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“You’re a dog person. I should’ve warned you.” She adjusts her glasses. “It’s better than being tackled by a four-legged furball who wants to lick your face with the same tongue it licks its privates with.” Her expression pinches. “I’m going to go now. I think my conversation skills have been tested enough today. Don’t forget to email me back with as much information as you can get from your mother.” She nearly falls down the front steps in her rush to get to her car.
I go back inside so I don’t embarrass either of us any further and find Prince Francis sitting on the windowsill. He yowls forlornly as Kitty approaches her SUV. The Kitty Whisperer is written on the side in fancy cursive. The i’s in kitty and whisperer are dotted with heart-shaped cat heads, the grill has whiskers, and the front of the SUV has a decal wrap that makes it look like a cat face.
When Kitty disappears inside the car, Prince Francis looks up at me accusingly and meows loudly.
“Don’t worry, ball sack.” I stifle another sneeze. “She’ll be back.”
He meows again.
“And hopefully you’ll get your regular human back soon, too.”
chapter four
THE ROUTINES WE LOVE
Kitty
On the way home from meeting Miles the grump and Prince Francis the adorable and regal sphynx, I stop at Kat’s Cat Café. Kat and I have been friends since ninth grade. We met on the first day of school in our English class. We compared schedules and realized we had all but one class together, and since then we’ve basically been inseparable.
Two years after she graduated from college, she opened Kat’s Cat Café, which is exactly what it sounds like. A café full of adorable rescue cats, most of which are available for adoption. You can grab a coffee or icy beverage (in a covered cup, because there is an incredible amount of fur in the air) and hang out with cats.
I have a desk in her office in the back where I take care of paperwork for my business and help Kat manage inventory and order supplies for the café.
I park, pop the trunk on my SUV, and retrieve the bag of old towels I picked up over the last week from clients, as well as a bag of new promotional items. It’s part of what I do in exchange for the office space. Towels are one item they can never get enough of, along with scrap pieces of carpet they can use to refurbish scratching posts.
I find Kat sitting at one of the tables, her laptop propped in front of her, and a tabby curled up in her lap. Another cat sits on her hand, under which I’m assuming is a mouse—the kind you use for a computer, not a toy or real one.
On the other side of the café are Meryl and Louie, an elderly couple who live in the retirement apartments a few blocks over. They’re not able to have a cat of their own anymore, so they come here almost every evening for tea and a snuggle with a kitty. I murmur hello to a few of the other regulars scattered around the café as I make my way to Kat. She waves with the hand that isn’t under a cat butt. “Hey! I wasn’t sure if you’d be in today. How’d that meeting go with the Matt guy? Is the cat a cutie?”
I slide into the seat across from her and set the bag of towels on the floor. Paws, Horace, and Tux, three of the cats who live at the café full time, check out the contents by trying to climb inside the bag. “His name is Miles. The cat is an adorable sphynx, and mischievous. The human is a dog person.” I say it like it’s a bad word and glance around, making sure no one is within earshot, and lower my voice. “He compared the cat to a shaved ball sack.”
Kat’s mouth drops open. “He did not!”
“He insulted the poor baby so many times. I mean, read the freaking room, dude. I’m clearly a cat lover.” I motion to my shirt.
Kat gives me a knowing look. “Why are so many dog people anti-cat?” Her reaction makes me feel better about my own to his constant disdain for poor Prince Francis.
“I don’t know. They’re equally loveable, just for different reasons.” Maybe I’m extra defensive about Prince Francis because I know what it feels like to be judged solely by my appearance. I’ve learned to embrace my quirkiness, but I don’t have a Teflon coating, and not all the barbs aimed at me slide off with no impact.
Kat rolls her eyes. “He sounds like a real jerk.”
“His mother is in the hospital, so that could be part of the reason he was so crusty.”
“Oh, maybe. But still, that sounds like an awful first impression.” She tucks a few wayward strands of hair behind her ear, then shakes out her hand and blows out two quick breaths, sending a fluff of cat hairs floating to the ground. It’s a hazard of the job. Kat is petite, with dark hair and eyes to match. She grew up in the Philippines, but her family moved to the States when she was ten. Her mother is a doctor, and her father is an engineer. They were a bit confused when she decided to open a cat café, but eventually they embraced her chosen career.
