Page 22 of Every Inch of You
“Goodidea.”
“Why is your cat named JustinTimberlake?”
“Well, if you saw him you’d see the resemblance immediately, but also when I adopted him he came from a litter of four other boys. Once he was on his own he reallyflourished.”
“Got it.Cute.”
“And he’s also a remarkably gooddancer.”
“Uhhuh.”
“And he loves to wear vests andhats.”
He shook his head and looked at me like I was a weirdo that he probably should never have sex with, so I stopped talking. But I could have goneon.
When he parked,I got out of the car and handed him the cat carrier. He looked so worried. “You’re coming in,right?”
“Sure. I wasn’t sure if you’d want meto.”
He nodded. “Can you help me feed her? I mean, I can YouTube it,but…”
“I’ll help you with whatever you need, Brad. Let’s go, she’shungry.”
I burrito-wrapped the kitten with a towel and bottle-fed her, sitting on Brad’s sofa, looking around, while Brad’s attention was fixed on the fur baby. His apartment was quite large. There was a lot of floor space, for working out on, I assumed. He had a massive TV, the requisite Portland hipster record player and record collection, and—thankfully—an even larger collection of books than he’d had in his basement when we were friends. I was very glad to see that he was still a booknerd.
“This is a great place,” I said. “It’s so weird that you live so close tome.”
He just shrugged his shoulders, didn’t even look at me. He was too busy staring at the kitten. They had the same mesmerizing green eyes, but the kitten had more blue in hers. He was trying not to smile, but he was completely taken with her, it was obvious. Why was it so difficult for him to just show this cat that he wanted her? Men areweird.
“Do you want to try feedingher?”
“Not yet. I don’t want to make her stop eating. She’s so hungry, poorthing.”
I zoned out afterthat.
“You’re awfully quiet for the first time in yourlife.”
I looked over into his gorgeous eyes. They were friendlier than usual. I hadn’t noticed that he had sat down beside me and LadyKitten.
“Sorry.”
“Do you need togo?”
“No, I was justthinking…”
“What?”
“My ex-boyfriend sent me a letter. In the mail. I got ityesterday.”
“Oh. That’s weird. Have you been in touch with him since heleft?”
“Not atall.”
“That’sweird.”
“Right?!”
“What did it say? You don’t have to tellme.”
