Lauren stuck out her tongue at Josh.
“My point,” Caleb said, “is that finding someone to share your life with makes everything else in your life better. Which, yeah, that’s pretty cheesy, but I’m serious.”
“I know. And I miss Paige. But I’m not going to chase after her if she’s not that into me.”
“Fair,” said Caleb.
“But I take your point. Actually, part of why I’m able to have dinner with you tonight is that we hired a bunch of new paralegals, so I’m able to delegate some of my work. Including anything related to your real estate developer friend, which only makes me feel slightly less guilty.”
“That’s something. I recognize that you have to pay your dues. My intern year right out of vet school was brutal. I worked the night shift a lot and we got a lot of hard-luck cases at odd hours of the morning. But it got easier after that first year. So, don’t base decision on what’s going on now, but on what you think the future will look like.”
Josh nodded, knowing that was good advice.
Caleb’s big yellow dog Hank jogged over and started sniffing around the table with his tail wagging excitedly. As he nosed around Josh’s shoes, Josh said, “I don’t think dogs like spicy tomato sauce.”
“He won’t be satisfied with that until he’s able to assess it for himself,” said Caleb.
Molly the cat seemed to take a cue from Hank and started winding her way around chair legs. Then both animals seemed to decide that, not only was there nothing worth eating on the floor, but that the spices from the shakshuka did not smell so edible after all. Both retreated to the rug near the sofa. Hank flopped over to lie down, and Molly curled up near his belly.
“I can’t get over that they’re friends,” said Josh.
“I know. I figured they’d grudgingly tolerate each other. But they nap together like that all the time.” Lauren shrugged. “How’s George?”
“He’s good. Caught a bug the other day.”
“Sure,” said Lauren.
“A housefly got into my apartment. George saw it and jumped in the air and chomped down on it.”
“See that? You did need a cat. He saved you from that nefarious insect.”
Josh laughed. “Yes. Saved my life, that cat did.”
Chapter 24
The look on Josh’s face as he’d walked away from the Cat Café the last time they’d seen each other had seared itself on Paige’s mind. He’d looked so disappointed. She deeply regretted not saying anything about how she really felt. She should have been willing to take the risk, especially after she realized that Josh was exactly the man she should be with. Instead, she’d let him leave thinking she didn’t care enough to fight for him. She did care, but she hadn’t been able to say anything.
Maybe it would be better to just not date for a while, she reasoned. She was clearly terrible at it.
She tried to move on with her life over the next few days. She hosted another Cats and Crafts to great acclaim that weekend. The Cat Café finally received the T-shirts Evan had designed to sell in the store, and the café had sold so many Lauren would have to buy more soon, which was exciting. She’d had drinks with her friends one night and they’d whined about being single and then made fun of Lauren for her happy marriage.
As Paige and Lauren closed down the café one evening, Lauren ran a vacuum over one of the sofas and then stood up with a sigh. “I wonder if I could hire someone just to clean out the litter boxes.”
Paige wiped down a table and glanced at Lauren. “That seems like a terrible job.”
“I’ve been reluctant to ask the counter staff to do it. And don’t feel like this is me asking you either. Maybe we could get, like, a cat maintenance person or something. I don’t know what you’d call the position.”
“I don’t want to handle cat poop either, but is there a reason you suddenly don’t want to do it anymore?”
“Caleb tells me pregnant women shouldn’t handle litter boxes because of the possibility of toxoplasmosis. Really, I should just make him come over here and take care of the boxes.”
Paige almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Oh my god. You’re pregnant?”
Lauren closed her eyes for a moment. “I mean…yes.”
Paige squealed.
“Only like twelve weeks. We weren’t going to tell anyone for another month. But I keep forgetting that my immediate family members are the only ones who know. And our doctor, I guess, but—”
