Page 43 of Autumn at the Cat Cafe

“Upstairs.” He grinned. “Turns out your buddy has a leaky sink. He called this morning and made an appointment. Dad was going to fix it, but he had an emergency job come up.” His grin disappeared. “Gotta go get my toolbox. Ugh.”

“Thanks for the bid,” she said.

He gave her a short nod, then went out the back entrance to the parking lot.

Leo hadn’t said anything about a leak. Now that she thought about it, she should ask Fergus to bring Sir downstairs when he was finished with the repair. On second thought, her brother didn’t need to deal with Sir’s mercurial attitude. Her besotted cat was her problem.

But it wasn’t Sir’s image that flitted through her mind. It was Leo’s. Again. She pressed her fingers to her forehead. She had to figure out a way to deal with her attraction to him, somehow.

Chapter 10

Leo shut off the water, stepped out of the shower, and dried off. He half expected to see Sir Meow, or at least the blurry outline of him, standing in the doorway. But ever since he cracked open his front door, Sir had been going back and forth between the two apartments like he owned both of them.

He wrapped the damp towel around his waist and put in his contact lenses. There, now he could see. He’d worn glasses since the fourth grade and had considered getting corrective surgery but couldn’t bring himself to go under the knife. Maybe in the future, but right now he was fine with his contacts and glasses. He quickly shaved, cleaned up the sink so the plumber wouldn’t have to deal with the stubble while he fixed the leaky pipe, and went to Earl’s bedroom to figure out what he was going to wear for the day.

Sir Meow was sprawled out on the still-made bed. Leo was second-guessing his decision not to sleep there, unsure if his back could stand the couch for three more weeks. It was comfortable enough but not suitable for long-term slumber.

He grabbed some boxer shorts, having bought some on his trip to the store on Sunday night. He’d made a trip to the Wash ’N’ Dryyesterday morning to wash his and Earl’s clothes. To pass the time, he had taken one of Earl’s history magazines from the apartment and read it while he was waiting for his single load to finish. By the time he was done, he had gained some interesting knowledge about the Mayan Empire.

Opening Earl’s closet, he spied his designer suit looking out of place as he hung it on the crowded clothes bar stuck between a blue-and-green-checked flannel shirt and a red-and-gray T-shirt that said “Phillies 1980 World Championship.” He’d noticed quite a bit of Phillies memorabilia in the apartment—enough to know that Earl must have been a fan. Maybe he was even at that game.

He dropped the towel, pulled on the boxers, and on impulse grabbed the T-shirt. Soft. Well worn, like his Harvard sweatshirt. He slipped it on, and like most of his uncle’s clothes, it fit him fairly well. He’d tried on a pair of acid-wash jeans yesterday morning that were too short, but even if they weren’t, he wouldn’t have worn them. Acid jeans needed to stay in the eighties.

A random thought occurred to him as he finished dressing. Earl would have been twenty-eight in 1980. Leo had been teasing Via about not remembering eight times seven. He had an excellent memory and facility with numbers and math and wondered if Earl had too. From the wide variety of his duplicate book collection, he seemed to have lots of varied interests. His collection housed many intellectual, philosophical, and esoteric tomes. Unpredictable for a working-class guy from Philly. Or maybe he didn’t care what he bought as long as it had two covers with pages stuck between them. Hard to tell.

Thinking about the books in storage brought Via to mind, and not for the first time since he woke up, mostly about how good she felt against him when they were trying to maneuver in the storage room. Eventually they just gave into the awkwardness ofbumping into each other all the time and made decent progress. This morning he’d been sleepy when Sir made his presence known outside his door, but awake enough for the usual jolt of attraction to hit him at the sight of her. It was so frequent now he couldn’t deny it. His body sure didn’t.

He blew off the thoughts and finished dressing, then went back to the bathroom and combed his hair. “Plumber should be here soon,” he said to Sir, who had followed him inside. Great, now he was talking to the cat. He’d called the plumbing company to come fix the leak as soon as he fully woke up. A guy named Kyle answered and said he was at another job but he’d be there within the hour.

As soon as he walked out of the bathroom, there was a knock on the door. He padded across the living area in bare feet, Sir Meow right behind him. A much easier task than when he first arrived, now that he’d cleared a path.

He opened the door to a giant of a man. His eyes widened. Leo was tall, but this guy was at least three inches past his height.

“KD Plumbing,” he said in a bass voice. He held out his hand. “Fergus Dalton.”

Leo looked at his huge hand. Shook it. Then the last name registered. “Dalton?”

“Yep.” He entered the apartment and looked around. “Been a minute since I was last inside this place. Looks a lot neater than I remembered. Oh, hey, Sir. Via said you were here.”

“Are you related to her?” Leo asked as he closed the door.

“Meow.” Sir jumped onto the couch and allowed Fergus to pet him twice before moving away and flopping on his side.

Fergus turned around. “She’s my sister.” He paused at the messy coffee table, then set his tool chest on the floor, crossed his massivearms, and leveled his blue-eyed gaze at Leo. He said, “What are your intentions toward Octavia?”

Leo took a couple steps back. “No intentions, man. Why, did she say something?”

“Nope. Other than you were working together to clean the shop.”

“So nothing about the bucket list?”

Fergus’s gaze narrowed.

Leo didn’t blame him for watching out for his sister. He definitely respected him for it. “There’s nothing to worry about. Once I have everything squared away with Second Chapter, I’m heading back to LA. Thirty days, tops.”

Fergus regarded him for a minute, then dropped his arms. “If I find out you’re even thinking about hurting her—”

“Say no more.” To drive the point home, he took a step forward and looked Fergus in the eye. “You have my word.”