Page 91 of The Catch

“No. My jacket is here somewhere.” She tossed his pajamas into his hamper and pulled on the jeans and underwear she’d put on two days ago, with a little crinkle of her nose.

It was their typical Sunday night routine, but watching her leave this time was harder. He didn’t know exactly what place they had settled on to move forward from. They’d agreed to go back, but nothing felt the way it was before.

“Bring back some stuff for that drawer,” he said, nodding behind him.

She smiled mischievously at him. “Be careful what you wish for.”

“Guess I should.” He was actually hoping to see her show up with armfuls of her stuff next time she came, but it was too soon to start that conversation again.

He pulled on socks and shoes so he could walk her out, keeping one eye on her form as she gathered her things from around the room. “I have a meeting in the city on Wednesday,” he said, standing to meet her in the doorway. “I could come up the night before.”

“Good.”

He propped an arm on the wall above her, and let out a small groan when she wrapped her hands around him, slipping into the waistband of his sweatpants. Saying goodbye had him questioning whether moving backward was good judgment or sheer stubbornness, but it was done and he needed to see it through.

He dropped a kiss to her cheek and ushered her out into the twilight. The brisk air hit him in the face as he followed. He reached around her when they got to her car, opening the driver’s side door for her, and she turned around to kiss him goodbye. “Get some rest. I’ll see you in a few days.”

A few days, he thought, as he kissed her back. It was better than a week, but not better than her not leaving at all. “I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said.

“Good night, Josh.”

“Good night, Catia.”

Thirty-seven

The air in Cat’s apartmentwas cold and unwelcoming when she finally pushed through her front door. The room felt empty and lifeless. There was none of thatahh, it’s good to be homefeeling.

This is right. Right?She dropped her purse on the table beside the door with a thud that echoed in the quiet room and kicked her shoes off. They were back together, so why did she still feel so sad?

The floor was ice beneath her feet, and she padded on her toes to the bathroom to splash some water on her face. Two days without her blow-dryer or hair products, and a few teary, sleepless nights, and she looked like a survivor of some natural disaster. She fixed her bun and went to her closet. With nothing else to do, she figured she could prep an outfit for work before bed and earn herself a couple of extra snooze minutes on her alarm.

Ugh. Her alarm. She didn’t want to wake up alone to a blaring electronic greeting. She wanted to wake up to Josh, his body curled around hers, his hand on her belly as he slept, then creeping lower as he started to wake up. She wanted to make a subpar cup of coffee in his stupid coffee maker. Well, maybe not that. But she did want to get ready with him in his luxurious walk-in shower and eat breakfast beside him before she had to go to work.

Stop, Cat.He said he wanted to go back, and she was going to give him that. This was back—her sleeping here, him sleeping there. She’d hoped when she’d asked him what came next, that he would tell her not to leave, that they could just keep building in the place they’d found themselves. But Josh wanted to go back to the time when their lives were still separate, when neither of them had everything on the line. She supposed it was safe after all that had transpired.

She kicked a pair of shoes out of the way to shuffle between the wall and her unmade bed and fell backward onto the mattress. Why did her room suddenly seem so small? How did Josh even fit in this bed? He never complained, though, even when he had to fight the city traffic to get there after a long day of work, or set his laptop up at her dining room table instead of his home office. He just wanted to be with her.

Josh was complicated in that he loved harder than anyone she’d ever known, but he was simple in that all he asked in return was to be loved back. He’d told her once that she was a force, that he wanted to be what she wanted, and she knew now that she’d never wanted anything more.

She turned on her side, staring into her disaster of a closet, and willed herself to focus on preparing for the next day. It was no use. All she could think about was how out of place she felt. Everything was upside down and crisscrossed. Josh was being safe now, and she was the one itching to do something scary and completely heart-driven.

Maybe that was what he needed—to see her go just a little mad over him. After almost losing him, she knew she really was.

Standing on her tiptoes, she grabbed the strap of a duffle bag, yanking until she freed it from the top of her closet. When it landed on the floor, she unzipped it and plucked a few dresses down, still attached to their hangers, and shoved them carelessly inside. Josh had one of those really expensive irons. They’d be fine. A pair of black heels, a pair of nude ones—she’d be good for a few days. She dragged the bag behind her down the hall and into the bathroom, tossing in a few essentials. Blow-dryer, makeup, her own toothpaste—she was a spearmint girl, that was non-negotiable—she dropped her deodorant and hairspray in the top and zipped it shut.

She slid her feet into boots and bundled up her winter coat. The snow had turned to rain, and the drive there had been smooth sailing. She’d be back to the island in under an hour at this time of night. She was halfway out the door before she remembered one last thing. Something that would prove to him she was there to stay.

Josh lie on his couch, drifting in and out of consciousness while the television droned on in the background. Some ridiculous show about meerkats that Cat was watching before she left had ended, but he didn’t have the energy to change the channel. Besides, the one that came on after was just as silly, and letting it play made him feel like she was still there. He already missed her, but at least he was back to the kind of missing her that would be remedied on a weekly basis.

He was trying to decide if he had the energy to heat up a bowl of leftover soup for dinner, when he heard the doorknob on his front door turn.

That jolted him upright. He slung an arm over the back of the couch and craned his neck, expecting to see Dylan. He hadn’t heard from him all weekend, and who else would just walk in like they lived there? Those boots didn’t sound like Dylan’s, though, and whoever it was clearly had their hands full as he heard a scuffle behind the half-open door.

He went to the foyer and pulled the door the rest of the way.

“Cat?” She had a bag as big as her slung over her shoulder and her arms wrapped around her oversized, barista-style cappuccino machine. “What are you doing?”

“I don’t want to go backward.”

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