“We tell people not to feed the cats, but between you and me, she’s pretty slim. I can’t imagine it would hurt. Just don’t encourage her to eat off the plate or get on the table.”
“I would never.” I swiped the icing off the knife and held my hand down. Cinder immediately abandoned Lee to come running over and lick it.
“Cupboard love,” Lee complained. “Outbid by the rock star.”
A woman at the nearby table exclaimed, “Oh, youareGriffin Marsh,” pushed back her chair, and hurried my way. That led to about ten minutes of signing things for the patrons, while Lee petted Cinder in his lap, fed her tiny bits of my icing, and kicked my ankle when I forgot to baby my voice. The server said something about deserving my privacy, but I told her it was fine. I asked folks to donate, and the jar on the counter was a lot fuller by the time I was done.
Lee said to Cinder, “I’d bring you home, but the last cat I brought home became Mom’s. She doesn’t need a pair.”
“I’ll take her,” I told him, dizzy at the image of Lee at our breakfast table every day, the cat in his lap. “Less for her to get into at my place and I could use the company.”
“A pet’s a commitment.” Lee fixed his gaze on me.
I lowered my tone further, barely a breath. “Are you saying you wouldn’t take her if something happened to me?”
“No, I— fuck!” He set Cinder on the floor and called to the server, “Hey, we’re going to adopt this cat. Just not today. Can you put Griffin’s name on her? We’ll be back soon.”
“Sure,” she called back. “Lucky cat.”
“Why not today?” I asked, although I let Lee haul me to my feet and hustle me outside.
“Nothing’s going to happen to you.” Lee’s grip cut off my circulation at the elbow. “You’ll be fine.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” For a moment, I’d even forgotten the potential crisis.Which won’t happen.
Lee let go of my arm. “No, of course not. I’m overreacting.” He sighed. “Sorry.”
“Maybe we should walk for a bit.” I gestured down the sidewalk.
“Maybe. Yeah.” He turned and paced off.
I caught up with him in three strides and waited for him to find words.
“Sorry,” he said eventually. “I don’t like that the tumor got bigger.”
“Polyp,” I murmured, determined to look on the bright side.
“Growth. Yeah, whatever. I’ve just found you and things are awesome, so of course my brain is catastrophizing. What-ifs bouncing around in my head. You’d think being a medical person means I could believe the odds, but instead it means when I can’t sleep, I’m reading JAMA articles on—” Lee cut himself off with a glance my way. “Well, on shit you don’t need to also have in your head. I’m trying to be cool. Just doing a really shitty job of it.”
I took his arm, pulled him to a stop in a shallow nook between two stores, and wrapped him in a hug. “Sweetheart, I get it. We need to get through the next two weeks.” I kept my voice low, mymouth beside his ear. “I’ll try to stay quiet, you try not to freak out, and we’ll make it to my surgery.”
“But afterward—”
“Nope. I made it through the long, long slog of my arrest, indictment, and trial by not looking too far ahead. We don’t go there till we get there.”
“You were able to do that?”
I sagged in his hold and let him support me this time. “Mostly? Kind of? I mean, I cleaned out my fridge and packed up the apartment in case I got jail time—”
“Jesus!” Lee gripped me tight. “That had to be fucking scary.”
“Yeah.” I remembered those bleak months, the creeping conviction that I’d end up in prison and I deserved it. I murmured, “The judge totally could’ve given me two years. Maybe she should’ve.”
“Fuck that sideways with a cactus.” Lee shook me back and forth. “Don’t even think it. You fucked up, but there is nothing about you that deserves to be locked away. In no world does that make sense.”
I lowered my forehead to his shoulder. “Thanks. It was a weird time. I got through it by looking one step ahead. Arraignment. Meeting with the DA. Plea bargain. Trial. Sentencing. The whole time knowing that my victim’s family was going through a much harder experience. I got way up in my head.” I had to laugh and then my throat hurt. I swallowed and dropped back to a soft voice. “My lawyer didn’t want me to give my money to the family at first. Admission of guilt. But knowing I could at least get those girls through college was the only thing that kept me going. In the end, she decided it would look good, but fuck that. I neededto do something positive to justify living while Linda died. Back then, I’d have thought this cancer scare was karma.”
Lee kissed my forehead, ignoring the frown we got from a man walking by. “And now?”
