72. Chapter 72
Chapter 72
The Sunday after New Year’s, David asked Paige to join him and Jacob for lunch, then go to an animal adoption event at their local shelter and help pick out a cat.
Because the outing was going to be casual, Paige wore loose, gray slouchy cargo pants with wide legs that still managed to make her butt look really good, the Barenaked Ladies concert tee with a long-sleeved shirt underneath, a pair of navy Chuck’s, and a jacket.
David picked her up and as he gave her a quick kiss on her cheek, he gently tugged her shirt. “That really was one of the best nights of my life,” he told her softly.
“Mine, too.”
After getting situated in the car, she turned and exchanged greetings with Jacob, then took a few moments to take in how happy he looked. While she figured it was partly due to the anticipation of getting a cat, Paige also attributed most of it to the removal of Liam and Ashley from his life, and even though it hadn’t been finalized in court yet, it was on the horizon.
After a quick lunch, they headed over to the shelter and once inside, got sidetracked in the canine section, because Jacob kept stopping to pet every dog.
“This is what it’s like at the grocery store,” David whispered to Paige, after a dozen stops.
“It’s fine,” she replied with a laugh. “We have all day.”
“Good, because it’s probably going to take all day.”
“He’s a kid in a building full of animals. I’m not surprised he’s stopping at every kennel.”
After what seemed like an hour, they finally made it back to the cat room. There were a lot of kittens, which immediately had Jacob enthralled, but since David wasn’t interested, he didn’t want to linger for too long.
“Kittens always get adopted,” he told Jacob. “I think we should get an adult cat, because they get overlooked.”
With reluctance, Jacob allowed himself to be led over to the cages holding the older cats. Paige, following behind, watched as David lifted Jacob up to look at cats in the higher cages, admiring the picture father and son made in their matching gray shirts and jeans.
After looking at numerous cats, David stopped and said, “Now, this is what I’m talking about.”
She glanced over to see a good-sized black cat in a kennel, silently looking at them with dark, golden eyes. According to the information card, his name was ‘Blackie’ and he was approximately one and a half years old. He’d been purchased for a child two Halloweens ago, but the child had lost interest and the parents had surrendered the cat.
“Stupid people,” she murmured.
David began rubbing the cat under its chin and was rewarded when he started purring. “What do you say? Want to go live with a cool dad and his cool son?” David asked, making Jacob laugh. “In their cool loft?”
“Hmm, he doesn’t look completely sold on that. You might have to sweeten the deal with a cool name, too,” Paige teased.
“That goes without saying. Let me know what you come up with.”
“You want me to name your cat? That’s rather lazy of you, don’t you think?”
“I prefer to think of it as being smart.”
“Smart?”
“You’re the Name Whisperer, aren’t you?”
“The ‘Name Whisperer’? What are you talking about?”
“You came up with Spook and Sputnik, right?”
“Right.”
“And we can both agree those are good names, right?”
“Obviously.”
“So, that makes you the Name Whisperer.”
Paige shook her head. “This conversation is getting so weird.”
Ignoring that, David, said, “Now, as the Name Whisperer, I figure there’s at least one more good name in your arsenal, right?”
She gave him a Thanks for putting me on the spot look. “Well, let’s hope so.”
David returned her look with an encouraging one of his own. “You got this.”
“You got this,” Jacob parroted.
Paige took a deep breath and rubbed at her forehead. “Ugh … the pressure of a name.”
“Take your time,” David told her. “This is important, and failure is not an option.”
“All right.” She frowned, as if concentrating deeply. “How about Snowball?”
Jacob laughed.
“No? Snowflake? Snowman?”
Jacob laughed again, shaking his head.
“Tough crowd,” she muttered. “Okay, what about Midnight?”
Jacob looked a little interested in that one, but not much.
“Well, he’s got that Halloween vibe going on, so what about calling him ‘Halloween’?”
Jacob nodded, seemingly on board this time, but David made a Hell, naw face. “Too obvious. Boring, even.”
“Wow, for someone who delegated the naming of your cat to someone else, you’re awfully critical.”
“I delegated it to someone I thought could deliver greatness. If that’s not you, then I’ll ask someone else.” He pretended to look around the room, as if starting the search.
“Fine.” Paige stuck her tongue out at him before going to stand in front of the black cat and letting him rub his face against her fingers. “Okay, not ‘Halloween’,” she murmured. “But it needs to be Halloween related, don’t you think? Yeah, me too. Now … what about Michael Myers? That’s not bad, but Jacob won’t get it, so moving on. Phantom? It fits, but … a little bland. Boo? No, that’s a character from Monster’s Inc. Hershey? No, David doesn’t like sugar. Count Chocula? Ooh, that’s a good one, but … David doesn’t like sugar.”
For a moment, she pictured past Halloweens as a child, dressed up in costumes and going with friends to—
Abruptly, she turned to David and Jacob. “I’ve got it. Hold onto your pants.” She paused for effect and then put her hands up and then dramatically spread them as she said, “Trick-or-Treat.”
“Trick-or-Treat!” Jacob bobbed his head enthusiastically.
“Trick-or-Treat,” David repeated slowly. “Um, yeah. I like that. I really do. See? You’re the Name Whisperer—I knew you’d deliver greatness.” He looked at Jacob. “What do you say, Little Man? Trick-or-Treat?”
“Yes!”
With the name picked, David said he was going to go start the adoption process, so Paige offered to keep an eye on Jacob. Once David was gone, she asked Jacob if he wanted to meet some of the other cats for fun, and he nodded.
They wandered down the rows of cats in cages, of all colors and breeds, coming to a stop in front of a cage housing a very petite cat with snowy white fur and ocean-blue eyes. It was huddled in the litter box, obviously stressed and unhappy. “Oh, look at you,” Paige said softly, her heart clenching for the little cat.
Jacob, wanting to see, held his arms up to Paige in the universal ‘Pick me up’ gesture, as if being picked up was no big deal—and for him, maybe it wasn’t. For her, however, it was going to be life-changing. She could feel it in the way her skin pebbled with goosebumps and the way the backs of her eyes prickled as she bent to lift him up, groaning a little at the unaccustomed action.
The heavy weight of a child against her hip, his arm trustingly around her back, and she was toast.
Swallowing the huge lump in her throat, Paige reached into the cage to rub the cat’s head and read the cat’s info aloud to Jacob, a little taken aback at finding the tiny cat was four years old. She’d been found scavenging near a dumpster in an alley by one of the volunteers at the shelter and was named ‘Angel’ because of her sweet and shy nature. She was also deaf, which didn’t come as a surprise to Paige, given that the majority of white cats with blue eyes were, but she was a little surprised to read that Angel was mute as well.
“What’s deaf mean?” Jacob asked.
“It means she can’t hear.”
“Why?”
“She was born that way. A lot of white cats with blue eyes are.”
“Oh. What’s mute?”
“It means she can’t meow, either.”
Paige lingered at Angel’s kennel, wishing she could adopt the little cat, but with a single-pet policy in the apartment complex she lived in, it wasn’t possible. Still, she couldn’t walk away, and she and Jacob were still petting Angel when David appeared, having finished filling out all the required adoption paperwork for the black cat.
“Did you make a friend?” David asked.
Paige could see that while he seemed to be asking about the cat, his focus was centered on Jacob perched on her hip, his arm around her shoulder.
She nodded. “If I could, I’d take her,” she said. “I’m sure she won’t get adopted since she’s deaf and mute.”
“That means she can’t hear or meow,” Jacob explained helpfully.
David smiled and ruffled the top of Jacob’s head, then told them before Trick-or-Treat could be taken home, they needed to go buy a bunch of cat supplies for him first, so off they went to the nearest PetSmart. It took longer than planned, since Jacob wanted to be in charge of picking out the toys, which entailed looking at every single one. When they were finally done, they headed back to the shelter to pick up Trick-or-Treat and then drove to David’s place. On the way, Jacob fell asleep in his car seat, so David ended up carrying the little boy upstairs and laying him on the couch, before unloading all the cat supplies with Paige’s help, including a cat tree to go in front of the living room window.
The loft was a little cluttered this time, and Paige took in all the sweet reminders that a child lived there—shoes by the door, crayons and coloring books on the kitchen table—along with the Rubik’s cube that showed signs of being worked on.
“That was the best gift ever,” David told her. “Whenever he goes into hyper mode, I put that in his hands, and it keeps him occupied for at least thirty minutes.”
Paige glanced over at Jacob, crashed on the couch with Trick-or-Treat staring down from one of the arm rests, and felt the perfection of the moment.
Then, because the bags of cat supplies wouldn’t get put away on their own, they got busy setting up the cat box in the laundry room, putting out the new bowls for food and water, and unwrapping the numerous cat toys. As they worked, Paige paused for a moment to reach over and release David’s hair from his man-bun, running her fingers through it a few times to straighten the shoulder-length strands. “That’s better,” she murmured, before going back to what she’d been doing.
A few hours later, after David and Jacob dropped Paige off at her place and she was getting ready to do a load of laundry, she decided she was going back for Angel, because screw the one-cat rule, especially since the second cat would be mute. Paige raced to the shelter and when she got to Angel’s cage, there was another cat in it. She quickly flagged down one of the volunteers to ask about Angel, only to be told she’d been adopted.
Even though Paige was thrilled at the news, she returned home, disappointed. To take her mind off the little white cat, she texted David.
PAIGE: How’s Trick-or-Treat? Is he settling in?
DAVID: And then some. He’s pretty much taken over the place, like any self-respecting cat would.
PAIGE: Naturally.
DAVID: By the way, he really digs his cool name.
PAIGE: I’m glad.
DAVID: Speaking of cool names … do you think you can come up with one more?
PAIGE: Well … since I’m the Name Whisperer, I probably can, but why?
DAVID: I need one for her.
An image popped up and Paige stared at it. It was a picture of Angel being held by a smiling Jacob.
A second later, she received a FaceTime request from David.
“Are you kidding? You’re the one who adopted her?” she asked, after accepting the request.
“You knew she got adopted?”
“I went back to get her a half hour ago and she was gone. They told me she’d been adopted, and I was crushed. Why did you go get her?”
“Because you wanted her, but couldn’t have her at your place, so now you can have her here. And … I figured you were right, that no one would take a deaf, mute cat. So Jacob and I went back to get her right after we dropped you off.”
Paige swallowed hard, feeling ridiculously close to tears. “I just can’t believe you did that.”
“I sort of can’t, either,” he replied with a chuckle. “But she and Trick-or-Treat are doing great so far.”
She sniffed. “Thank you for getting her.”
“You’re welcome. So, what’s her name going to be?”
“You don’t like Angel? That’s actually not bad.”
“‘Not bad’ isn’t good enough.”
She laughed.
“Jacob said we should ask you,” David added.
Paige blinked, the threat of tears hitting her again. Why couldn’t she stop with the waterworks, already? “He did?”
David nodded. “He insisted. He said my names were ‘dumb’. He actually got a time out for that.”
“He did not.”
“Well, he came close.”
“What were your name suggestions?”
“I’m not telling you. You’ll say they’re dumb, too.”
Jacob came over and a moment later all Paige can see was part of his nose and one eye as he crowded in. David adjusted his phone until more of his face was in view.
She began throwing out some silly names, mostly revolving around the color black, which drew mixed reviews, with Jacob being generally supportive and David booing, until they were both booing her suggestions. Making a face at them as if she were annoyed, she decided to get serious, because there was still laundry to be done and she had to be at work early in the morning. So, given the luck she’d had with the Halloween theme earlier, Paige went back to it, coming up with Casper, but disregarding it since Jacob probably didn’t know who that was, and also because Casper was a boy. She then thought of the generic ‘Ghost’, but decided it wasn’t really fitting for the shy, sweet cat.
On the verge of admitting defeat she paused to re-group for a moment, and as she did, her eyes fell on the box of Moon Pies on her counter. She quickly pulled one out, opened it, then took a satisfying bite, feeling her spirits immediately rise as she savored the crunch of chocolate-covered graham crackers, with a fluffy marshmallow center—
“All right. I’ve got it,” she announced after swallowing the bite she’d just taken. “Marshmallow. And that’s my final offer.”
“Marshmallow!” Jacob’s shout made her cringe and smile at the same time.
David took his phone back. “The Name Whisperer strikes again. Marshmallow it is.”
Shortly after they get off the phone, David sent her a twenty second video of Jacob laughing as he played with the cats, getting them to chase a toy mouse on a string. She replayed the video over and over, smiling until her face hurt.
She’d definitely passed the point of no return.
And … it felt pretty fucking fantastic.