“Concerning?” One brow arched, though he didn’t turn his head to look at me.
“Hear me out. I think your cat-of-doom has a great idea. What if we did a pet adoption event at Barbacks? Your clinic could bring adoptable animals, we would set up a meet-and-greet area, I could film content for social media that would help both the bar and the clinic, and we could tie it all to a fundraiser for the stray fund. If it worked, we could do it monthly, maybe.”
Peter’s marker stopped squawking on the whiteboard.
He still didn’t turn around.
When he spoke, his words were slow and measured.
“You want to bring rescue animals to a bar. Is there a bad joke in this? Two cats and a handler walked into a bar? Something like that?”
It took everything in me to ignore the almost-joke and focus. “Yes, to a bar full of people who are already primed to fall in love because they’ve beenwatching foster kitten content for weeks. The audience is built, Peter. They just need somewhere to show up.”
“A bar is loud and crowded. It’s full of strangers and alcohol and unpredictable behavior. That’s the opposite of what rescue animals need.”
“Which is why you’ll be there. You and whoever from the clinic you trust to handle the animals. You’ll control the environment, decide which animals are stable enough to attend, and even manage the introductions. I’m not suggesting we turn Barbacks into a petting zoo. I’m just proposing we create a controlled, supervised, one-evening event where people who want to adopt a pet can meet animals who need homes. All this would take place in a setting that’s warm and social and doesn’t feel like a shelter. No offense to shelters.”
“None taken,” he said, finally turning to face me. His eyes and mouth were doing the things they did when he was processing something that he wanted to dismiss but couldn’t quite find the flaw in. There was a slight tension around his jaw and a narrowing of his eyes that I’d learned to read as, “I’m annoyed that you might be right.”
“Which animals?” he asked.
“Totally your call. You know the animals. But . . . I know the animals that drink at the bar. Dogs andcats would be most popular, but only the ones who are socialized enough to handle the atmosphere. Not the new intakes or the surgical recoveries, obvi, the ones who’ve been waiting for someone to notice them.”
“I’d need to talk to Dr. Kaur. This isn’t my decision alone.”
“Of course.”
“And I’d need to see the space beforehand, see how it’s set up and where the animals would be. I’d also need to see how we’d manage foot traffic and noise levels.”
“Absolutely. Come to the bar this weekend and we’ll walk through it.”
He studied me for a long moment.
I could see him looking for the catch, the reason this was a bad idea disguised as a good one. I kept my face open and my mouth, for once, shut. I’d learned over three weeks of cohabitation that Peter made his best decisions in silence, and the fastest way to push him toward “no” was to fill that quiet with pressure.
“I’ll talk to the clinic,” he said finally. “I’m not promising anything.”
“That’s all I’m asking.”
He turned back to the whiteboard and finished updating Shortcake’s entry. I went to the foster room to feed the kittens. I didnotcelebrate, and I didnotfist-pump, and I absolutely didnotwhisper, “Yes, yes, yes,” into Beyoncé’s fur while she squirmed and bit my thumb.
Because I was a mature adult who handled professional victories with dignity.
Beyoncé sneezed in my face.
I took it as a blessing.
Chapter 10
Peter
Ishould have seen it coming. Benji had been unusually quiet all morning, which was the first warning sign, because Benji’s silence was never passive. It was strategic. It was the silence of a person gathering momentum, and I’d lived with him long enough now to recognize the difference between Benji-who-has-nothing-to-say (a state I was not convinced actually existed) and Benji-who-is-waiting-for-the-right-moment. The second version was considerably more dangerous.
I talked to Ayesha the next day during a gap between appointments. She was in her office eating a salad and reading a journal article about feline lymphoma, which was how Ayesha spent every lunch break because she was the kind of doctor who considered continuing education a form of recreation.
“An adoption event,” she said, not looking up from the article. “At a bar?”
“I know how it sounds.”
