Page 72 of The Catch

Twenty-eight

The thing was, though, hewasn’t.

Cat sat at the breakfast bar, watching Josh’s back muscles flex as he moved around the kitchen, making himself a cup of coffee. They’d stayed in bed until almost one in the afternoon, lounging, touching, hovering in that place betweenI should get upandI’m still dreaming. Even when he was asleep, she could feel it—something between them had shifted. Now his smile was restrained, his words clipped to no more than necessary. He’d made love to her, held her like everything was fine, but his face told a different story. She recognized that wariness. The old Cat had it trademarked.I don’t trust youhad been practically tattooed in big letters on her forehead. She wondered how many times she’d looked at Josh like that in the beginning.

“Josh?” she said, pulling him out of his quiet contemplation. “I just wanted to say that wherever you are right now, I’m there too. You’re not pulling me along anymore.”

“Good.” A glance, a forced smile, then right back to his coffee.

She opened her mouth then shut it, resisting the urge to ramble. Instead, she changed the subject. “Do you want to go to dinner in the city Friday night? Emma invited us. Adam will be there. Dani, Sonya. We could get some Christmas shopping done beforehand. Make a night of it.”

“Sure.” He finally poured himself a cup as she took the last sip of hers. “I’ll be in town for the Abbott Building anyway, so I can meet you somewhere right after work.”

“Pick me up,” she urged. “Park in the lot for my building, and we can walk from there. We’ll eat across the street at Bruno’s.”

“All right.” Josh finally looked at her, rubbing absently at the scar on his lip.

Cat glanced at the clock on the stove. She hated to leave now when things still felt off between them, but she hadn’t done a single thing to prepare for her workday, and the pile of test prep books she’d planned to tackle that weekend still sat on her dining room table, untouched.

“Back to normal then, right?” she asked, hopefully. “We’ll have the whole weekend?”

“I’m all yours.” It was the first real smile he’d given her all morning, and her lungs finally filled.

When they had both dressed, Josh walked her out to her car. She hadn’t come with anything but her keys, so when she went to hug him goodbye, her hands felt empty and awkward without her usual armful of overnight supplies. Josh held her, burying his nose in her hair, and she wanted to hold him hostage there, find a way to live the rest of her days with him wrapped around her.

But she’d lost that chance.

“I’ll see you next weekend then,” he said, before reaching around her to open the car door.

“Next weekend.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I’ll call you tonight before bed.”

He nodded. “I love you, Catia.”

“I love you too.”

The following week was normal. Better than normal, actually. Cat had spoken to Josh every night—long lingering conversations that felt more like the early days of their relationship than anything that had been warped by this moment between them. That’s what she was considering it. Just a minor hiccup in their otherwise happy existence, and he hadn’t given her any more reason to doubt it. At least not over the phone. She’d even talked him into a Skype session on Tuesday night when she’d returned home from dinner with Sonya, a little buzzed and missing him like crazy. He’d answered the late evening video call shirtless and wearing his glasses, and it had devolved from there.

She told herself all was well on the Josh front. Emma had agreed when she’d relayed the whole fight and subsequent make up to her over coffee the previous day.

“I think you’re projecting your guilt over your initial mistrust onto Josh,” she’d explained from the rolling leather chair of her office, a pen between her teeth and her brow furrowed. Cat had wanted to roll her eyes when the psychoanalysis started, but she couldn’t deny Emma was good at this stuff, and Cat was a classic basket case. They made a good pair.

Still, when Josh rapped his knuckles on the open door to her office at six o’clock on Friday evening, he looked… different.

“Hey,” Cat whispered, holding one hand over the receiver of her phone as she waved him in.

He slipped inside, closing the door behind him, and took a seat in the chair across from her while she tried desperately to finish the conversation that was eating into her evening. He’d come straight from his own workday, looking handsome in jeans and a dress shirt under a dark fleece. His nose and cheeks were pink from the December air, and she glanced over her shoulder out the window to see that with the setting sun, the sky had begun to spit.

“Yes, I understand,” she said into the phone. “I’ll have it ready for her review Monday.”

Josh’s eyes slipped closed, his head tipped back against the back of the chair, and she made a mental note to check in with him before they rushed out the door. When she finally finagled her way off of the phone, she pushed out of her chair, stopping to kiss his cheek before closing the blinds to her office. “I’m just going to change my clothes,” she said, hoping that might perk him up.

She went to the standing coat closet in the corner of her office and pulled out a tote bag that she’d stuffed some casual clothes in.

“Can you unzip me?” She backed her way over to him, and he set the zipper of her dress free without any attempt to let his hands stray. Her Spidey-senses flared again. “You okay, baby?”

Josh ran the back of his hand over his brow. “I think I’m coming down with something,” he said. “Probably shouldn’t get too close to me.”

She leaned into him despite the warning, brushing his hair with her fingers. It was somewhat relieving to hear, given what she was imagining, but she still didn’t like the sound of it. “You want to skip tonight?”

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