Chapter 11 #3
I look between my phone lock screen and the cat in front of me, whose ears are still pointed back in annoyance. They have the same tuxedo markings. Even the same paws are white. It’s like someone hit copy/paste on my damn cat.
“You said he was just there and the ceiling crashed in on him?” Waylon asks.
“He has to have crashed through the ceiling,” Ash says. “How else would he have gotten in?”
“He was just living in the ceiling?” I stare at the picture of Pip again. Dad texts more question marks and I text him a picture of the mystery cat, along with a message that I’ll call him back.
“Maybe there’s a hole from outside to inside?
I guess he could climb up one of the trees nearby and make it in if he was determined enough.
” Waylon takes his hand off the cat, whose tail is flicking violently.
“He looks pretty well-fed. Aside from his eye, which looks a bit irritated, he looks like he’s been taken care of.
Maybe someone left him some food somewhere.
Let me check if he has a microchip, even though I’ve never seen him before.
We can treat him and take him to the shelter since he seems somewhat socialized. ”
The cat leaps off the table and rushes over to the corner, crouching in a small ball and eyeing all of us. I don’t blame him. Then again, if I crashed through a ceiling, got shoved in a box, and was dragged to some place that smelled like other animals, I would have come out swinging hard.
“Okay.” I blow out a breath. “Thanks, Waylon. This is so fucking weird.”
“At least it’s a funny kind of weird. Except for your ceiling.” Waylon half smiles, going into a cabinet and grabbing a tube treat. The cat perks up right away, his ears pointing forward again. He stays in the corner, though. “You need help with that? I can swing by after work.”
“I’ve got it,” Ash says, to my surprise. Waylon’s eyebrows go up in surprise, too. “What, part of our ceiling crashes in and you expect me to just let Jada handle it all on her own?”
Right. We’re married. I guess the cat crashing through the wall is monumental enough for me to forget that. But Ash saying “our ceiling” is like dumping ice water down the back of my neck.
The ceiling crashed over the couch. There’s not a chance Ash can sleep on it.
My apartment isn’t so big that I could put down an air mattress, especially if they’re doing construction on that spot of the room.
Shit.
I glance at Ash out of the corner of my eye. He doesn’t seem too fazed. Maybe he hasn’t connected those dots yet.
“Alright, then.” Waylon opens the tube treat and crouches down. The cat slinks along the wall, still wary but not enough to stay put. “I need to get him to the back for treatment. I’ll text you updates on him.”
Once the cat is secure, Ash and I leave.
“Fuck, I’m late,” Ash says, looking at his phone. He swears a few more times, running his hand over his hair.
“Shit, I am, too.” I let my head fall back. I haven’t showered or finished my coffee or done any of the things I need to do to prepare for the day. And I have missed texts from the contractor who’s making the renovations on the hotel a living hell.
Today is going to be a rough one.
We hop into the car and Ash drives us back, his mind mostly on the road and wherever he has to be. Work, I’m assuming. When we get home, he mumbles something about taking a shower and disappears into the bathroom.
I pick up Pip, who’s still lingering around the area where the ceiling caved in, and take a closer look. Dad had patched it up with a tarp temporarily since he had to go into the office. It looks worse than I thought, as does the fold-out bed.
I sigh and sit Pip on my lap so I can email my team, letting them know I’m going to be late. Once I send that email, I make coffee and wait for Ash to finish in the bathroom.
Ash appears in the doorway, dressed in jeans and a dark T-shirt under a button-down. Seeing him dressed in muted colors is such a sharp contrast to the usual bright ones he wears. The darkness pulls out the matching shades under his eyes, muting the greenish brown of his irises, too.
“Hey,” he says, his hand on the doorknob. “Sorry. About earlier.”
I frown, trying to piece together what we were even talking about before the cat incident.
We were on the edge of an argument because he was cranky.
It’s crazy how easily I can forget. But then again, I still remember his calm, steadying presence right after the mystery cat crashed through the ceiling and how he’d guided me from panicking to Waylon.
He was just what I needed in that moment.
Even though it was all okay, it hadn’t felt like it then.
“Thanks for the apology,” I say. “Also, um, we need to sort out the sleeping situation. Given the whole construction zone over where you sleep, which is all fucked up.”
“Right now?” Ash glances at his phone.
“Or later. But we have to figure it out.”
He glances toward the opening to the hallway, then at me, then up and down my body. I see him swallow. Everything clicks for him, doesn’t it?
“Later. Please.” Then, he leaves without another word.