Page 94 of Playing Along

“I’m not making fun of you,” I protest. “I think your sniffing thing is adorable and very flattering. Do you want to sniff my head?” I bend my neck and offer it to her. “It’s yours to sniff whenever you want.”

“Don’t make me sic my cat on you,” she threatens.

“Yes, we should talk about this cat of yours,” I agree amiably. “It hasn’t escaped my notice that this cat looks an awful lot like my cat. Care to explain?”

“I’m not sure why an explanation is needed,” she replies primly. “I have a gray and black cat, and you have a gray and black cat. Case closed.”

“Fine,” I relent, mostly because I’d much rather be kissing her than discussing our identical cats.

“What do you say we put, uh, what did you say his name was again?”

For some reason this question makes her blush again. “I didn’t.” I wait for her to say the name, but she doesn’t.

“Right. Well what do you say we put your cat-who-shall-not-be-named in his carrier and pick up where we left off?”

But she’s not finished with the discussion. “Listen, Jack, it’s not like I named the cat, okay? I mean, after we broke up I was missing you and I just thought maybe getting a pet would make me feel better. You know how much I loved Briggs and your horses. So I went to the shelter one day and there this guy was.” She looks fondly at the cat in her arms, who promptly hisses in response. “He’d been there for almost six months, probably on account of his poor manners.” She says these last words directly to the cat, then looks back at me. “But you know how it is with animals–when you know, you know. And I knew when I saw him that he was going to go home with me.”

“I get that,” I tell her. “That’s how I felt when I picked you up on the side of the road.”

“Jack!” she exclaims, and seriously if I had a dollar for every time I’ve made this woman blush in the last few minutes alone, I wouldn’t have any more trouble paying Joy’s bills.

“Kidding,” I say with a wink. “Although I’m not mad that in the end it worked out that way. Tonight you are going home with me…to our home.”

“To our home,” she echoes with a smile.

The cat hisses again.

“Right, but first you were telling me about how you ended up adopting grumpy pants over there.”

“Yes.” She draws in a breath. “So, as I said, I’d already mentally committed to adopting him. Then one of the employees mentioned that he’d been especially sad lately because a week ago his sister Jill had been adopted. That’s when I first looked at the name plate on the plexiglass of his enclosure and realized that his name was—”

“Oh my gosh your cat’s name is Jack,” I interrupt.

“Yes!” she cries with a horrified squeak. “But it’s not like I named him that! And he’d already been through so much in his two years of life, I couldn’t just change his name on him too!”

“Your cat’s name is Jack!” I say again, and I can’t help it, I start laughing. Big, deep belly laughs that earn me more hisses from my animal namesake.

“Oh my goodness,” Nora groans. “You must think I’m completely nuts! But I swear it was just happenstance! Not like I was just so obsessed with you that I had to name my cat after you! He came with the name!”

“Give me the cat, Nora.” I reach over and take Jack from her arms, careful to avoid his claws as he attempts to draw blood by any means necessary.

“He came with the name!” she repeats, barely seeming aware of me. “And sure, I kind of liked still having a Jack in my life, but I don’t think that makes me crazy.” She continues to ramble on about Jack the cat, but I’m only half-listening. I’m all done discussing him. I walk over to her bedroom door, set the cat in the hallway, then close the door behind him. Then I turn around to face a wide-eyed Nora. “So,” she says, “I bet now you think I’m completely crazy and totally obsessed with you.”

I cross the room toward her. “Nora Reynolds,” I declare, “if you are even half as crazy about me as I am about you, that would make me the happiest man alive. But since you went ahead and out-crazied me by naming your cat Jack—”

“I told you,” she interrupts, “I didn’t name him th—”

“By naming your cat Jack,” I speak over her. “There’s really only one thing I can think to do to show you that I am even more crazy about you than you are about me.”

This silences her protestations and I watch with satisfaction as her breath hitches. “And what’s that?” she murmurs, eyes fixed on me.

“We’re going to have to name our first daughter after you,” I reply simply, then I sweep everything from our past relationship off the bed and onto the floor and pull Nora down against me, kissing her with unrestrained passion.

It’s time for us to start our new relationship as husband and wife.

Till death do us part.

The End!!

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