Page 60 of The Bright Side of Brooding
Chapter Twenty-Six
Summer
The aforementioned fluffy snowball with electric eyes leaned a dainty paw on my knee and stretched its neck out to sniff me. I hadn’t had a pet growing up, but I liked animals well enough. This one seemed nice, though it was the first I’d seen of it tonight.
“Sorry. Is he bothering you?”
Nick rounded the couch and set his wineglass on the coffee table near mine.
“No. Just checking me out, I think.” The cat still sniffed my fingers, trying to get a sense for my soul and its likelihood to bow to him, maybe.
“Butter, give her a break.” He shooed the fluffball, and the cat hopped down and sauntered to wrap around his leg. Meanwhile, my mind, my heart, my entire being, was stuck back on his first word.
“Butter? His name isButter?”
Nick’s eyes narrowed. “Yes.”
I bit my bottom lip, attempting to keep from melting all over him. “I love that name.”
Understatement.More like, if I ever had a pet, that would be the name I’d choose.
“He melts. When he sleeps, no matter where he falls asleep, he just melts into a little puddle. Sometimes, he’ll end up with his head on a cushion and his tail and legs down on the floor. It’s ridiculous.”
The expression on his face told me how much this little creature meant to him. I could’ve guessed, based on the previous encounters with the man and his cat, but it still made my heartthump thumpto see him speak so sweetly about a tiny little animal. Maybe it was the juxtaposition of his powerful body and the bright white, soft little thing. Whatever the case, his affection for Butter madememelt.
“Rob got him for me in January. He’s still growing, but he has tripled in size already.” He ran a finger from the cat’s nose up over the bridge and smoothed down the short, soft fur between his ears.
“Rob bought you a cat?”
He nodded, a half smile pulling at his lips as he sat next to me. “He knew I’d been through a lot. He didn’t get what a big deal it was, but he knew it meant more than simply losing a grandparent might. As man-about-town as he pretended to be, he was an extremely thoughtful person, and very observant. I hadn’t said much, but he knew.”
“Rob is sweet. And I’m glad you weren’t allergic,” I joked, working to ignore the ache all of this caused in my chest. I remembered him saying, weeks ago, “She was my last person. My last relative.” In fact, I heard those words echo in my mind fairly often—they crushed me to think of. I didn’t understand what a close relationship like they must’ve had would be like, not after more than a decade virtually alienated from my own family. But I could see it tore at him.
He offered a closed-mouth smile in response. “Me too.”
“I’ve never had a pet.” If he wanted to talk more about the hard things, the grief, then I wanted him to. But I wouldn’t pry or pressure.
“So far, I like it. Granted, he’s more friendly with you right now than he was with me for weeks. But he’s good for a four-day weekend, as I just discovered. I have a pet sitter come during busier rotations and he did well with her for the London trip, so I’ll do that during spring break too.”
“Are you traveling?”
He nodded while swallowing a drink. “I am. I haven’t done much since living here. This is actually my first trip longer than two nights. I made myself book it when I got back after the funeral.”
I set a hand on his. “That will be great.”
He covered my hand with this larger, warm one. “It will. I think I’m ready for it. I feel like I’m stepping out of a murky lake. It’ll still be there, but I’m almost all the way out, and I won’t dive back in.”
“That sounds like a good thing,” I said, unfamiliar with the nuances of grief.
“I think it is. I’ve been grieving her a long time. Some of it is thinking about my parents, too—she was a huge part of my life after they died, and my only support for all of my adulthood. The actual loss hit hard, but most days now, it’s more of a low pang. These last few days heightened it because of the trip, but at the same time, I feel…” He broke off, and his eyes searched mine. He laced our fingers together. “Happy.”
I clenched my jaw to press away the emotion that rose at that. “Good. That’s good.”
That familiar intensity thickened the air between us, and my pulse rioted. His face had struck me as painfully beautiful, but so serious. At close range, with the permission and pleasure to take in every little detail of him, he was heartbreaking.
And not perfect, actually. I’d noticed before but had never just… looked at him. Not without a sense of nervous anticipation—and trust, that was at play now, too. But my heart thundered, eager, not anxious. I could appreciate the little scar interrupting one brow, and the way his bottom teeth weren’t quite exactly straight. Warmth bloomed in my chest.
The oddest thought occurred then—or, maybe not a thought, but a release. Like I’d given myself permission to want and enjoy him, fully, finally. It’d been months of crushing and weeks of our strange brand of flirtation. I’d kept myself close, not allowing a tumble into the feelings lurking so nearby. He pulled on every heartstring I had, and everything about him drew me in. Even his quiet, gentle soul, which he had shared so generously with me already.
