Page 103 of Finally Mine
Thank God there was also pie. Or, there would be.
His face lit up when he saw her on his doorstep, and Gloria clung to the hope that he wouldn’t think this was the stupidest thing she’d ever done. His hair was ruffled like he’d just woken up, and she could hear the TV inside. They’d parted ways after breakfast with the Garrisons, Harper, and Luke’s ex-mother-in-law, Joni, to handle Sunday errands.
Gloria’s errand-running had slipped into the overstepping boundaries zone.
“Hey, Glo. Whatcha got there?”
The box trembled in her grasp, and an impressive yowl sounded from inside.
“Oh, shit,” Aldo said, staring at the box.
“I got you something,” she said, shoving it into his hands and picking up the grocery bag at her feet. “And no matter how dumb or awful it is, focus on the fact that I’m going to bake you a pie.”
The box shuddered and screeched. “Apple pie?” he asked.
She nodded and stepped inside, shutting the door behind her.
Aldo pried the lid off the ventilated box, and all hell broke loose.
The kitten, all one pound of him, exploded out of the box and launched himself at Aldo, hooking those claws into his shirt.
“What the—Ow!”
Terrified or incensed by Aldo’s yelp, the cat dislodged himself, landing on the floor before Aldo or Gloria could catch him, and took off for the couch.
“I think he ripped my nipple off,” Aldo said, peeking under his shirt.
“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Gloria began. She was cut off when the ball of gray tabby hurtled across the living room floor and wrapped itself in the drapes on the front window. “He’s a boy. Nine weeks old and blind in his left eye.”
The curtain rod came tumbling down, drapes landing in a heap, startling the cat.
They danced out of the way as the one-eyed fur monster sprinted back and jumped onto the coffee table, sending magazines and mail in all directions.
He was meowing and growling and hissing and making other odd grunting noises. “I went with Harper to get Lola’s eye drops at the shelter, and there was a litter of kittens, and you live alone, and I thought having a sweet little kitten to cuddle with would be—”
The kitten wiggled its chubby butt and tried to make the jump from coffee table to recliner, falling short by about a foot. To exact his revenge, he sunk his front claws into the recliner’s footstool.
“No! Bad!” Gloria chased after the deceiving fluff ball, but he avoided her with freakish, ninja-like skills.
Aldo dodged left and dove right, capturing a handful of fur. He plucked the kitten from the floor and held it aloft.
Wrapped in his big hands, the kitten paused his war of destruction. The big man and the little cat blinked at each other.
“Mew!”
“Shit. He’s kinda cute.”
“Mew!”
The longer the man and cat stared at each other, the wider the bounds of Gloria’s heart stretched. Her big, burly boyfriend, with his ruffled hair and Sunday stubble, peering into the fluffy face of a terrified, horribly behaved kitten.
Gloria was a goner.
The cat—dubbed Ivan the Terrible—ate too much cat food, threw up on the kitchen floor, showered kitty litter all over the laundry room, and was now curled up, sound asleep in the crook of his new owner’s muscled arm.
Aldo was perched on a stool, resting his good leg, and watching Gloria commandeer his kitchen. She peeled and sliced and measured while he cuddled the cat.
“You don’t have to keep him,” she reminded him, fishing a bowl out of a cabinet and moving on to level off a cup of flour.
