Epilogue #2
“Come on,” I said, grabbing the handles of her chair. “Let’s go get him settled so I can go get supplies.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“Pretty sure the cat will disagree with that,” I said.
“No, trust me. Brio will drop everything off outside the door. That’s his thing.”
“What’s that?” Charlotte asked, half-interested, when we made our way back in.
“Well, Uncle Brio dropped by and asked us for a favor,” I said as Alara set the box on the cushion beside Charlotte. “He needed someone to keep an eye on this little guy for a while.”
Alara pulled the tuck at the top of the box.
Not a second later, the kitten’s head popped up, wide yellow eyes scanning around before he let out a sad little meow that almost sounded like a question.
“Oh!” Charlotte gasped, her hands flying to her chest. “Hi! You’re okay,” she cooed to the cat when it looked at her. “You’re here with us,” she said, reaching out toward him and petting his head.
“Unfortunately, his owner passed away, and he was taken to the shelter,” I said.
“That must have been scary,” Charlotte said, carefully putting her hands around the cat’s waist. “It’s okay to be sad,” she added, pulling him out of the box and settling him on her lap. “But we can try to make you happy again. Family helps,” she added, rubbing his head as he purred.
Alara glanced over at me, and I could read the thoughts running across her head.
We can’t give this cat back.
A loud, hacking cough sounded to our side.
“Fuck,” Liam hissed, cradling his aching ribs.
For once, I let the curse slide.
I couldn’t imagine how much it sucked to have a cough with bruised ribs. I was pretty sure my own language would be more colorful than an f-bomb.
“What’s that?” he asked, moving to the back of the couch with the gait of an achy eighty-year-old.
“A gremlin. We need to make sure we don’t feed it after midnight,” Alara said, making the kid’s brows furrow. “I guess we have to add that to our list of movies to watch. It’s a foster cat. He… he belonged to Robin.”
Understanding crossed Liam’s face as he reached past Charlotte’s shoulder to pet the cat. Only to get a nasty hiss and a swat of a small, sharp-nailed foot.
“Ha!” Alara cheered, making Liam’s brows shoot up, a small smile playing at his lips. “That’s what you get for stealing my dog’s love.”
“Did I steal it, or did he give it to me freely?” he shot back.
“Sure, rub it in,” she said, petting the kitten.
When I reached out, though, I got the same treatment Liam did.
“I like this cat,” Alara decided.
“Me too,” Charlotte agreed, leaning down to press her cheek to the kitten’s soft fur. “Does he have a name?”
“Oh, um…” Alara said as I reached for the box, finding some partially shredded paperwork in there with him.
“Binx,” I read off the paperwork.
“Binx. Like the movie we watched with Mom,” Charlotte said.
A slice of pain crossed her and Liam’s faces. I felt the same pain in my chest. It was duller than it had been eight months ago, but still there. Some part of me hoped it would always be. The pain was proof of the love.
“That’s my favorite Halloween movie,” Alara said.
“My mom’s too. And mine,” Charlotte said, giving Alara a small smile.
“It’s the perfect name then.”
Once all of his stuff arrived about an hour later—a fancy automatic litter box, a massive cat tree, toys, bowls, and beds—it was even clearer that looking for a new apartment needed to be at the top of my list of things to do.
Because between the kids, me, Tuna, Binx, and Alara’s things that still hadn’t been moved in yet, we were going to be testing the strength of our seams in no time.
Alara - 5 months
It was crazy, when life stood still enough to allow me to reflect, how quickly everything changed.
I’d gone from so incredibly alone and, yes, lonely (even if I never would have admitted that) to being surrounded by people and love that almost felt too big for my body to hold at times.
Before Christopher, my days revolved around the shop, walking my dog, obsessing over my stalker board, occasional trips to see my family, and sleep.
That was it.
There wasn’t someone to talk to over the table, no one to cuddle close with in bed after a hard day, no one to lean on, not much to plan or dream about.
Now, I was never alone. I didn’t have to worry about who was going to feed or walk Tuna. I didn’t have to sit alone in my apartment night after night, trying to convince myself that the sinking sensation in me was anything but loneliness and longing.
I had Christopher to help ease the burdens of life, the weight of banal, boring adult shit.
I had Liam to trade lighthearted jabs with, to help run an errand if I wasn’t feeling like it.
I had Charlotte to share books and movies with.
And I had all of them to plan with, dream with.
“Ugh!” Charlotte growled as she stormed through the door of the pawnshop with the kind of drama only a thirteen-year-old could successfully adopt.
I didn’t even know her all that long, but it felt like time was going too fast. Even as I planned her extravagant birthday party (which included an overnight sleepover in a bookstore and the biggest sweet treat buffet known to mankind), it felt like it was too soon to have another teenager in the house.
“What happened?” I asked, dusting off a shelf of Russian nesting dolls that had been sitting in the shop as long as I’d been running it.
“My teacher is making me do an assignment with Asher.”
“Asher… popular guy who once made fun of you for your book, Asher?” I clarified. There were three guys in her grade with different versions of Ash/Ashton/Asher. All of them sounded like little assholes. Or maybe that was just the age.
“Yeah.” Charlotte slammed her bag down on the counter with an exaggerated sigh.
“What’s the assignment for?”
“We have to read and do a report together. On a book.”
“How’d that go?” A guilty look crossed her face. One that she usually reserved for when her temper got the better of her and she said something she maybe did mean but also regretted. “Charlotte…”
“I maybe asked him if he even knew how to read.”
A snort escaped me at that.
“Good one.”
And that right there was why it was probably a good thing no one let me raise any small children. I was a terrible influence.
“What’d he say?”
“That if I liked books so much, I could just do all the work.”
“Group assignments suck because it’s always one or two people doing all the work while everyone else goofs off. But that is an option. Just do the work, get the good grade, and avoid the fights.”
“Oh, no,” she said, a fierce look in her eyes as she crossed her arms. “I’m going to make him work too.”
“There are those Costa genes,” I said with a little laugh. “So, how do you plan to make that happen?”
“He’s meeting me here,” she said, chin lifting. “And we’re going to the bookstore to work. Whether he likes it or not.”
Not ten minutes later, the bell chimed.
And there was Asher.
He was kind of in that stage all boys go through where he was all arms and legs and couldn’t seem to keep any weight on. But he was golden-haired, blue-eyed, and had the bone structure that suggested he was going to have no problem becoming the prom king in a few years.
“I’m here,” he announced, holding out his arms in an ‘are you happy?’ way.
“Do you want an award?” Charlotte asked, making me cover a snorting laugh with a fake cough. Judging by the way Asher’s lips twitched ever so slightly, he was amused by it as well.
“So, what book are you guys working on?” I asked.
“I gave him a list of three,” Charlotte said, and I was having a hard time reconciling this take-charge, bossy teenager with the sweet, shy little girl that had come to New York just six or seven months ago. “Scythe, The Hate U Give, or The Perks of Being a Wallflower.”
“Perks sounds good,” Asher said, shrugging.
“That’s a good choice,” I said.
“He picked it because it’s the shortest,” Charlotte said, being uncharacteristically ungracious.
“Charlotte,” I said, a soft warning in my voice.
“She’s not wrong,” Asher said with a smirk.
It was right then that Liam came into the shop, taking in the tension inside with a quirk of his brow.
If possible, I’d swear that kid put on twenty pounds of muscle in just a few months.
Once his ribs had healed up, he’d started hitting the gym with his uncle and became obsessed with things like macros, micros, and protein.
Meanwhile, Char and I stared blankly at him with our bowls full of boxed mac & cheese on the couch we hadn’t moved from in hours.
He was another one who was growing up too fast for me. He’d shown another small sign of rebellion by piercing his lip.
Christopher hated it.
I thought it looked pretty good.
Liam didn’t care what either of us thought.
“Can I have some money for a drink?” Charlotte asked me.
“Sure,” I agreed, handing her more than she’d need, in case Asher didn’t have his own money. “Don’t leave the bookstore, okay?”
“I won’t. He won’t either,” she said, giving Asher a hard look as she grabbed her bag and went to the door.
“What was that?” Liam asked as Asher bit back a smile while following Charlotte out.
“If I had to place a bet, young love.”
“What?” Liam asked, his face falling.
“Oh, stop with the ’no one is good enough for a Costa woman’ thing.”
“She’s not a woman.”
“And he’s just a thirteen-year-old boy too.”
“There’s no such thing as just a thirteen-year-old boy,” Liam said, going to the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To buy a book.”
I was still smiling when an exhausted-looking Christopher came through the door a few minutes later.
The pawnshop was a bit of a hub for our little family now that we’d moved out of the shoebox apartment we’d been in for a while and into a bigger one closer to my work. Everyone was in and out all day.
“Well, your day looks more amusing than mine. What’s going on?”