Well, I had an idea of what could happen. His bodyguard would probably flatten me like a pancake if Cade didn’t do it himself.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said instead, giving her a thumbs-up and heading out the door with a final call to the counter. “Thanks for the gelato, Bruno!”
kitty’s cattuccino café
. . .
Cade
The cuddler had given me the wrong address.
That was the only explanation I could come up with for why I was standing outside a place calledKitty’s Cattuccino Caféwith an orange cat staring back at me through the windowpane. I’d thought it was animatronic at first, until it’d coughed up a hairball that looked more like vomit.
“This is where she said to meet?” Mac drawled next to me, equally unimpressed.
I didn’t want him here, but he’d insisted on tagging along after learning about my ridiculously stupid plan. Mac had spent the whole drive over trying to talk me out of it, or to at least reconsider one of the actresses over Ellie.
But my mind was made up.
I still double-checked the address to make sure Ellie had actually sent us here, and she had.
Things only got stranger when we stepped inside the café. The large room smelled surprisingly clean—just a faint musk mixed with floral air fresheners—despite two dozen cats swarming the place. The air filtration must be working overtime.
A high school-aged girl sat at a small table, reading a book with six fluffy cats surrounding her.
She was the only customer, and Ellie was nowhere to be seen.
I took in the rest of the place. The walls were covered in yellow china plates, tea sets sat on every available surface, butcatswere everywhere I looked. Roaming around, licking their paws, and jumping up on the wicker chairs and plentiful cat trees.
The place screamed “old lady’s sitting room.” Which made sense when an elderly woman ambled around the corner, wearing a floral apron and beaming at us. “Customers!”
The surprise in her tone was far from reassuring.
She scampered over, surprisingly spry for her age, and I took a reflexive step back.
Next to me, Mac coughed to cover a snort.
The lady flattened her grey bangs and looked us over, appreciation filling her gaze. “Well, well, well. We don’t get many men like you two in here. Did you come for the tea or the cats?”
Mac was still pulling himself together next to me, so I didn’t want to risk setting him off again by saying neither.
“A meeting,” I answered evenly.
Her bright eyes widened. “Ameeting. How delightful. Welcome to my café! Take a seat anywhere you’d like, and call for me when you’d like something to drink. The name’s Kitty.”
She sashayed over to the girl’s table, leaving us standing on a fuzzy pink rug in the middle of the far too cozy space.
Mac looked around at the abundance of tea sets and lace and sweaters on two of the cats. “It’s…charming?”
Before I could chime in with a more suitable word, the front door banged open behind us—startling a few cats into scattering—and Ellie practically fell through the doorway.
“Sorry I’m late!” She doubled over, pushing a hand into her side while gulping deep breaths. Her brown backpack slid down until it knocked into her head, and a startledmeowsoundedfrom inside. “Ow.I missed the bus by like half a second and had to chase it down. Of course Reuben was driving today, and he pretended not to see me running after him for eight blocks because he has a personal vendetta against me. I think it’s ’cause I accidentally sneezed on him one time when my hands were full, but I can’t prove it. Oh, hi Grace!”
The teenage girl looked up from her book long enough to wave at Ellie.
Out of all her rambling, one part stuck out the most.…She took the bus?
“I’ll be over there if you need me,” Mac muttered before slinking off to the corner with the best view of the exits.
