AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I laughed. “Frank is my cat.”
“Cat?”
“Please don’t tell me you hate cats.”
A sharp exhale came gustily down the phone line. “Damn, Red. I thought maybe I was too late. That some other man claimed your heart while I was waiting for you to fulfill your contractual obligation.” He laughed. “A cat, you say? I don’t hate cats, but I’m more of a dog man myself.”
I joined his laughter. “I won’t hold that against you.”
“Okay, but…Frank? What kind of name is that for a cat?”
“Naomi named him.”
He laughed. “I guess that shouldn’t surprise me.”
“But I agreed. Wait until you meet him. You’ll understand.” I scratched between Frank’s ears.
“I get to meet him?”
“Sure. Why not?” I switched off the TV.
“I don’t want to take anything for granted,” he answered. “I didn’t know if meeting a pet would be akin to meeting a new girlfriend’s children.”
He considered me his girlfriend already? I preened a little, emotion growing in my chest. “Well, he is a cat. But he likes most people. I’m sure he’ll take to you.”
“Wish I could meet him right now.”
“Just a few weeks. Can you hold on?”
“No choice. Deep in my heart, Catie-belle, I know you’re worth waiting for.”
Oh, the feels those words triggered. “That might be the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.” I wasn’t lying.
“You’ll find I don’t lie about things that are important. And that’s you.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say screw it and tell Callan to get his sexy behind over here. But then I looked at what I had on and decided no man should be subjected to that. I’d changed once I’d gotten home, to get more comfortable. My baggy sweats had holes at the knees, my decades-old T-shirt was sloppy, for lack of a better word. Faded and stained.
Not to mention that Naomi was due to come over with a bottle of wine. It had become our Saturday night tradition, when one of us didn’t have a date. And I had hopes that in the near future, enough of my Saturday nights would be taken, so many in fact, that we’d need to switch our tradition to a different night.
So instead, I said, “You’re important too. I’m looking forward to finishing the work on your project so we can really learn about each other.”
“Me too,” came his honest reply. “Once this album is released, I don’t have anything else coming from Bad Dog for a while. Except some work they want me to look at for a charity event I’m hosting.” He mentioned the name.
My heart tripped and fell off a cliff. “Dammit!”
“What?”
I blew out a whistling breath. “Carrie just asked me to pick that project up. Seems the original designer is in jail for embezzlement.”
“You’re shittin’ me.” Callan’s voice boomed in my ear. “Of all the luck. This is going to put us back another couple months.”
“How do you figure?”
He sighed. “I’m hosting the event. That puts us in a professional relationship a lot longer term. Our agreement—”
“In this case means nothing. I’m not technically working for you. I’m working on behalf of the charity. And Bad Dog.”
“Really? This project won’t make you hold me at arm’s length?”
