Page 8 of Passion and Payback

I looked out the window and snorted, not realizing Hunter had changed the sign for his cat café. Before, it had been pretty simple, with a bit of style to the lettering in big letters that read ‘A Purrfect Brew.’ Now, the sign was light purple as it dangled from golden chains. The name was not quite cursive, and a coffee cup was painted under it. And instead of coffee, there was a brown tabby cat curled up in the cup, its tail coming down to loop over the side of the cup like a handle.

“Do you?” I asked as I grabbed my bag.

“Yeah, came here a few times before, on a date once,” he said brightly. “The guys who own it…or well, the guy who owns it, is pretty cool. Something happened a few years back, and one bit the dust.”

“Bit…the dust?” I asked, turning to stare at the back of his head.

“Yeah, died, got murdered or something, I don’t know. This whole thing happened afterward, and the guy who didn’t die went off the deep end for a bit. Guess I can’t blame him when the guy you’re dating gets offed. It’s probably…uh, you okay?”

“I think it’s probably best if you stopped talking,” I told him softly to cover up the boiling rage growing inside me. I hadn’t lost control of my temper in years, but I could feel it struggling to break out of my iron grip. I didn’t want to start my first day back in Port Dale by getting pissed off enough to assault a well-meaning, if somewhat dense, Uber driver over a thoughtless comment. “Thank you for the ride.”

“Sure,” he said, his eyes wide and slowly blinking as I got out of the car. “And uh, sorry if I?—”

“Just…don’t,” I said, closing the door and pulling out my phone. As much as the anger inside me wanted to pay the fare and add nothing else, he had been helpful…and there probably wasn’t a person in the world who could claim they’d never said anything thoughtless or stupid before. “Hope you have good luck with the rest of your rides.”

I don’t know if he chose to be quiet because he realized he’d said something stupid or was worried about his tip. It didn’t matter either way because now I didn’t have to worry about talking to him. I threw on a hefty tip to thank him for his kindness but also to make myself feel a little better for scaring the shit out of him.

Other than the sign, not much had changed about the café. Hunter had mentioned making some changes, and the first change I saw when I stepped through the outer doors was a breezeway of sorts, probably to contain any cats that managed to get through the inner doors. The inside looked more or less the same now I was peering up close, though some of the furniture was different, making me chuckle. I’d told Hunter that having a place swarming with cats with leather furniture was begging for property destruction.

The wall was lined with tables where people could peacefully sit and drink their coffee. There was the nook toward the front where people could sit on couches or on the floor with cat toys. Of course, there were more cats than when I’d last seen it, and I’d barely stepped through the inner doors before a pair of cats tripped me up, one white with a little black on its head and the other black with a little bit of white on its side.

“Hazard, Caution,” a voice chided, and a woman in the light blue apron that was part of the uniform hurried over to scoop the cats up. “Sorry, they’re…well, appropriately named.”

“I’d say so,” I said with a chuckle. I looked at her name tag and let out a small chuckle. “Thanks for the rescue, Arwen. I take it your parents are Tolkien fans.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” she said, grinning as if pleased I understood the reference. “And you must be Kai.”

“Uh, must I be?” I asked in surprise. None of the staff were people I’d seen the last time I’d been here.

She snorted. “Hunter hasn’t stopped mentioning you coming back to Port Dale for ohhhh…the last couple of months?”

A man behind the counter, clearly able to hear us, scoffed. “And it’s been every day for the past week.”

“Every hour,” Arwen said with a wink. “You don’t see him excited about much these days.”

“Ar,” the man said in a low voice.

“Well, you don’t,” she said, putting the two cats down. They had lost interest in me or were distracted by the teenage boys sitting on the nook floor to play with the cats. “And it’s nice.”

“Uh, where is he?” I asked, looking around if only to escape the awkward-as-hell conversation. Arwen had that gleam in her eye that almost always came right before someone started asking questions I didn’t want to answer. And if she really had noticed a change in Hunter’s mood because of my arrival, she probably had awkward ones saved up for me.

“Hey, Hunter?” the man said into the tiny microphone clipped to his collar. He turned enough for me to see his name was Rich. “Got something going on up front that you might wanna deal with…no,” he snorted, “it’s not Abigail again, you’re safe.”

“Abigail?” I wondered.

Arwen rolled her eyes. “Abigail is some woman who lives nearby. She really likes Hunter. Likereally.”

“Uh, she does know that she…well,” I said, wrinkling my nose. I knew Hunter wasn’t exactly secretive about being gay, but I didn’t want to go running around, spreading his business.

“Everyone who comes around here long enough knows the man is gayer than a maypole during Pride Month,” Rich said with a shake of his head. “Butsheapparently seems to think she can somehow change that.”

“Uh…right,” I said because what else could I say? That sexuality didn’t work like that? I was pretty sure these two already knew that without needing a reminder.

“She likes to come in here and talk about what a shame it is that ‘all the good ones’ are gay,” Rich said, the annoyance in his voice telling me more than enough about how he felt about that belief.

“Which, ignoring that it’s insulting to every good-looking, decent man on the planet,” Arwen began in annoyance. “Butinsulting to Hunter, who has to listen to her act like being gay is what makes him attractive when, in reality, he’s just adorable despite being gay.”

“God save us all,” Rich muttered, shaking his head. “Don’t call him adorable, it’s weird.”

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