Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Despite all the effortless efforts his good looks put into trying to captivate me, they’re upstaged entirely by the tender, innocent way he interacts with the cat. No audience. No performance. Just him connecting with this flea-ridden stray like it’s his only friend. All his beauty comes secondary. All his swagger, a mere footnote in the chapter of his sweetness.
He extends a finger. Not as if he feels entitled to pet it. Just an offering.
The cat doesn’t come any closer, still too wary, but the finger is certainly acknowledged with restrained curiosity.
Some things take time.
Trust, most of all.
He’s still murmuring to it, completely engrossed. The cat is, too, so much so that I swear it understands him. I wonder what the heck he’s saying.
“Is she winning the argument?” I ask.
Austin looks up, startled.
The cat bolts, all the trust they’ve built, shattered apart at my intrusion. Austin watches it dart down the road and vanish into the bushes, gone.
“Oops,” I mumble.
Austin rises, brushes off his thighs, and shrugs. “She was late for work, had to jet. Cats and their busy schedules, y’know, always on the run.” He pockets his hands and starts toward me.
I realize only now I’ve never properly seem him walk. It’s less of a walk. More a slinky strut. It’s a worn-jeans-and-boots catwalk, like he’s got an audience, full of modest bravado. I can’t look away.
He stops right in front of me. “Nice to see you again, T.”
T? Just T? I go with it. “You left your hat.” I offer it back.
He squints at it, then gently takes it from me. He turns it over. Gives it a little flick in the air. Then puts it on my head.
And after all the trouble I went through frantically fixing my hair in T&S’s tiny bathroom … “I, uh … oh …”
“Looks good on you,” he decides.
I step back, checking my reflection in the window. “Does it?”
“Yep.”
I’ve never been a hat person, but decide to go with it. Like the T thing. Then I realize something and pull it right back off. “Wait. You don’t want to give this up. Why’re you giving this to me?” He stares blankly, not following. “You got Chase Holt’s autograph on it, right here under the bill.”
He purses his lips and tilts his head, considering the hat. Then he shrugs. “I’ve got other signed things.”
That doesn’t surprise me. “Yeah, but—”
“Keep it. I insist.” He smiles.
That smile could make me do anything … “Fine.” I put it back on, but this time with care. Adjusting it in the reflection, I ask, “How’s your head? Looks less bumpy. Guess it didn’t swell too badly?”
He lifts a hand absently to it, as if having forgotten. “Yeah, it’s good.” He smiles. “Must’ve had quite a good nurse carin’ for it.”
I’m no nurse, I almost say, but decide to leave it alone. Why am I so nervous? My nipples are sweating and I can’t get this hat right. “Is making friends with neighborhood strays a pastime of yours?”
He glances over his shoulder, as if checking for the cat. No cat. “Guess I’ve got a soft spot for strays. They’re a bit like me, I think. Don’t really have a home. Hoppin’ from one place to the next …”
“… likely hasn’t bathed in years …”
He shoots me a playful frown. “I bathe every dang day, thank you very much. And felines are cleaner than you think. They bathe twenty times a day, I’d reckon.”
“Licking one’s butthole does not equate bathing. Does it look right?” I ask, still fussing with the hat. “I don’t usually wear—”
Suddenly he’s in front of me again.
Like, really in front of me.
Sun-eclipsing close.
I freeze, meeting his eyes.
Lips curling ever so subtly, he gently takes the hat back off my head. Then, with the kind of tenderness reserved for fragile works of art, he places it back on my head. A single finger brushes across my bangs, sweeping them off my forehead.
It’s the most intimate moment I think I’ve ever had.
Like, with anyone. Ever. Just this one moment that should be as insignificant as opening a door.
Which is exactly what this feels like.
A door opening.
Between us.
“Is that yours?” he asks, voice soft as silk.
I have no idea what he’s talking about. “Is what mine?”
He nods at the window. I turn. My sad hot chocolate still sits there, one dark droplet escaping down its side like the cup itself is shedding a tear of abandonment.
“Not-so-hot-anymore chocolate,” I say.
“You don’t drink coffee?”
“No, not really.”
“You invited me out to coffee … and don’t drink coffee?”
I face him. “Actually, you invited yourself out to coffee. I just … went along with it.”
Just then, six loud and laughing high school girls come around the corner, maybe on a lunch break from school. Austin, proving himself as skittish as the cat, tucks his cap further down and peers off. The girls enter Chatty Cat laughing, door dinging as it opens, then muffling them when it slaps shut. Austin keeps staring off.