Page 59 of Love is an Open Book
“Of Morris?” My voice lifts an octave, and she breaks out in an incredulous smile.
“You think he’s angling for best friend position?”
Morris is most definitely not angling for a friend position, best or otherwise, but the fact that Mia’s thoughts have turned in that direction is both reassuring and unsettling. Reassuring that she isn’t interested in dating Morris, but also, we kissed last night. That’s more than friends to me, but maybe Mia’s thinking of a friends-with-benefits situation. Or a forget-it-ever-happened sort of plan.
My heart sinks. Maybe I should’ve stuck around last night, after all, and talked through things. Can’t very well have a conversation now with Riley right here. I do my best to laugh itoff. “I know for a fact he would never put on a sheet mask for movie night, so I’m not worried.”
Mia’s smile dips, her expression guarded. “About last night—”
My phone rings, and I check it and findMorris the Greatdisplayed on the screen, along with a winking selfie, complete with duck lips. That’s what I get for leaving my phone in the truck while we’re working. I slam my thumb onto the accept call button. “I am not adopting a family of cats.”
I walk up my driveway two hours later with a box full of cats. After a harrowing trip to the vet, where my eyes glazed over from the amount of information thrown at me and the size of the bill, which Mia insisted on splitting, I’m on autopilot. She came back to help me get them settled, claiming she feels partially responsible since she bullied me into adopting them. When she notices I’m headed toward the side of the house, she steps in front of the gate.
“Where are you going?” The suspicious tilt of her head makes me think she’s not planning to lend a hand unlatching it.
“To the shed.”
“The potting shed?”
I raise my brows and shoulders, like,obviously.
She crosses her arms. “No.”
“They were found in a shed,” I remind her. “It’ll feel like home.”
“It’s not climate-controlled.”
“They’re animals. They don’t need air-conditioning.”
“Domesticatedanimals,” she says. “Humans took away their ability to survive when we invited them into our homes.”
There’s a lot to unpack there. “Um—”
“Shut up, you know what I mean. They’re teeny widdle babies.” She shifts into a cutesy tone, making kissy lips and bending over the box. The mama cat hisses and swipes bared claws at Mia’s nose.
Biting back a smile, I say, “Domesticated, huh?”
“She’s defending her young.” I’m not at all surprised she’s sticking up for the cat, though she does take a few steps back. I lower the box a smidge, in case the mama decides I’m a threat, too. But her movement disturbed the kittens into a bout of mewling, and she sets to licking their fur to calm them. “And it’s not about her manners,” Mia says. “It’s about keeping everyone safe.”
It’s adorable how she uses the termeveryoneas if the fate of a litter of kittens affects global welfare. “What about predators?” she asks.
That touches a nerve. “No coyote is getting in my shed.” I rebuilt it myself last summer.
“Raccoons can open doors.”
Do raccoons eat kittens? I’d better add that to my list of questions to google later. “Pretty sure you’re thinking of the velociraptors fromJurassic Park.” I can’t help but goad her, even though I’m starting to agree with her. I glance down into the box at the tiny furballs clustered around their mom. Ferocious as she is, all of them seem pretty vulnerable at the moment.
Ignoring my joke about the raptors, Mia says, “It’s supposed to storm, and they could get spooked. What if she abandons them? You want to hand-feed three kittens around the clock?”
I was nearly convinced by the temperature argument, but this is enough to put to rest any hopes I had of keeping my house cat hair–free. We all make our way to the porch, and Mia swings the door open in a proprietary way that makes my heart do a happy swoop, and announces in a singsong voice, “Welcome home, babies!”
We spend the next five minutes arguing about where to put them. Mia wants them in my room, but I don’t like the idea of being watched while I sleep. The main living area seems too wide-open for them to adapt to all at once. We settle on the laundry room, which is actually the coziest room in the house.I remodeled it first, using it to teach myself drywall installation. Mia helped me pick out curtains, which will be useful to dim the room if the kittens need rest.
“Plus,” she says, cooing over the kittens from a safe distance, “running the washer and the dryer will acclimate them to the sounds of the house. Sera was telling me it’s good for babies to get used to a little noise.”
My head is spinning. Somehow it feels like we skipped over dating and went straight to playing house. No offense to the cat family but I regret running away last night, and all I want is time alone with Mia. “Pretty sure cats are different than humans.”
“Both are mammals.”
