I’d been thinking there was no way I could go day in and day out with this girl and not have her be mine. But after what had just happened, I was pretty sure I’d caused her shield to go back up.

“Wow, you guys did a great job today.” Mason’s words broke through my thoughts and I looked around the living room.

“Yeah, no thanks to you.”

“I trusted you to get good shit. And this TV . . . mmm. Sixty-inch? I’m so proud. I’ve taught you well.”

I rolled my eyes. “You really thought I’d get a shitty TV? Do you not know me at all?”

He shrugged and clapped his hands together once. “Well, since there’s nothing for me to do here”—I narrowed my eyes at him—“we’re gonna have pizza with the girls. So let’s go.”

“Rach and I went and got food today, we can make something for all of us.”

“Aww, you guys went grocery shopping too? So cute.”

I threw a pillow at him; he caught it easily and launched it back at me.

“I already ordered the pizza. Let’s go.”

“I’ll meet you over there. I need a shower.” A very cold shower.

5

Rachel

DRAINING THE REST of my lukewarm tea, I rinsed out the mug and was about to put it in the dishwasher when there was a knock on the door. I quickly thought about the day and looked over at the clock on the microwave. Was it sad that this was only the third Thursday since we’d moved in, and I already knew it would be Mrs. Adams? I set the mug down and made my way over to the door. When I opened it I saw a frazzled-looking Mrs. Adams standing there worrying her hands.

“Oh, Rachel dear! Thank heavens you’re here! All my babies, they’re gone. I need your help finding them, please come help me!” Without another word directed toward me, she began calling for Snickers and searching for her cats.

Mrs. Adams was the definition of a crazy cat lady. She was in her seventies, her husband had died ten years ago—as I’d come to find out from the son who brought her groceries three times a week and had seen me helping her the previous week—and she had absolutely no cats. She just thought she had them. When in reality, all of her cats were a bunch of stuffed animals, or pillows and blankets with pictures of cute little fur-balls on them. I never saw her unless it was a Thursday, and the first time she’d told me all her cats had escaped, I’d felt bad for the poor woman. That is, until I finally got an emotional Mrs. Adams back into her apartment and she began clinging to her stuffed animals, begging them never to leave her again. I’d left quickly after that, and when she’d shown up crying at half past eight again last week, claiming all her cats had run away again, I’d decided she needed someone to believe her for her five minutes of weekly crazy.

Like the previous two weeks, it was eight thirty on the dot, and this week we were searching for all her babies, but mainly Snickers. I followed behind her calling for the mischievous Snickers, and as she’d point under things, I’d fall to the ground and act like I was searching really hard for a cat I knew I’d never find.

“Oh, oh! Up there, what if they’re up there? I’m positive Mr. Snickers would have led them up there.”

So Snickers is a he? Good to know; that will help in the missing-cat search. I ran up the stairs to the second floor and continued to call out for the cats before making my way back downstairs to lead Mrs. Adams into the apartment directly to the left of ours.

“You know what, Mrs. Adams? I’m pretty sure I saw Snickers lead all the kittens into your apartment!”

“Oh, oh yes, I’m sure that’s what he’s done. He must have, those poor dears must’ve been so worried following him around—” She broke off suddenly when we made it into her apartment and let out a little shriek before shuffle-running over to one of her pillows and hugging it close to her chest. “My babies are back! Mama missed you, don’t ever leave me again!”

“Do you need anything else, Mrs. Adams?”

She turned and it broke my heart that her eyes were full of tears. How could her son leave her in an apartment alone like this? She needed someone with her all the time. “No, dear. Thank you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I just smiled and walked out of her wide-open front door, and right into a nicely muscled chest.

“Jesus, Kash!”

“What are you doing?”

“What are you doing? Why are you just standing out here like a creeper?”

He smirked and followed me over to my apartment. “I’m trying to figure out why you’re army-crawling all over the breezeway and shouting for a candy bar.”

“I’m not shouting for a candy bar, I’m looking for a cat that isn’t there.”

One of his thick eyebrows rose and he bit down on his lip ring to try to hide his smile as he held my door open for us.

“Mrs. Adams . . . isn’t exactly all there. She thinks she has cats and she doesn’t. And every Thursday since we moved in, she’s come knocking at eight thirty asking for me to help her look for them.”

“And you help her, knowing they aren’t there?”

“Well, I didn’t know the first time until I got into her apartment. Her cats are really stuffed animals and pillows.”

“But you helped her every other time knowing what you know?” He’d stopped biting on that ring and his lips kept tilting up as he tried to control his smile.

“Yeah, Kash, I did. Because no one else does, and don’t laugh at me! It’s not funny, I feel really bad for her! You should see how upset she gets over this.”