I notice everything about you.Instead of saying that, I grinned. “We did that chore in record time, and I have a whole day unplanned. How about you? Can I interest you in…” I scrabbled to think of something Lee might enjoy. My throat felt dry and thick from that dust. Maybe… “A cat café?”
“Cats? I could hang out with a few cats.”
“I pass this new place on the bus every day,” I told him. “Let me look it up and I’ll buy you the biggest caramel mocha whipped cream whatever as a thank you.”
Lee rubbed his stomach, the gesture seeming almost unconscious. “I don’t think I need whipped cream.”
“Listen to me.” I moved in close and captured his gaze. “You deserve the things that make you feel good. Now, if you don’twantit, your choice. If you’re watching your calories for yourhealth, I’ll even skip the whipped cream in solidarity. But if you think you’re not one hot, desirable bear just the way you are, big arms and nice soft tummy and all, then you need to get out to the clubs again. You’d have a hoard of twinks after you.”
“Bletch,” Lee said, although he didn’t look displeased. “I had this willowy blond guy call me Daddy last time I went to a gay bar. I am not interested in being a Daddy.”
I grinned at him. “Good thing I’m not looking for one, then, right?”
For a moment Lee paused, and heat flared between us again. Then he stepped back. “You promised me cats and whipped cream. Lead the way to that paradise.”
Has to be his choice. His call.At least I was pretty sure that heat hadn’t been just on my part. “Kits & Cups. You drive, I’ll navigate. Paradise awaits.”
Chapter 10
Lee
Okay, Kits & Cups wasn’t quite paradise. They needed a barista with a more generous hand with the caramel and whipped cream to hit heavenly status. But they had a bunch of rescue cats running around, so that got them close.
Griffin bent sideways in his chair to pick up a half-grown ginger kitten that had been clawing at his knee. “Who are you, little man?”
“That’s Jack,” a passing server said. “Because he climbs everything. Like Jack and the beanstalk?”
“Jack.” Griffin held the kitten up to look him in the eyes. “My leg is not a beanstalk.”
The kittenmerowpedat him, wriggled hard enough to force Griffin to set him down, then dashed off across the floor. Halfway to one of the many climbers, a fluffy black cat pounced on Jack and they rolled around a moment before walking off in opposite directions, tails twitching.
“I always wanted a cat,” Griffin told me. “Mom said she was allergic, although I think she just didn’t want to deal with the hair. Then, once I had a place of my own, I kept hoping I’d start touring, which wouldn’t be fair on a cat.”
Or a boyfriend?But my past bitterness felt stale and old. Yeah, he left me, but he asked me to come with him. Yeah, he said no when I asked him to stay, but I said no too. Yeah, it was a really rough time for me to lose his support, but we hadn’t committed to anything. We’d beenwrong place, wrong time, and somewhere in the last twenty years, I’d apparently gotten the fuck over it. Well, mostly. Not enough to take that risk again, but enough I could grin and say, “Maybe you could take a cat along on the road. A small, mellow one, anyhow.”
“A few artists tour with pets, but mainly if they have the entourage to take care of it. Touring the way the rest of us plebes do it is no life for a cat or dog.”
“But you love the life.” The stories he’d told, good and bad, had all been infused with howpresenthe’d been in that experience.
“I did.” He bent to stroke the head of a tuxedo longhair stropping her cheeks against his shins. “Still do, some, but it’s harder when the crowds are getting smaller and the venues farther between. When you’re first building your audience and you screw something up, there’s that feeling ofI’ll do better next time. Now, I feel like every time I’m less than perfect, the fans that walk away won’t be back.”
“Didn’t you say you’re doing Rocktoberfest this year? That’s not what I’d call a small audience.”
“No, but I got in kind of sideways. The organizers asked a few top bands to name someone they considered a mentor, like nostalgia or something. Chaser Lost nominated me. They’ll play a headliner spot, third from last on Sunday, and I have a short slot right before them. Pete Lebraun will introduce me.”
“That doesn’t sound sideways. Rocktoberfest wouldn’t have invited you if they thought the audience wouldn’t want to hear you.”
“I guess. There’s like, sixty or seventy thousand fans there on the weekend nights. Great exposure.” He shrugged. “But I don’t know. Ten years ago, five years ago even, I was inviting new bands to tour with me, open my show. Now I’m back to hoping for that invite from someone else. And if the audience likes me enough for say, Pete to suggest we tour together again? I don’t have a band anymore. The folks the label put behind me for my last tour are busy with other gigs. I’m fifty-six years old. Maybe it’s time to think about doing something else with my life.”
“What, though?” I couldn’t imagine Griffin doing anything except music. He’d had a day job when we met, doing construction work, but that’d always been just to pay the bills.
“I can still write songs for other people. I’ve sold some over the years. Maybe teach guitar, I don’t know.” He took a long swallow of his iced tea.
“Don’t borrow trouble,” I told him, ignoring the complicated feeling in my gut at the idea of Griffin the music teacher settled in a home with a cat and a day job and maybe one day a partner. “Have fun at Rocktoberfest and see what happens.”
“If my parole officer lets me go.”
“You think he won’t?” I’d almost forgotten that having Griffin in my life five days a week was supposed to be punishment for him. That he needed to beg permission to cross a state line.
