Chapter 1 #2
She made a sound that wasn't quite a laugh and I worked the branch up and over, slow, getting the angle right so I didn't tear anything. The shirt caught, she sucked in a breath, I adjusted, lifting instead of pulling, and the fabric came free.
She lurched forward and we both heard the branch crack.
Pure reflex. My arm hooked around her before the thought finished. Forearm across her front, pulling her against me, before she could fall. Her hands grabbed my sleeve, hugging us both like a bear.
The branch she'd been holding said enough was enough and dropped somewhere onto the ground below us.
We hung out there on the branch my feet were planted on for a second.
Her back against my chest. One of hands bracing us both against the trunk, the other wrapped around her like she was mine. Tig's head emerged from my collar to observe this development.
She was breathing fast.
Not to mention me.
"I've got you," I said.
"I noticed." She took a shaky breath, and I felt every bit of her chest expanding and then releasing the air. "Thank you."
She didn't let go of my sleeve right away. I was content to stay right here.
"Since we didn't die just now, can we get the hell out of this tree?"
We came down branch by branch after that, slower than I would have alone. I went first and talked her down. She was keeping her eyes fixed on the bark two inches in front of her face. Not looking down. Smart.
"What's your name?" I asked.
She paused. "What?"
"You're thinking about the drop, falling. Talk to me instead." I found the next foothold, tested it, and glanced up at her. "Name. Go."
Another pause, shorter. She moved her left foot to where I'd pointed. "Clover."
Clover.
Her name landed like a perfect spiral right to my brain.
"Clover what?" Why did those two words sound like a come on?
"Freeman." She found the next branch. Steadier now. "Are you trying to distract me by flirting?"
"Is it working?"
"...Yes. I hate that it's working."
"Clover Freeman." I kept my voice even, kept her moving. "That's a great name."
"I like it." A breath. Almost dry. "Are you gonna tell me yours?"
I smiled behind the visor. She had no idea who I was, and that felt fucking delicious. "I am, of course, the Dread Pirate Poptarts. You may have heard of my cousin Roberts who saves fair maidens from Sicilians and villainous princes."
She made a sound that was half-laugh, half-exhale, the involuntary kind, the kind that escapes before you've decided to let it out, and her foot found the next branch clean, no hesitation.
"Oh, I see. So you only save cats, not betrothed princesses?"
One more branch to go.
"I prefer my princesses a bit more sassy and willing to climb trees to save their cats on their own. However, you must know there's no accounting for the dangers of the Fire Swamp. In such cases, I will avail myself to assist sassy princesses and their C.O.U.Ss — Cats of Unusual Size."
We made it to the last branch. The drop from here to the sidewalk was maybe three feet. Normal situation, nothing. In a normal situation she'd have hopped down without thinking about it.
She looked down and her voice came out a little bit squeaky. "It doesn't look very swampy."
"It's Ohio in the summer. Everything is swampy." Witty pop culture banter might not do the tick this time. was no longer distracting her.
"It's only about five feet. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights.”
She shook her head. "Not until right this moment. It's at least thirty."
"Want me to count them for you?"
"I want you to not make fun of me while I'm trying not to die."
"You're not dying. We pre-established that." I waved my hands in a come to me gesture. "You can do this."
"Emotionally," she said, "I could be dying."
I dropped down. The dirt met my boots with a solid impact and I turned back immediately, arms up.
She looked at my arms. Looked at the drop. Looked at my arms again.
"I will one hundred percent catch you," I said.
"You've got a cat in your jacket."
I unzipped the jacket, and set Tig on the ground next to Vito. Tig rubbed his chin against Vito's helmet just like he had mine, and then licked it like he was grooming his new best friend. "He's secure. Jump. I've got you."
"You can't know that."
"Clover." I watched it register, the way her name sounded, husky, and needy instead of the command I'd intended it to sound like. I watched her attention sharpen, five-ish feet up and staring down at me. "I've got you. Jump."
She jumped.
I caught her like she was Princess Buttercup and I was Andre the Giant waiting by my white horses, and not just some guy with two cats and a motorcycle.
She smelled like warm vanilla and cinnamon with something faintly floral underneath even in the August heat.
"Thank you." She smiled and I forgot my god-damned name for at least a whole minute. “You can put me down now.”
“Oh, right, yeah.”
I lowered one arm so her feet and legs could drop and hesitated to let her go with the other. She slid one hand between us, right on my chest, and took an infinitely slow step back.
"You didn't have to stop and help," she said.
"Seemed like the situation called for it."
She picked up Tig and the cat rearranged himself over her shoulder like he’d been perfectly fine the whole time and didn't understand why everyone was so worked up.
Vito had somehow slipped out of his helmet and was now sitting close to her feet, looking up at Tig with fixed attention. They were both doing that attention-seeking tail swish at each other.
"Do you live around here?" she asked.
I gestured at the building behind us.
Something moved across her expression, quick, there and gone. "I just moved in. A week ago."
Huh.
The Rhinehaus. My building. Chris had bought me the penthouse when I'd been drafted. I bought the rest of the building when I moved to Cinci that summer.
This was mine. Twelve units. I'd never needed to know my tenants, the management handled itself, everything was clean and separate and exactly how I wanted it.
"Small world," I said.
"Very." She shifted Tig to a better position and he made himself comfortable across her shoulder like an expensive scarf with poor attitude. "Now that we're down, and out of danger, you take off the helmet, safety first guy."
I was enjoying the way she was looking at me, at the helmet, mostly, doing the thing where she was trying to figure out what was underneath it through sheer force of attention.
Nobody looked at me that way. They looked at the name, the number, the family. Nobody stood on a sidewalk and tried to figure out the actual person under the helmet.
"You're not going to take the helmet off," she said. Not a question. More like confirmation of a theory.
"This is the way."
The bright laugh I'd been going for all along burst out, and I wanted to hear it a million more times. "The Mandalorian's helmet rule is a foundational religious doctrine rooted in cultural trauma and community survival. Not a personal aesthetic preference."
My oh, my. Sassy, curvy, and nerdy? "Maybe you wouldn’t have survived without my culture and community."
"Maybe you should let people you help out of trees see your face."
"Next time," I said.
One eyebrow went up. She had very expressive eyebrows. I was noting that in a completely detached and objective way. Also, I wanted to lick them. And each and every one of those freckles.
"There's going to be a next time?"
"Depends." I nodded at Vito, who had not moved from his position near her feet and appeared to still be engaged in whatever negotiation was happening with Tig overhead. "I was thinking I could take you out on the bike sometime. If you wanted."
The pause that followed was the kind you felt. Deep in your gut.
"I don't know anything about you," she said.
"You know I climbed a tree in motorcycle boots to get your cat. You know I’m not a serial killer who would drop you." I paused. "You know I'm both a Star Wars nerd and a fan of The Princess Bride. You know my cat has a better wardrobe than most people."
She looked at Vito.
Vito looked back at her with absolute confidence. He knew he was cool as shit.
Something shifted in her expression. Softened. Just a little. Just enough.
"Okay, Cat Daddy," she said.
Cat Daddy. Man on motorcycle. Helmet on. Cat in coordinated leather. Shows up to tree-related emergencies without being asked. Fuck yeah, I'm your Cat Daddy.
"Is that a yes?" I asked.
She looked at me for a moment directly, through the visor, still doing that thing where she was solving the riddle that was me. Then reached into the pocket of her Chadwick Cheer sports shorts and pulled out her phone.
She could have called the fire department all on her own, all along. But she hadn’t.
"That's a conditional maybe," she said. "Give me your number. I'll think about it."
I gave her my number.
I didn't give anyone but my family, my agent, and my coach my number.
She typed it in. She was close enough, the angle was right, and I had approximately two seconds of visibility before she turned the screen away.
She saved my contact as Cat Daddy.
My heart did a little twitter-pate, and my cock responded. Jesus this girl had my number, figuratively and literally.
She put the phone away and looked back up at me. "I'm going to go figure out how Tig got that balcony door open, because apparently I've been severely underestimating him."
"Good luck."
"Thanks for the rescue." She turned toward the building, Tig riding her shoulder like he'd always intended to be there, bare feet quiet on the warm sidewalk. Then she stopped. Looked back. "Your cat. What's his name?"
Vito looked up at her.
"Vito," I said.
"Full name?"
She'd been paying attention to everything even in her greatest moments of distress. And I was loving her sass.
"Vito Catleone," I said.
The smile that broke across her face was the most exciting thing that had happened to me in my twenty-five years on earth.
Including the championship bowl games, and getting drafted in the first round.
Including the night Alexis called me, barely holding together her professional calm, to say the sponsorship offers had just multiplied by a factor of eleventy-hundred and I should probably sit down because I was about to make enough money to Scrooge McDuck dive into pools of it.
None of it had landed like this.
"Oh, we're going to be friends," she said, not to me specifically, maybe to herself, maybe to both cats, maybe to the general universe, and went inside.
The building door swung shut behind her.
I stood on the sidewalk and adjusted my pants.
Vito walked back to the bike, stepped up to his platform, and sat there waiting for me to get my shit together.
"Don't even." I grabbed his little helmet from the ground at my feet.
He said nothing. He was a cat.
Bare feet. Canon Mandalorian lore. Called me Cat Daddy. And then there was the beauty and sass that had me all kinds of revved up.
I'd known her for fifteen minutes.
Her name was Clover.
I was in trouble.
Vito was going to be insufferable about this.