Chapter 15 - Henry #2
“How long did Curie take to adjust when you adopted her?” he asked, standing back up and heading for the kitchen without waiting for me. I followed obediently. Maybe he was a little presumptuous, but hey, he brought food.
“It was really different with her,” I said, thinking back.
“She was only a kitten, and I think she was so grateful to get out of the cold and into somewhere where she was safe that her little kitten brain bypassed ‘scared’ and went right to ‘adjusting’. Plus, I basically kept her in my hoodie for the first week except when I was feeding her.”
He nodded warmly. “You’re a good cat daddy.
” He started unloading the food, and I realized that he may have only referenced chicken parmigiana and cannoli, but there was definitely more to this meal than that.
In addition to the foil container that probably contained the chicken and a bakery bag that was obviously full of cannoli, there was also a plastic soup container of some sort of chunky tomato mixture, a loaf of pre-sliced focaccia, and what looked like garlic bread. Mmm, carbs. My stomach growled again.
“Exactly how much dinner did you bring?” I asked, starting to open the containers and eyeball the contents. The tomato mixture looked like bruschetta, and I assumed it went with the focaccia. I reached into the cabinet above my head to retrieve a plate we could lay the bread slices out on.
He colored delicately, seeming to only now realize he’d overdone it.
“I figured you could use the leftovers for a day or two afterward?” he ventured.
“I mean, I didn’t cook for the first couple of days after I brought the girls home because I was too busy trying to get them to eat and drink and I kept forgetting I needed to do that too, until I was beyond hangry.
So I figured I’d head that off for you.”
This man wasn’t even my boyfriend, and he was taking better care of me than my last three boyfriends had.
I spooned bruschetta onto a round of focaccia and set it in front of him appreciatively.
“Well, thank you. I probably would have forgotten tonight, and then stuffed some pizza rolls into my face just before I fell asleep when I realized how hungry I was.”
He grinned and picked up the bruschetta I’d prepared for him, taking a big bite and closing his eyes in bliss. “Mmm,” he moaned, chewing and swallowing. “Yes, this was a good choice.”
I mirrored his actions, biting into one of the bread rounds myself.
Damn, that was good. We ate the rest of the bruschetta standing up at the island, exchanging a few words but mostly concentrating on shoveling the delicious tomatoes and onions into our faces.
When Jamison spooned the last of the mixture onto the second-to-last piece of bread, he looked down at the countertop, which was now smeared with little bits of tomato that had escaped us.
“Oops?” He cupped one hand and ran it over the counter, trying to sweep up the bits and pieces. “We ate that like savages.”
I snagged a paper towel off the side of the sink, dampened it, and started sweeping up crumbs and tomato smears. “Worth it. We should probably actually sit down for the main course, though.” I waved him to my small kitchen table. “Go, sit.”
He started to turn obediently, and then paused and returned to the cabinets to retrieve two plates and silverware to go with them. How did he even know where I kept my stuff, I wondered silently, and then decided I didn’t really care. Friends learned stuff like that as they hung out.
Friends who…know what each other’s dicks feel like? piped up my treacherous brain. I squashed that thought, along with the accompanying mental image of my hand wrapped around Jamison’s gorgeous pink dick. Nope, didn’t picture that at all.
I tripped over my own feet on the way to the table and nearly lost our dinner, but caught both it and myself at the last second.
Jamison, who had just sat, jumped to his feet as if he was going to rescue me.
“You ok?” he asked cautiously as I stumbled the rest of the way to the table and set the chicken container down with an audible thump.
I cleared my throat, trying to keep my eyes on his face rather than letting them drop to his crotch as they wanted to. What was wrong with me? I was having dinner with a friend, not preparing to de-pants a hookup. “Fine,” I said, though it came out a little squeaky. “Just uncoordinated.”
His face relaxed into a smile. “Well, if we’re going to lose the chicken, at least we have the bruschetta and the garlic bread to sustain us.
” He popped the top off the chicken and used his fork and knife to pick up a cutlet, which he deposited on my plate.
“Here, eat before something else goes wrong.”
Mrrp?
I looked down and found Curie at my feet, pawing curiously at the leg of my sweatpants. Of course, now that there was people food to be had, she was willing to stand up and come socialize. “Nope,” I told her, gently pushing her away with my foot. “This isn’t for you. Cats don’t eat chicken parm.”
“And definitely not garlic bread,” Jamison said, dragging the foil-wrapped loaf of bread across the table and curving his arm around it protectively. “My preciousss,” he hissed quietly.
I laughed at his Gollum impression. “I take it you like garlic bread?”
He hummed appreciatively and broke off a slice, sliding it onto his plate. “So good.” He topped half the bread slice with a cut-up piece of chicken and a bit of sauce and shoved it into his mouth. “Mmm.”
I’d never considered combining the elements of the meal like that, but now that I watched him do it, it struck me as a pretty good idea. I copied him and took my own bite of garlic-parm. Oh, that was good.
We ate in appreciative silence for a few minutes, the only sounds being the sound of our chewing and Curie’s increasingly plaintive meows as she tried to con us into feeding her.
I noticed Jamison had adopted my strategy of gentle foot pushes, with the result that the cat was softly ping-ponging between us to no apparent ill effect.
If anything, she seemed to be having a good time with it.
“Cats are weird,” I managed to get out between bites as I finally slowed down my consumption as I reached satiety.
Smirking, Jamison gave Curie another foot push. “She’s a determined little thing. I feel bad that Solo’s locked up while we hang out here with her, though.” He scooped up the last of the sauce on his plate with the last bite of his garlic bread. “I wonder if he’s going to be a beggar like she is.”
I waggled my head from side to side. “Who knows. I’d settle for him eating his own food without me having to coax him into it.”
“Hey now.” He wagged a finger at me. “It’s only the first night. I seem to recall you and Sandra reminding me over and over to not freak out if the girls hid for a while before warming up to me.”
I knew that, I did. I had listened to Sandra, and I had done my research about bringing new cats home. That didn’t make me feel any better now that it was actually happening, though. “I know,” I sighed. “I guess I was just hoping he’d be the exception.”
“Well,” he said reasonably, watching me eat my last bite, “his whole life has changed from one moment to the next.”
“I know that feel,” I muttered before I could stop myself, then winced. I did not want to get into the story of my last breakup or rehash my and Jamison’s risky first night together.
He watched me with thoughtful eyes for a long moment, and then apparently decided not to push.
“I’ll tell you the same thing you guys told me: give him time and let him adjust. And then I’ll add my own advice: bribery.
It worked with my girls!” He grinned. “I got them those lickable treat pouch things - thank you, same-day shipping - and then they had to come right up to me to get the yums. They made peace with facing me damn quick when tuna pate was on offer.”
“I don’t have any of those,” I said, frowning. “Just the little kibble-type crunchies that Curie likes. Do you think I should buy some for him?”
Jamison smiled widely. “No need.” He hopped to his feet and darted over to where he’d hung his coat, startling both me and Curie with the sudden movement.
“I came prepared.” He reached into the coat pocket and brandished a handful of what looked sort of like ketchup packets.
“I mean, feel free to order your own, but I brought a couple to try. We can at least see if he likes them.”
The man was a genius and I told him so: “You’re brilliant.
Thank you.” I started to cross the room to him, then stopped and looked back at the table, catching Curie perched on the chair I’d been sitting on and raising one paw to the tabletop.
“No!” I clapped loudly, startling her off the chair.
“Guess I’d better clean this up before we run off to do fun stuff.
” I walked back to the table and started gathering up the remnants of dinner.
Jamison shoved the treat packets into the pocket of his jeans and came to help, and together we had the mess cleared and the dishes in the dishwasher within a few minutes.
“You’re stuck with cat food tonight,” he told Curie, wagging a finger at her.
I would swear Curie wrinkled her nose at that, and I laughed. “Save one of the treat packets for her and we’ll give it to her near the guest room door after we finish hanging out with Solo. Maybe then she’ll associate positive things with his scent.”
“Ooh.” He pointed at me. “You’re smart.”
“I try.” I gestured out of the kitchen toward the hallway the bedrooms lay off of, realizing as I did it that this was going to be Jamison’s first time venturing beyond the living room. “Guest room’s that way,” I said, pointing.
He turned his head to follow my pointing, then looked back at me and smirked. “Do I get to see your room, too?”