“She’ll be fine,” Justin said shortly, but flinched when the cat gave a particularly heartrending yowl—the only sign that anything he’d experienced all night had bothered him.
There’s a lot more to you than I thought. Miguel found himself watching Justin—indirectly, in the mirror—as he crouched in front of the carrier makingpspspspnoises, and couldn’t make himself look away even when Justin caught him at it and glared.
* * * *
Miguel wasn’t actually sure how he ended up accompanying Justin and the cat into the cab. It didn’t take two people to drop a cat at the vet, especially when the vet was expecting them. But into the cab he went, and into the vet’s office he went. Before he knew it, he and Justin were sitting in adjacent plastic chairs, waiting for the cat’s initial prognosis. They could hear her howling all the way down the hall.
“I’m really more of a dog person,” Justin said suddenly, after a long silence. “Not that I actually own one. But I get along better with dogs. Cats are…We’re too much alike, me and cats.”
One corner of Miguel’s mouth tipped up. “I can believe that.”
“You’re more like a dog,” Justin said, and then looked away, as if embarrassed by his own words.
“Sloppy and dumb?” Miguel said cheerfully.
“No, that’s not what I—I mean, yes, obviously that, but—” Justin’s ears were turning red.
Miguel couldn’t stop smiling. “I might be more insulted if you hadn’t just finished saying how much you like dogs.”
“What is this,Jupiter Ascending? I do not like dogs, and I do not like you!”
“But you likeJupiter Ascending,” Miguel said. “Enough to have parts of the dialogue memorized.”
“Well, you recognized it, so—”
“So we have more in common than I thought.” Miguel continued smiling and enjoyed watching Justin flail for a response.
“You have a low opinion of high society,” Miguel said after a moment. “You’ve spent enough time in it to have dirt on everybody, so you know whereof you speak. You hate them all, but you have to move among them to do your job, so you cope by channeling Dorothy Parker. I get that much.”
“Oh, you’ve got my number, have you?” Justin said nastily.
“Not yet,” Miguel said. “Because what Idon’tget is how the man that climbed out on a fire escape without a coat and rescued a cat—and gave up his New Year’s Eve to bring it here—is the same man that was cruel to the waitstaff for kicks.”
Justin appeared struck by this. “I suppose that looked bad, out of context.”
“What possible context could make it look good?”
“Nothing could make it look good,” Justin admitted. “It was petty and mean. But it might help to mention that the last time I saw him, that young man was on the witness stand, lying his black little heart out, after I trusted him to turn the tide of a child abuse case. Because of him, a particularly horrendous abuser got off scot-free.” Justin closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “So yes, the sight of him infuriated me, and I was delighted to have a chance to make his life more difficult.”
“A child abuse case?”
“Yes, I’m part of the firm’s family law department.”
That wasn’t what Miguel had expected of Justin at all. Buta lot of this conversation was tending that way.
“Mr. Whitley,” said a vet tech, coming into the otherwise-empty waiting room. “We’ve successfully gotten your cat’s dislocated leg back into place, which was her only major injury, I’m happy to say. She’s sedated right now and we’ll need to keep her under observation for tonight. Once you get her home, you’ll need to keep her confined and sedentary—as much as you can, I mean—for a few weeks so she can rest and heal without re-injuring herself.”
“She’s not my—” Justin began, then heaved a deep sigh and rubbed his eyes. “Right. Okay.”
“She can stay at my place,” Miguel said, the words bypassing any common-sense filter he might have possessed. “I have a walk-in closet I can clear out.”
Justin stared at him. “You don’t even know if she’s litterbox trained.”
Miguel shrugged, not about to back down now that he’d made the offer. “It’ll be fine.”
“I’m sure we can work out the details when you come pick her up tomorrow,” the tech said. “For tonight, she’s in good hands. You can rest easy.”
* * * *
