Page 15 of The Ground Beneath Our Feet
“Jessica.” I hated to be called Jess. That was what Tyler called me. And my dad.
Mikey stared at me, and the look on his face was a combination of amusement and disbelief—and if I wasn’t mistaken, respect.
“You go by Mikey, not Michael, right? We all have our preferences.”
“Yes we do,” he agreed. With a colossal grin—and dimples—he stood up and, feigning seriousness, extended his hand. I shook it. Rough callouses scratched my fingers as he engulfed me with his one more time.
I liked it just as much this time as the last.
“Let’s start this again. Hi, I’m Mikey, and I own this place. You must be Jessica, my new roommate.” He made me smile involuntarily. “Welcome to my humble abode. Now that you’ve had a chance to see all the amenities this place has to offer, would you like a seat?”
He made me giggle at his overly formal tone. “Nice to meet you.” He winked at me, and while I normally thought guys who winked were creepy weirdos, on him it was fun.
I cleared a larger space on the couch to sit down and took in my surroundings.
The one-eyed cat came over to me, aloof, and rubbed against my legs, getting orange cat hair on my black pants.
Why didn’t you like me before?
Mikey pointed to the cat, who came over and rubbed against his pants. “That’s Sniper.”
Nodding, I petted the cat as he circled back to me. A gray cat with white socks came over too. “And that’s Schmedley. Watch out or he’ll take a shower with you.”
I got a quick vision of Mikey in the shower, soap running down his body in streams of warm water.
Was it really a good idea to live here? I’d have to change my underwear four times a day. I needed to not think about showers, with or without Mikey. “How many animals do you have?”
“There’s a rabbit, two turtles, Elvis the dog, a few cats, fish.”
“So many!”
The gray cat, Schmedley, pressed his head under my hand, and I scratched his ear. He climbed into my lap and curled up immediately. Mikey pointed to my lap. “He likes you.” He took a sip of water from a nearby glass. “I get a lot of pets to take home because I’m a veterinarian.”
As Sniper circled back to Mikey’s pant leg, he reached down and rubbed behind the cat’s ears, making a low murmur that Sniper echoed with a full-throttle purr. Schmedley hadn’t moved from my lap.
Mikey’s phone lit up. He picked it up, sighed, and put it back down.
It lit up again. He shook his head. “Too much going on,” he muttered.
All the women texting him, likely. What did I care? He was just my roommate, and he could do whatever he liked, as long as I didn’t have to see it.
I should have guessed that Mikey was a veterinarian, and not just because of the menagerie of animals. He was one of them—strong, but lithe. His mannerisms were elegant and leonine. He wouldn’t startle you unless he wanted to. His low voice was the kind to calm animals immediately. I just knew he knew how to make them relax when they were freaked out.
“You have to be a great vet, you have such a way with animals.”
“Yeah?”
“He looks so content,” I said, pointing at Sniper. “I’d love it if you’d do that to me.”
“Rub you behind your ears and make you purr?”
My eyes popped open when I realized what I’d said, and he burst out laughing. “I’m just kidding, Jessica. You want some dinner?”
“No thanks.”
This was the problem with being on a diet. I couldn’t be a normal person and eat whatever was there. I had to make my own food so I could keep track of the calories and what was in it. I’d bought groceries—both healthy and unhealthy, although the unhealthy was only for emergencies.
His bright eyes assessed me. Now that I knew he was a vet, I wondered if he was diagnosing me. Determining the kind of feed I needed to be on to lose weight. His eyebrows furrowed and he looked at me quizzically. “I’m a great cook. You have to eat.”
