“Nova.”
“Yeah.”
“Your neighbor. Mrs. Patterson. She says there’s a cat yowling at your back step and it won’t stop. Been over an hour.”
I’m already sitting up.
Dina has never done that. Dina eats and disappears. Dina does not yowl. Dina does not stay.
I pull his hoodie on over bare skin.
“Get Brick,” I say.
He gets Brick.
We’re in the truck in five minutes.
Brick complains from the carrier like he has been personally wronged. I’m in Jax’s hoodie with my hair still tangled from his hands, and the team replica Cup is tucked beside him because there is nowhere else to put it at 3:14 in the morning and he is absolutely not leaving it on his kitchen counter while we drive across town.
Florida is dark around us. Empty streets. Eight minutes to my place.
He keeps one hand on the wheel and the other on my thigh. I put my hand over his and look out the window.
“I know, Brick,” he says.
Brick does not accept it.
I huff a small laugh.
Dina is on the back step when we pull in.
Yowling. Not eating. Not running. Just sitting there moaning like she’s been doing it for an hour because she has been.
I get out of the truck slow.
Don’t approach.
Walk past Dina to the back door of my apartment. Unlock it. Push it open.
Stand aside.
Don’t say anything. Don’t crouch down. Don’t reach.
Just open the door.
He’s out of the truck now, carrier in one hand, the team replica Cup tucked under his other arm, watching from twelve feet away because he already knows — this is between me and my cat and he is barely peripheral to it.
Dina stops yowling.
Looks at the open door.
Looks at me.
Looks back at the open door.
Stands up.
Walks past me into the kitchen.
