“Perfect?”
“I love Paige, I do. She’s gorgeous and put together. She’s had a ton of career success because she’s really good at what she does. I mean, she only works for me because she hated working in corporate America, which, who can blame her? She’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever known, so I can’t even resent her for those things. She deserves a great guy. Not sure why she thinks she’ll find him on a dating app.”
“Stranger things have happened. I’ve heard it’s hard to meet people in this city even if you’re not a person who works all the time. Plenty of great people use dating apps. Just becauseyouare happily married now—”
“Yeah, yeah. Whatever. It’s just that…”
Josh had to fight to listen to Lauren, because the facts clicked into place. Paigeworkedfor Lauren. They were friendsandPaige was the events manager at the Cat Café that Lauren managed. He’d known that intellectually, but listening to Lauren talk about Paige made him truly understand. Wow, had Josh stumbled in it. No wonder Paige had vanished from his apartment once she figured out who he was.
As a way to test the water, Josh said, “I liked her.”
“Yeah?”
“I mean, would it really be that weird if I asked her out?”
“What about Megan?”
“What about her? We broke up six months ago. Or seven, I don’t know. A while ago.” And Josh really did not want to talk about Megan. She’d hardly popped into his head at all in the last few days, which felt like a sign he was finally moving on. Although he couldn’t even hear her name without acid boiling up in his throat, so maybe he wasn’t that over her.
“Paige is a good person. She deserves more than a rebound, that’s all.”
Josh could sense Lauren’s disapproval and decided not to push it. “It was just a hypothetical question. As you’ve noticed since you called me on my office line, I pretty much live here.”
“All right,” said Lauren, her tone indicating she knew something he didn’t. “I’m actually calling because Paige is doing this fundraiser cocktail party thing at the Cat Café next week. I wondered if you wanted to come or if you could talk your law firm into a big donation. I mean, in the spirit of ‘giving back to the community’ or whatever.”
“Sure, I can run that by my boss. What are you raising funds for?”
“There’s a no-kill shelter in Park Slope that had part of its facility damaged in that bad storm a few weeks ago. So we’re helping them out by raising some money for the repairs. And Paige wants part of whatever we raise to do some youth programming at the café.”
“Okay. I think I can sell that. Or hell, I’ll donate. It’s not like I have time to spend any of my hard-earned money, except on rent and takeout.” Then what Lauren had just said sank in. “Wait, youth programming?”
“Paige read about a cat café in San Francisco that does crafts with cats or something. I’m letting her run with it. Anyway, if you can get out of jail long enough to come by, it’s next Tuesday evening at the Cat Café.”
“I’ll try. No promises. I had to work all weekend to make up for taking off for the feral cat thing.”
“How does that make sense? A whole weekend in exchange for one night?”
“It… I don’t know. Stuff piles up around here. Time is a flat circle.”
“How many of your colleagues burn out before the end of the first year?”
“I don’t know, but I’m guessing a lot. I figure if I can just hold on until the end of my first year, it will get better. Maybe. Hopefully. I mean, they’ll have a whole new group of naive associates to torture by then.”
“Well, I hope I see you Tuesday, but I understand if you can’t make it. I can promise cute cats and an open bar if that entices you at all.”
“That does sound appealing.” Plus Paige would be there. He hadn’t decided what to do with that, and the smart thing would be to let her go, but he wanted to see her. He’d figure it out when he got there.
“Cool. Well, try not to kill yourself at work. I’ll let you get back to it. Love you, Josh.”
“Love you too, Sis. I’ll really try for Tuesday. If work doesn’t kill me first.”
Chapter 7
Paige eyed the bar they’d set up in the corner. She really wanted a glass of wine, but she had to do a presentation in order to persuade the guests tonight to part with some money, and she wanted her wits about her. Monique, who usually worked the counter in the café, stood ready to take donations and was chatting with Pablo from the bookstore. Caleb had an arm thrown casually around Lauren as they talked with Diane, who owned the building and the Cat Café. Victor, one of the baristas, was trying to keep the cats from wandering out of the room. They currently had a dozen cats living at the café, and one of Paige’s other jobs was to figure out where she’d put the adoption forms in case anyone who came tonight fell in love with one of the cats. Although the obvious objective of the Cat Café was to provide patrons with a place to pet cats and sip coffee, therealobjective was to charm potential cat owners into adopting one of the café’s cats.
There were maybe fifteen guests milling around the party. Paige found the forms under a cat on one of the big sofas, which seemed about right. She was about to bring the forms to Monique when Diane walked up.
“So, talk to me about your programming plans,” said Diane. “Lauren said you want to do events for kids.”
