Page 121 of The Moment You Know

“He’s a Russian blue.”

“So … Sputnik. I get it.” He smiled at the large, silvery-gray cat with moss-green eyes. “Good name.”

Still rather embarrassed, Paige sat down in her favorite overstuffed chair and tucked her bare feet underneath her. “I got him about six months after Spook died. He’s really great. He’s affectionate like Spook and follows me everywhere. But, unlike Spook, he’s really quiet. He doesn’t meow much, but he purrs like crazy and sleeps with me every night.”

“I really missed Spook after the divorce,” David said, as Sputnik started purring like a chainsaw, as if on cue. “I thought about getting a cat, but couldn’t because of Ashley’s allergies.”

Paige took a sip of her wine. “It’s interesting you say that, because I read somewhere how evil people are often allergic to animals.”

“That is interesting. Where did you read that?”

“Oh. In some scientific magazine, I think. I can’t remember the name of it, but it was one of those widely respected scientific magazines. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Not really. I don’t read a lot of scientific magazines, to be honest. Respected or otherwise.”

“I usually don’t either, but it was in my doctor’s waiting room, I think. Yeah, that’s where it was. I read it while I was waiting to see my … doctor.”

David was about to call ‘bullshit’ on that obviously fabricated story, when there was a knock at her door. Paige set her wine glass down and jumped up to answer it. A few moments later, he could hear her talking to someone and then saw her carrying a few bags into the kitchen.

“I made dinner,” she called out.

He set Sputnik down on the loveseat cushion and hurried to join Paige, who was in the process of setting several containers of Chinese food on the counter. “Is this from The Great Wall?” he asked, the delicious aroma of the food almost making him cry.

“Of course.”

God bless her. “You didn’t have to do this.”

“You bought dinner the other night. I’m just returning the favor.”

“Well, thank you.” He was oddly touched. It might not have been a big thing, but in the entire time he’d been with Ashley, she’d never once ‘returned the favor’. “I haven’t had The Great Wall in ages.”

“Oh, David,” she murmured with exaggerated sadness. “That’s no way to live.”

Sharing a laugh, they opened the boxes and David thought he was in heaven. Mongolian beef, sweet and sour chicken, house fried rice with shrimp, and egg rolls … and not a sign of tofu anywhere.

As they loaded up their plates, with Paige piling on almost as much food as he did, David found himself looking at her chest. He told himself it was kind of her fault for wearing a shirt tight enough to draw attention to the girls, thus giving him no choice but to look, because ...

He was a man.

He had always liked the girls.

The girls looked pretty spectacular in a tight shirt.

When she glanced over and caught him, he smiled without any embarrassment and asked, “Did you go to the concert?”

Unlike Paige, he knew the key to getting away with ogling someone was to have a reasonable excuse to be looking in a particular spot. If she’d simply said something to him like, “I’m sorry, for a second it looked like your zipper was undone,” she might have gotten away with staring at his dick.

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