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I’d gotten in touch with Kline’s dad, and ever efficient, Bob had the vet on the hunt. But four long nights without an actual capture, and even I was starting to miss the little bastard. Or maybe I wasn’t, but I was visualizing the pain in sweet Georgie’s eyes when she heard the news and listening to near hysteria from her best friend at that very moment. Their pain was feeling very much like my pain.
“You think he’s falling in line with the right cats, though?” she asked ridiculously. “Georgie’ll be so pissed if she comes home to find him in a gang of runaways.”
I rubbed at the tension in my forehead and turned my chair to face the floor-to-ceiling windows in my office.
“Well, if he does, we’ll be here to force him into rehabilitation through intervention.”
“Right,” she scoffed, like I was the crazy one. “Like there’s a cat rehab. Good one, Thatcher. It must be right next door to the cat detective.”
“Cass—”
“I lied to her.”
“Who? The cat detective?” I asked, completely lost.
“Wheorgie, numbnuts! I told her about the microchip, but I didn’t tell her that we hadn’t actually found him.”
“The vet’s been getting a signal,” I told her, even though she already knew. I hoped that hearing it again might help to calm her down. “He’s just been moving around too much to pinpoint an exact location for pickup.”
“Yeah, Thatcher. I know all these things. Jesus.”
Closing my eyes, I leaned back into my leather desk chair and sighed. “You called me. What exactly are you after here? Honest to God, I’m trying.” Harder than I would with anyone else, I thought to myself. “But I can’t for the life of me figure out what you want.”
“I don’t know either,” she said, but fuck, the uncertainty, the longing—all of it made her simple words sound an awful lot like, I just wanted to talk to you.
“Cass—”
“I gotta go, T-bag. Let me know if you hear anything about Walnuts,” she rushed out. And then with a quick click of the line, she was gone.
I spun around to my desk and tossed the phone in the cradle before rubbing a hand down my face in annoyance. Everything between us felt foreign, like I couldn’t get a handle on it. The weirdest part was not knowing if I wanted to.
“Mr. Kelly?” my assistant, Madeline, called on the intercom. Reaching forward, I pushed the button on my phone panel to answer.
“Yeah?”
“There’s someone on the line for you from Green Gardens in Frogsneck, NY?”
Fuck. That was the venue for my parent’s surprise fortieth anniversary party next month. “Put them through, Mad.”
“You got it.”
Two quick rings confirmed her response before I put the phone to my ear. “Hey, Tom,” I greeted. My hometown was the size of a chicken nugget, and only one person would be calling me from Green Gardens.
“Thatcher? It’s Tom.”
“Yeah, Tom. I got that. That’s why I said ‘Hey, Tom.’”
“Oh.”
“The reason you’re calling?” I prompted when silence consumed the line for nearly half a minute. It was times like these that made me really not miss home.
“Oh. Yeah. I know you said you wanted an open bar and that you wanted lobster and steak, but that’s gonna be pretty expensive, bud. I just wanted to double-check before I made the order because once it’s in, it’s in. I can’t do you any favors, even if I like you.”
“Thanks, Tom, but I’m good. Open bar, lobster, and steak. Don’t worry about the order, I won’t leave you hanging.”
“Oh, right, right,” Tom agreed, taking a tone I knew well and absolutely hated. “I guess I forgot you’re some hot shot zillionaire whoseewhatsit in the city these days.”
My patience was unraveling, but I fought hard to pretend like I had some. “Yeah, that’s not it, Tom. It’s just my parents’ fortieth. They deserve a nice night.”
Mad gave a quick knock and peeked her red head in the door. “Someone is here for you,” she mouthed.
I nodded and rushed to get Tom off the phone. “Listen, I have to go. But thanks for checking in. I really appreciate it.”
“All right. I guess I’ll put the order in if you’re sure.”
Mad peeked in again and raised her brows in question. Waving a big hand, I signaled to let whomever it was in.
“I’m sure. Thanks, Tom.”
My eyebrows pulled together as Cassie bounded into my office while Mad held the door. She wore tight jeans and a crop top, and I’ll admit, my gaze traveled to the bottom of her shirt—or half of a shirt—in the hopes there was boob swell to be seen more than once.
