Блейз Клемент - The Cat Sitter's Whiskers

I couldn’t resist. I picked a piece of mango out and popped it in my mouth, at which point I think I actually moaned out loud.

“Dixie!”

Michael was standing behind me watching me lick my fingers like Ella cleaning her paws. I must have jumped a foot in the air.

He frowned. “Funny, I don’t remember announcing dinner.”

“I know, but Michael, I’m totally starving.”

He had a ceramic bowl the size of a satellite dish balanced in one hand and a bottle of white wine in the other. He said, “Good for you. Now I want you to back away from the table, and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay away until I say it’s ready.”

I glanced longingly at the bowl he was holding. There was a mound of pencil-thin asparagus stalks, all lined up with their tips pointed at me and glistening with melted butter, resting on a bed of baby greens sprinkled with toasted pine nuts. Next to that was a heap of crispy sweet-potato fries, sprinkled with ground pepper and freshly grated parmesan cheese. For a brief moment I estimated the size and weight of the bowl, trying to figure out how far I could run with it before he caught me.

I sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll just sit here and suffer.”

I reached out for another piece of mango and Michael slapped my hand away. I folded my arms over my chest.

“Ugh! How much longer?”

“What are you, five years old?”

I was about to ball my hands up in fists and stamp my feet in response, but suddenly there were tears in my eyes. I tried to laugh it off. “Well, apparently yes.”

“Wait, what’s the matter?”

“Nothing, nothing, I’m fine. You just wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. It’s been one hundred percent crazy.”

He frowned and looked me up and down as he handed me the bottle of wine. “Okay, first pour yourself a glass of this, and then tell me what happened. How’s your head?”

I picked up one of the glasses. “It’s fine. Still a little tender, but the swelling’s almost completely gone.”

“Well, that’s good, at least.”

While I was filling my glass, he pulled another chair over to the table and then looked at his watch.

I said, “So … I don’t even know where to begin.”

He nodded absentmindedly. “Crab cakes.”

I said, “Huh?”

He raised his eyebrows, and I immediately knew he wasn’t even listening to me. He said, “What?”

Michael and I have been through a lot together. I think I can safely say nobody knows me better, and normally I can read him like a compass. I guess I’d been so caught up in my own day that it was taking me a little longer than usual. He was nervously straightening the silverware around the table.

I said, “Where’s Paco?”

“He’s inside. We’re eating a little early tonight.”

I said, “Okay,” and then we both fell quiet.

When you live with an undercover agent, especially somebody like Paco, who’s often involved in high-stakes criminal investigations, you learn to speak in code. It’s practically a foreign language. All the words are in English—they just have double meanings.

For example, I didn’t need to ask where Paco was. I could see him standing over the griddle in the kitchen. What I’d meant was more along the lines of, You seem nervous. And what Michael meant by saying we were eating a little early was that Paco was working tonight, and probably leaving shortly after dinner.

Ultimately, what it all meant was that Michael and I would be walking around on pins and needles until Paco got back home, which might be hours or it might be days, you never know. Michael’s shift at the firehouse started in the morning—he works two days on and one day off—so that meant he’d get to throw himself into his work, but for me, I figured I’d better enjoy having some big strong men around the house while I could.

It was then that I noticed the table was set for four. I said, “Hey,” and pointed at the chair Michael had just dragged over to the table. That was code as well. It meant, Hey , but with a subtle reference to Ethan.

Michael nodded as he headed back to the kitchen. “Yeah, he’s having dinner with us.”

“Oh, I wasn’t aware.”

He cocked his head to the side, and I could tell he knew that already. “Yeah, he said you wouldn’t return his calls…”

He left me standing there staring at the table, but then he poked his head out again and said, “Umm,” and tipped his chin toward the beach.

I looked out at the ocean to see the silhouette of a man standing at the water’s edge, illuminated by the moon. I said, “Is that…?”

He’d already gone back inside and was standing at the griddle next to Paco with one arm hung over his shoulder. I let out a deep sigh as I looked down at my feet, where Ella was gazing up at me with an expectant look on her face. I held my hand out like a cop stopping traffic and said, “Stay.” Then I guzzled the rest of my wine and walked down the path to the beach. At one point I looked back, and Ella was following along right at my heels.

Ethan was standing in his bare feet, his pants rolled up over his ankles like mine, and he was gazing quietly out at the water. When he heard me he turned and said, “Hey, there,” and reached his hand out.

I folded my fingers in his and leaned into him. “Hey, I didn’t know you were here.”

“Surprised?”

“No. Michael told me.”

He nodded. “I went for a walk and ended up here. That okay?”

“Of course … and I’m sorry I never called you back. I had a really ridiculous day.”

He studied my face for a moment, and then he said, “Let’s walk.”

We took off down the beach, following the line of foam the waves had left along the sand while Ella ran ahead, skittering back and forth, occasionally pouncing on something either real or imaginary, I couldn’t quite tell. The sand was still warm from baking in the sun all day, but the cool water felt good rolling over my feet.

Finally, I couldn’t take the silence anymore. I said, “So, I guess this is where we talk about kids and the future and all that icky stuff.”

He squeezed my hand. “Ha. Only if you want to.”

“Honestly?”

He stopped and turned to me with a solemn nod.

I thought for a second. “I kind of don’t.”

The moon had been momentarily hidden in a bank of clouds, but as we came to a stop they began to part, gradually painting the sky and the dunes all around us in a wash of silvery violet. Ethan turned and looked back up the beach in the direction of the house.

I said, “You think it’s a deal-breaker?”

He said, “Huh. I wasn’t expecting to hear the words deal-breaker tonight.”

“I know. I’m just trying to figure out where you are.”

He paused for a moment. “I don’t know. I don’t know where I am.”

“So … you’re saying you’re not sure.”

We both just stood there, each of us facing in slightly different directions, long enough that it began to feel awkward. Finally, he turned and took me in his arms. He kissed the nape of my neck and then nuzzled his face into the crook of my shoulder, and I felt goose bumps glide all the way down my sides and across the backs of my legs.

He whispered, “I just want to be here for now.”

I could feel his heartbeat against my chest, as fast as a drum. “Okay.”

He said, “Let’s go back.”

I nodded and took his hand again, but somewhere in the back of my mind I heard a tiny voice, just barely audible over the sound of the waves lapping up on the beach, the sound that’s been the underlying sound track to my entire life.

It said, We can’t.

30

The next morning, my radio alarm went off bright and early, like it always does, except this time it felt particularly jarring. It may have been that I’d been up late talking to Ethan, or rather, not talking to Ethan, but lying on my side in the dark and staring at the back of his head while he slept. It might also have been the song that was playing on the radio. It was some sort of heavy metal tune, although tune seems a bit generous since there didn’t seem to be any kind of melody involved—just a cacophony of what sounded like a hundred drum sets, accompanied by a chorus of unintelligible screams and high-pitched wails, all submerged in a cavernous echo chamber of doom. I slapped my hand across the clock’s snooze button to knock some sense into it, and then rolled over to see if Ethan was still asleep.