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I shrug. “Just are.” I realize I’m being more forthcoming with her than I’ve been with any girl in years. It’s... inappropriate. A moment later, I’m relieved to see the pale blue mailbox to the right, followed a few feet later by a thin, dirt drive that curves into some trees.
“I’m a ninja,” Cleo says as I turn.
I press my lips together, suppressing a bark of unexpected laughter. “What?”
“That groin kick is my least fancy move. I’ve got more where that came from.” She sits up straighter and arches her brows at me. “In other words, don’t try anything sketchy, unknown guy with whom I’m driving into the woods.”
I rub my temples. “Would it help if you drove?”
She shrugs. “Probably.”
I pull over on a red dirt shoulder, and she cuts her eyes at me. “You sure? Your car is worth like, more than my family’s house.”
Shit—could that be true? I’ve got no damn clue what to say about poverty, having never experienced it myself, so I shrug. “Just a bunch of glass and metal.”
I watch her neck as she drives. I watch her shoulders. She seems tense. I smooth my hand over my pants and glance over at her, then I set my eyes back on the road. “There’s a stray at my place. Black cat. A ‘she,’ I think.”
I watch her delicate brows lift. “Oh yeah?”
“Mm-hmm.”
She smiles at me, bright and unexpected. “Can I adopt her?”
“She’s kind of mangy. She might be sick.”
Cleo shrugs. “I don’t care. I’ll take her to the vet and make her better.”
“If we can get her.”
“I think we can,” she says.
I tuck my thumb inside my fingers. “Do you consider yourself an optimist, Cleo?”
“I don’t know,” she says, braking a little as we reach a fissure in the dirt road. “People say glass half empty, glass half full like it’s so easy to just pick one. I think things are more complicated. My full might be different from yours. Or maybe all the glass is, is a glass.”
“You think this cat will be your new pet?” I manage a smile.
“My Eight Ball tells me ‘very likely.’”
“And if we catch her and we have to put her down instead?”
I watch her throat as she swallows. Her skin is pale there—pale and smooth as satin. “I don’t know. I wish you wouldn’t say that.”
“It makes you sad to think about putting down a feral cat you’ve never even met?”
Her tongue darts over her lips. Then she slides her gaze to me. “I think pain should be reserved for something painful. Not a fucking hypothetical.”
She seems angry as we roll on through the trees. Like she’s sure I’m fucking with her head.
I am fucking with her head. I don’t mean to, but I can’t seem to help myself.
This close to... everything that’s coming, I find myself strung taut. It’s not like you might think. I can feel myself becoming more... exacting. More thorough. As if force of will can help me.
Cleo’s green gaze wanders over me, and my chest tingles like it’s waking up from sleep. “If you know the cat’s gender,” she says, “then you must have touched her.”
“That was a gamble,” I admit.
“Why?”
