Chapter 10
Leo shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, and dried off. He half expected to see Sir Meow, or at least the blurry
outline of him, standing in the doorway. But ever since he cracked open his front door, Sir had been going back and forth
between the two apartments like he owned both of them.
He wrapped the damp towel around his waist and put in his contact lenses. There, now he could see. He’d worn glasses since
the fourth grade and had considered getting corrective surgery but couldn’t bring himself to go under the knife. Maybe in
the future, but right now he was fine with his contacts and glasses. He quickly shaved, cleaned up the sink so the plumber
wouldn’t have to deal with the stubble while he fixed the leaky pipe, and went to Earl’s bedroom to figure out what he was
going to wear for the day.
Sir Meow was sprawled out on the still-made bed. Leo was second-guessing his decision not to sleep there, unsure if his back
could stand the couch for three more weeks. It was comfortable enough but not suitable for long-term slumber.
He grabbed some boxer shorts, having bought some on his trip to the store on Sunday night.
He’d made a trip to the Wash ’N’ Dry yesterday morning to wash his and Earl’s clothes.
To pass the time, he had taken one of Earl’s history magazines from the apartment and read it while he was waiting for his single load to finish.
By the time he was done, he had gained some interesting knowledge about the Mayan Empire.
Opening Earl’s closet, he spied his designer suit looking out of place as he hung it on the crowded clothes bar stuck between
a blue-and-green-checked flannel shirt and a red-and-gray T-shirt that said “Phillies 1980 World Championship.” He’d noticed
quite a bit of Phillies memorabilia in the apartment—enough to know that Earl must have been a fan. Maybe he was even at that
game.
He dropped the towel, pulled on the boxers, and on impulse grabbed the T-shirt. Soft. Well worn, like his Harvard sweatshirt.
He slipped it on, and like most of his uncle’s clothes, it fit him fairly well. He’d tried on a pair of acid-wash jeans yesterday
morning that were too short, but even if they weren’t, he wouldn’t have worn them. Acid jeans needed to stay in the eighties.
A random thought occurred to him as he finished dressing. Earl would have been twenty-eight in 1980. Leo had been teasing
Via about not remembering eight times seven. He had an excellent memory and facility with numbers and math and wondered if
Earl had too. From the wide variety of his duplicate book collection, he seemed to have lots of varied interests. His collection
housed many intellectual, philosophical, and esoteric tomes. Unpredictable for a working-class guy from Philly. Or maybe he
didn’t care what he bought as long as it had two covers with pages stuck between them. Hard to tell.
Thinking about the books in storage brought Via to mind, and not for the first time since he woke up, mostly about how good she felt against him when they were trying to maneuver in the storage room.
Eventually they just gave into the awkwardness of bumping into each other all the time and made decent progress.
This morning he’d been sleepy when Sir made his presence known outside his door, but awake enough for the usual jolt of attraction to hit him at the sight of her.
It was so frequent now he couldn’t deny it. His body sure didn’t.
He blew off the thoughts and finished dressing, then went back to the bathroom and combed his hair. “Plumber should be here
soon,” he said to Sir, who had followed him inside. Great, now he was talking to the cat. He’d called the plumbing company
to come fix the leak as soon as he fully woke up. A guy named Kyle answered and said he was at another job but he’d be there
within the hour.
As soon as he walked out of the bathroom, there was a knock on the door. He padded across the living area in bare feet, Sir
Meow right behind him. A much easier task than when he first arrived, now that he’d cleared a path.
He opened the door to a giant of a man. His eyes widened. Leo was tall, but this guy was at least three inches past his height.
“KD Plumbing,” he said in a bass voice. He held out his hand. “Fergus Dalton.”
Leo looked at his huge hand. Shook it. Then the last name registered. “Dalton?”
“Yep.” He entered the apartment and looked around. “Been a minute since I was last inside this place. Looks a lot neater than
I remembered. Oh, hey, Sir. Via said you were here.”
“Are you related to her?” Leo asked as he closed the door.
“Meow.” Sir jumped onto the couch and allowed Fergus to pet him twice before moving away and flopping on his side.
Fergus turned around. “She’s my sister.” He paused at the messy coffee table, then set his tool chest on the floor, crossed his massive arms, and leveled his blue-eyed gaze at Leo. He said, “What are your intentions toward Octavia?”
Leo took a couple steps back. “No intentions, man. Why, did she say something?”
“Nope. Other than you were working together to clean the shop.”
“So nothing about the bucket list?”
Fergus’s gaze narrowed.
Leo didn’t blame him for watching out for his sister. He definitely respected him for it. “There’s nothing to worry about.
Once I have everything squared away with Second Chapter, I’m heading back to LA. Thirty days, tops.”
Fergus regarded him for a minute, then dropped his arms. “If I find out you’re even thinking about hurting her—”
“Say no more.” To drive the point home, he took a step forward and looked Fergus in the eye. “You have my word.”
The big man didn’t move. Didn’t blink. Finally, he picked up his toolbox. “Show me the leak.”
Relieved, Leo led Fergus to the bathroom, switched on the light, opened the bottom cabinet, and got out of the way. There
was barely room for the vanity sink, toilet, and shower. Fergus dwarfed the small space. “I hate plumbing,” he muttered, putting
the toolbox on top of the closed toilet lid and getting on the floor. “I really hate it.”
Leo snuck away, and a few minutes later he heard Fergus grumbling as he tackled the leak. He sat on the couch with Sir, and
the minute his behind hit the worn cushion, he thought about Via again. In a beat-up box she had found one of the books on
his list with another absurd title: Beans: They’re Not Just Good for Your Heart. That had them laughing together for over a minute, and it had felt great. Earl’s task for Leo was a challenging one, but
at least he had a sense of humor. So did Via.
He smiled, his chest growing warm. Not just with desire, although he’d been feeling plenty of that when he was around her. It was more encompassing . . . engulfing . . .
Sir nudged his hand and crawled into his lap.
Leo looked at him. Smitten kitten. He suddenly wished Via was smitten with him.
“All done.”
Leo jumped and Sir spilled onto the floor as Fergus entered the living room carrying the bowl Leo had put under the sink.
He’d just told Via’s brother not to worry about anything, and here he was, preoccupied with her. Standing up, he gathered
his bearings again.
“You won’t be needing this anymore.” He handed Leo the bowl as Sir leaped back onto the couch.
That was quick. “How much do I owe you?”
Fergus gave Sir Meow another pat on the head. “Nothing. It only took five minutes, thank the good Lord.”
A plumber who hated plumbing. Huh. “Don’t you have a standard service fee?”
“Consider it a family-slash-friend discount. Emphasis on friend.”
Message received. Leo held out his hand. “Thanks, man. I really appreciate it.”
After Fergus left, Leo glanced at the clock. Ten thirty. Via said she’d be up here to get Sir at some point. He really didn’t
mind the cat, though. He worked too much at the office to have a pet, but while he was at Earl’s, he appreciated the company.
He glanced at the apartment. Plenty to do here—even more downstairs at Second Chapter. He looked at Sir, who was sitting on
his haunches as if waiting for instructions. Leo smiled. “Time to get to work.”
The rest of the week was a blur for Via.
The three cats she’d picked up from Paws of Love on Tuesday afternoon—Zephyr and Nebula, who were jet-black siblings, and Smokey, who ironically was a completely white cat—were settling in nicely.
As she always did when she had new arrivals, she stayed late in the café to get them acclimated and kept a baby monitor turned on when she went upstairs to make sure the kitties were okay in their sleeping quarters in the back of the building.
She only had to do that on Tuesday night, though.
By morning, the three of them were doing just fine.
On Wednesday and Thursday night, she and Leo continued to tackle Earl’s storeroom while Sir Meow supervised. They mostly worked
in silence, and she didn’t mind. She discovered that he wasn’t big on listening to music when he was working. She was the
same—something her family and friends thought was odd. “Who doesn’t like to whistle while they work?” Birdie had said when she found out Via preferred a quiet environment when she needed to be focused. “Or hum a tune?”
Now that they had gone through a third of the room, they were no longer running into each other. Too bad. It was good, though.
She didn’t need anything to ramp up her attraction to him.
They were almost halfway done with the room by Thursday evening. Leo volunteered to get more boxes the next morning, then
told her she didn’t need to come over on Friday night. “I said I didn’t want to take up too much of your time,” he pointed
out as he taped up a box filled with vintage military magazines. “I meant it.”
Via started to protest, then stopped. They were clearing things out faster than she’d anticipated, and they hadn’t even done their first bucket list activity yet. “I’ll see you Saturday then.” At his questioning look, she added, “The pumpkin patch?”
“Oh. Right.” He placed the box on top of a short stack against the back wall. He was wearing a T-shirt tonight, and he’d worn
one yesterday too. One had been a golden-yellow color with a Pittsburgh Pirates logo on it, and tonight’s was blue with Cedar
Point on the front. Earl was a baseball fan—mostly Phillies—but he also had a couple of Pirates hats. She’d never seen him
wear a T-shirt before, though. Mostly long-sleeved flannels or short-sleeved bowling-type shirts in warmer weather. The shirts
fit Leo to a T and showed off his impressive biceps and strong forearms, she noticed. Stop noticing!
“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve been so focused on getting this done, it slipped my mind.”
“You’re still going, right?” She didn’t like the urgency in her tone, but she couldn’t help it.
“Sure.” But he was focused on another box and not her.
A niggle of doubt entered her mind, and it stayed there through her meeting with the Harvest Fest planning committee on Friday.
The annual festival had been a Pecan Corner staple for over sixty years, and everyone knew their jobs and roles, so the meetings
were more of a formality.
By closing time on Saturday afternoon, she shoved the doubt that he was going to bail on her out of her mind. Just because
Trevor always did that, didn’t mean Leo would. She locked up Pawsitive Vibes and went upstairs to her apartment to get ready
for the pumpkin patch.
She went through her closet, choosing a Scotch plaid hoodie with gold, sage-green, and coral-orange colors.
Underneath she wore a pumpkin-orange turtleneck, and completed the outfit with washed-out, stovepipe ankle jeans and cranberry-and-cream-colored hiking boots.
A pumpkin necklace and matching pumpkin earrings carried the theme.
Most of the time Via either wore a hat or put her hair in a ponytail. Right now she was considering keeping it loose. Maybe
even curling it, something she hadn’t done in a long time. She rummaged through her vanity and finally found her curling iron
shoved under the sink. As she plugged it in, Sir Meow jumped on the corner of the counter and watched her.
“What?” she said to him, putting the curling iron on the opposite side of the sink. No need to take chances around Sir. “Don’t
act like you’ve never seen me curl my hair.” She looked in the mirror and frowned. “Or put on makeup.” She needed a little
color on her cheeks. Her eyes too.
For once he didn’t respond. And soon Via was getting back into the practice of applying eye shadow, trying not to look like
a clown. She rarely bothered with it. The cats didn’t care. Neither did the humans.
“Is it too much?” She turned to Sir.
He replied by jumping off the counter and running out of the room.
“Thanks for your support!” she hollered. She took a damp washcloth, wiped away the neutral-toned eyeshadow, and put on a little
mascara and a swipe of berry lip gloss. Good enough. She quickly curled her hair, brushed out the waves, and tucked one side
behind her ear to reveal the pumpkin earring.
She put an orange-and-white bandana around Sir’s neck and placed him in his catpack, a knapsack with a mesh screen that allowed Sir to be carried around in comfort, and zipped him in.
She had already set water bottles in both side pockets and shoved her wallet in the compartment on the back of the pack, then slung it over her shoulders and picked up the keys to Gold Yeller out of the key bowl near the front door.
Earl had given her the duplicates and let her borrow it anytime she needed to haul something. The nineties-era truck still
held up well. The downside was that the only modern convenience was air-conditioning. Even the windows had to be hand-cranked
up and down.
She knocked on Leo’s door. No answer. Knocked again. Silence. “Leo?”
“Meow?” Sir said from the catpack.
Nothing.
Familiar dread gathered inside her. Did he stand her up after all?
She pounded on the door in case he was in the shower or something.
“Meow!” Sir said from the catpack, as if he were trying to help.
Still no response. Fine. She was going to the pumpkin patch with or without him. But it wasn’t just anger she felt. It was
acute disappointment. She thought he was different. She should have known better.
As she hit the bottom step, ready to turn and go out the back way to the parking lot behind the building, she heard a muffled,
angry shout from outside. She halted. It sounded like Leo. He hadn’t left her high and dry. Or maybe he was trying to run
off.