“She probably can.”
She grinned. “You know, when you told me about her, I thought maybe she was your girlfriend. Your new girlfriend, since the Thanksgiving breakup.” She turned to me in all seriousness. “Although, some men like older women.”
“Sure, but she’s old enough to be my grandmother.” I pulled out a tree.
Kat tilted her head, scrunched her nose, then gave it a thumbs-down.
“And she’s not my girlfriend. Why did you think that?”
We continued walking and turned into the next aisle.
“Because you knew so much about her and her work with pets, despite not having any pets yourself.”
“I tend to remember details about people I like.”
“That’s sweet.” She stopped in front of a tree with a blue sheen to its needles, considered it, and gave another thumbs-down.
This selection process was definitely going to take a while.
“Why don’t you have a pet, though?” she asked. “You obviously love animals and know a lot about them. You don’t travel much for work, right? And I know the building allows pets, despite how 5B feels about it.”
I smiled at that, then rubbed my hand over the back of my neck. I had my reasons, but I’d never discussed them with anyone. My mom and Will probably knew, and no one else had ever asked. Kat seemed so genuinely interested, and there was something about the way she asked, with a mix of innocence and kindness, that disarmed me. The goal was to still be friends after our fling. That was the whole point of the loophole. And this was the kind of thing a person could tell a friend.
“Come with me.” I held out my hand to her. For the first time in fifteen years, I was ready to tell someone about the worst time in my life.
CHAPTER 9
KAT
Gage led me to a corner of the tree lot where there was a small picnic table with anEmployees Onlysign on it. We sat on the same bench facing each other. I laid the sign on its side while he took Mr. Whiskerbottom Fuzzypants off his back and set the carrier on the bench between us, facing out so the fur ball could lust after the trees.
“My dad was a veterinarian.”
I touched his hand, just for a second. It was pure instinct, the need to comfort him. “I know your dad died. I wanted you to know I know, and I didn’t want you to have to say it if…” If it still hurt as much as the look in his eyes told me it did.
“How—You Googled me.”
Something like that, but he didn’t need the details. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be creepy about it.”
He smiled. “It’s not creepy. In this day and age, it’s probably smart. And it’s only fair since I know so much about you.”
I widened my eyes, curious as to what he thought he knew about me. “What, did you Google me, too?”
“I didn’t have to. I read your condo application.”
I was glad that was his source because there was a lot more truth about my life on that application than on any public internet search engine.
“I know you got your bachelor’s at Vassar, your master’s at Georgetown, immediately went to work for the State Department six years ago, lived in Switzerland for the last three years—stellar landlord recommendations, by the way—and have excellent credit. Go you.”
He was obfuscating again. Damn, he was almost good enough at that to be in my business.
“They do ask a lot on those forms, don’t they? But about your dad…”
He let out a long breath. “When I was a senior in high school, one January night, Dad got a call from a client with an old cat who had turned a corner and was really suffering. The weather was too bad for them to get to Dad’s office, so he went to them to put their old guy out of his misery.”
He took a long, unsteady breath. My years of questioning—okay, interrogating—people gave me the experience of knowing he was second-guessing his sharing so much. My instincts told me to wait quietly, so I did.
“On his way home, Dad was on the highway when an eighteen-wheeler hit a patch of black ice. He never…” He shook his head and blinked, clearing tears. “Will was in his second year at Columbia by that time. He came home for a month, for the funeral and the early days. Then he went back to school. We were doing okay until Mitzi died. She was our last pet, a sweet poodle mix. Dad had always said there are some pets whose people pick them, and some—the ones in the most need—who pick their people. Mitzi—and most of our pets over the years—had picked Dad. Mom told me she believed Mitzi had left us because her person, the one she’d needed, was gone.
