smug and imperial, and stares at the imposter in my arms with unveiled disgust.
The cat in my hands thrashes harder.
“Then whose cat am I holding?”
“Excellent question. You brought it here, so I assumed you knew.”
“I found it on my porch! It’s white! It’s fluffy! So I made a reasonable assumption!”
“You kidnapped a stranger’s cat.”
“Technically, I rescued what I thought was your cat and returned it out of the goodness of my heart.”
“You’re bleeding.”
I glance down. Three thin scratches on my forearm, courtesy of whomever this angry fluffball actually belongs to. “Battle wounds. Earned in service of your ungrateful cat.”
“That’s not my cat.”
“I’m aware of that now, thank you.”
He’s grinning, full and wide, leaning against the doorframe with Damien tucked against his chest, enjoying every second of this. The imposter cat seizes the moment, twists free of my hands, drops to the ground, and rockets between Brody’s legs into the house.
“Oh, shit.” I watch the white blur vanish down the hallway. “I am so sorry.”
“Don’t be. This is already the best night I’ve had all week.” He deposits Damien in the hallway bathroom and shuts the door. An indignant squeak comes from inside. “Right. Let’s catch your hostage before she tears things up.”
“She?”
“I’m certain it’s Mrs. Nepine’s cat. She cornered me by the mailboxes last week and told me to keep my, and I quote, ‘monstrous beast’ away from her precious princess.”
I burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, but she sounds dramatic.”
Brody’s mouth twitches. “Damien once stole an entire rotisserie chicken through a delivery bag. So, she’s not half wrong.”
I laugh as he steps back and waves for me to enter. “Let’s catch this interloper.” That’s when a crash comes from somewhere deeper in the house.
Brody gestures down the hall. “Come on.”
We hurry down the hallway toward the sound, Brody barefoot and far too calm for a man with an unknown cat loose in his house, while I’m right behind him, trying not to stare at the width of his shoulders.
His place still has that newly moved-in feeling, half lived in and half waiting to become something.
A few cardboard boxes are stacked against one wall, one labeled Camera Gear in black marker, another with Corey’s Junk, Do Not Open scrawled across the side.
Who the heck is Corey? There’s a framed print leaning against the baseboard instead of hanging, a pair of sneakers abandoned near the stairs, and the faint scent of coffee, sugar, and something warm baked into the walls already.
We reach the kitchen, and my brain takes one embarrassing second to catch up with my eyes.
Oh.
This kitchen.
The room is bigger than I expected, all pale counters, dark cabinets, open shelving, and lights that make everything look like it belongs in one of his videos.
There’s the long island where I’ve watched him work dough with those big hands.
The cutting board that’s now familiar. The copper mixing bowl.
Then the little perch near the window where Damien usually sits like a fluffy white tyrant judging Brody’s technique.
It’s strange being inside the frame instead of watching from across the yard.
It’s exciting at the same time that I recognize so much of this from spying and his videos.
A crunching sound comes from beside the pantry, and we both turn.
We find the fugitive in the kitchen all right. She’s face-deep in Damien’s bowl, eating with the commitment of a creature who has found paradise and intends to consume all of it before it’s revoked.
“She clearly loves whatever dinner Damien abandoned!”
“And she seems to be enjoying it. Who am I to intervene?”
“Don’t just stand there. Help me.”
“This is your mission. I’m supervisory.”
“She’s stealing from your cat.”
“Damien steals from me all the time. Circle of life.”
I lunge. The cat bolts. I skid on the tile and grab the edge of the counter, and she darts behind the trash can.
Brody steps sideways, blocking her exit with annoyingly quick reflexes, and she reverses into a corner.
I scoop her up. She yowls. Fur gets in my mouth, claws catch in my tank top, and for one terrible second, I’m holding a screaming cloud.
“Got her,” I pant. “This is insane. My entire evening has gone insane.”
“Mine’s improved dramatically.” With a grin, he grabs his keys from the hall table. “Come on. I’ll walk with you to Mrs. Nepine’s. Make sure you deliver the right animal to the right house.”
“You don’t trust me?”
He chuckles. “My confidence in your judgment is at an all-time low.”
A furious yowl comes from down the hall, followed by what sounds like a paw being shoved dramatically under a door.
Brody winces. “Right. I should probably release the actual owner of the stolen dinner before he calls a lawyer.”
He disappears down the hall and opens the bathroom door. Damien shoots out like a white cannonball, tail high, dignity shredded, and gives me one murderous look before stalking straight into the kitchen to inspect the crime scene.
“Sorry,” I tell him, tightening my hold on the other cat. “This feels personal now.”
Damien answers with a sharp meow that sounds a lot like a threat.
Brody points toward the front door. “Go. I’ll keep him inside before we end up with a street fight between two decorative pillows.”
I hurry out with the fugitive tucked against my chest, calmer now that she’s full of stolen food. The night air washes over my face as Brody pulls the door mostly closed behind us, Damien still yowling.
The street is silent and dark, lit only by amber lights, and the breeze carries the scent of honeysuckle from a garden two doors down, jasmine from the planters along the curb, and underneath all of it, Brody.
Salted caramel and hickory wood. Faint but present, threading through the night air every time the breeze flutters past, and I find myself drifting closer without meaning to.
I tell myself it’s the narrow footpath, the cat shifting in my arms, anything except the way some quiet, needy part of me keeps trying to follow him like his scent knows a place inside me I haven’t given it permission to touch.
Our arms brush, and my skin flares warmly at the contact.
I steal a glance his way. In the lamplight, his jaw catches shadow and his eyes are darker than I’ve seen them, focused and quiet in a way that’s completely different from the man who dances shirtless in his kitchen.
On camera, he’s bright, chaotic, all performance and grin.
Out here, walking beside me in the dark, he’s still, and that stillness does something reckless to me.
It fills the space between us until I’m too aware of his height, his hands, the slow swing of his arm beside mine, and the solid heat of him close enough to touch.
It should make me nervous.
It does.
But not in the way I expect.
This isn’t the tight-chested panic I know too well. This is lower, sensual, stranger. Every inch of me wants to step closer just to see what he’d do.
He catches me looking. The corner of his mouth lifts, but he doesn’t call me out, which is generous of him and devastating in equal measure.
We reach Mrs. Nepine’s house at the end of the block, a neat little cottage with white shutters, a rose garden, and a porch light glowing over a front door painted pale blue. Each stepping stone on the path is perfectly spaced between clipped lavender bushes.
Number forty-seven. I ring the bell.
The door opens to a woman in her seventies, silver hair in a tight bun, quilted dressing gown, reading glasses on a chain. She takes one look at the cat in my arms and gasps.
“Princess Anastasia Snowdrop! Oh, my darling baby, what have they done to you?” She snatches the cat from me and cradles her against her chest, examining her fur for damage as if I’d taken her on some kind of wilderness expedition.
“She got out,” I say. “I found her on my porch.”
Mrs. Nepine peers at me over the cat. “And you are?”
“Claire. I live at fifty-one.”