Page 84 of The Unhinged Christmas of a Cat Lady
My head lifts.
He’s not looking at me when he says it, just watching his fingers trace the rim of his cup. Like it’s not a big deal. Like it’s not a message.
I nod again. I have no idea why. My stomach is doing a sort of slow, confused churn. I shouldn’t feel anything about this. I really shouldn’t. So why do I?
“Who is it?”
“What?”
“The guy you’re seeing.”
“Oh.” I hesitate, fingers tightening around the handle of my mug. “His name’s Jasper. He’s—he’s from the village.”
“Jasper.” Sim-Sim looks up. “Your landlord?”
I blink. “How do you know he’s my landlord?”
He shrugs. “SJ talks about him all the time. ‘Jasper helped with the kittens.’ ‘Jasper fixed the pipes.’ ‘Jasper’s teaching me how to tell if a defender’s playing for offsite.’” He gives a small laugh that doesn’t quite land. “I thought he was just being neighbourly.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I just sit there, brain humming, unsure what any of this means or should mean.
It’s all tangled. Not in a dramatic, soap-opera way. Just in a real-life, very-human, why-is-this-so-complicated way.
Back at the office, I stare at the same email for the fourth time and still have no idea what it says. I click into the calendar. Then out of it. Then hover over the to-do list like it might sprout an escape tunnel.
Spoiler: it doesn’t.
I’ve spent the entire afternoon somewhere between distracted and catatonic, and I know exactly why.
Because until that coffee with Sim-Sim, I’d been floating on cloud seven. Not nine. That would be overkill. Seven feels right. Just high enough to feel giddy, low enough that I could still function. Just.
Every evening this week, after SJ was asleep and the kittens were vaguely settled (read: passed out from whatever chaos they’d conjured during the day), Jasper would sneak in like some sort of stealthy book boyfriend. We'd curl up on my bed, sometimes talking, sometimes kissing, sometimes just lying there breathing the same air like it was enough.
And of course, he would dish out the most explosive orgasms almost every night. No lawnmower-like vibrator can ever compare to this.
He’d sneak out around five every morning, tucking the duvet back around me like a crime scene he was trying not to disturb. The cats, traitorous little furballs, had quickly learned this meant early breakfast, and now begin their campaign of meowing sabotage at 4:57 sharp.
But this afternoon?
This afternoon, all that fuzz and warmth has been replaced by a headache the shape of Sim-Sim’s “I’m not seeing anyone” and a very pointed memory of him watching me like I was still his to miss.
I hit the button before I can talk myself out of it. “Okay, I’m spiralling. This needs a group discussion,” I mumble to myself.
Within seconds, the screen fills: Lizzie in her kitchen with a glass of wine, Fi bundled in a hoodie, Amelia adjusting her headset, and Bri propped up in bed with Zucca’s tail flicking across the camera.
Lizzie squints. “Oh boy. What now?”
I groan. “I just had coffee with Sim-Sim.”
Fi leans so close to the camera I can see every eyelash. “On purpose?”
“It was for SJ,” I say quickly. “Christmas logistics. All very above board. Until it wasn’t.”
Amelia raises an eyebrow. “Define ‘wasn’t.’”
I take a breath. “He invited me to Cornwall. For Christmas. With him. And his parents.”
Bri actually drops her phone; the cat bolts. “That’s… quite a pivot from logistics.”
