Page 94 of Girl Abroad

“One of my aunts is a cat lady. She says as soon as you stop paying attention to them, they get interested.”

“Hmm. Okay. Let me try that.”

We hop to our feet, and I proceed to take a seat on the sofa, pulling my legs up.

“I can’t bring him back to the shelter,” Lee says as he and Jack continue to argue over Hugh’s fate. “Give him a chance.”

“I don’t care where you take him. You can’t dump an animal on the rest of us without asking.”

Jamie rejoins the argument. “Seriously, mate.”

“I just don’t get why you’d bring home a cat,” I chime in, not in accusation but genuine curiosity.

“Oh, bloody hell. I know what this is.” Understanding suddenly dawns on Jack’s face, summoning a loud curse from his lips. He turnsto glare at Lee. “Let me guess. You’re dating someone new, and your new beau happens to like cats, yeah?”

I wrinkle my forehead. “Wait. This is about the lord from the ball?”

“Oh, mate. You didn’t.” Jamie tosses his hands up and dumps himself into the armchair. “You couldn’t just buy him some flowers, for fuck’s sake?”

“This is what he does,” Jack explains to me while still glowering at Lee. “Celeste says he’s—what does she call it again?”

“Boyfriend chameleon,” supplies Jamie.

“That’s it. He gets smitten with a bloke and takes on his interests. Last year, he dated a guy who raised poisonous snakes. Before that, it was the semipro extreme sports guy.”

Jamie starts to laugh. “Ah, right. Hey, Lee, whatever happened to that BMX bike you spent two thousand pounds on?”

“Kindly fuck off, Jamie,” Lee says cheerfully.

Oh dear. I swallow a laugh. “It’s good to explore different interests, I guess. But how did we end up with this cat?”

“Yes, Lee, how?” Jack says sarcastically.

Cornered, Lee starts talking very fast. “I admit it was a bit rash. We were in bed last night— ”

Jamie scoffs. “Of course.”

“And Eric said he was flying to France next weekend for a cat show. He’s into pedigrees and certain breeds and the like. He has a whole, I don’t know what you’d call it,stableof show cats. They win money, if you can believe that. It’s massive. And, well, I wanted a trip to Paris. So I might have said I was into cats as well. And then before I knew it, I’d spun an elaborate story about our cat Hugh and spent all day going to every shelter in the city looking for something that could pass for a red mackerel Persian.”

“That’s not a fish, mate. It’s a cat,” Jack barks at him.

Lee rolls his eyes, exasperated. “It’s a kind of cat.”

“Am I mental? A mackerel is a fish, right?”

The boys proceed to go at it again over our fish cat, just as Hugh emerges from under the sofa to jump into my lap. The long-haired ball of fur curls up, tail over its eyes, and makes itself quite at home.

“Jamie,” I hiss. “It worked!”

“Don’t get too attached,” he cautions. “We’re not keeping it.”

“We’re keeping it,” Lee insists.

“Lee, mate,” Jack grumbles. “Let’s be reasonable here.”

The guys are still bickering over Hugh’s fate when the cat and I head upstairs to take a nap before dinner.

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