Page 13 of Always You (A Lilac Bay Novel)

CHAPTER 3

Imade Andrew take a detour over to my apartment before we hit the pub so I could feed my cat. Predictably, he moaned and complained the entire walk over, telling me that he was starving, and warning me that our teammates would drink up all the good beer before we could get there.

“You do realize that my apartment is two blocks from Cora’s, right?” I asked as we turned onto my street. The truth was, nothing in Lilac Bay was very far from anything else, but I was particularly happy about the convenience of my apartment.

I had moved into the place only a year ago, and I absolutely loved it. It was on the third floor of a sprawling old Victorian mansion that had been converted into apartments. My two bedroom flat wasn’t nearly as big as the condo I had shared with Jenny, but it was all mine.

Well, technically it was my landlord’s, but it was a nice feeing to know that I was paying for the rent myself and not relying on Jenny’s parents or her trust fund. The building’s owner, Sherry, was a member of the Libbies club with me, and a good friend. Even better, she had told me I was free to paint the walls and decorate however I wanted, as long as I returned it to its white and boring state when I moved out.

I had taken her permission to heart, painting every room of the apartment a different color. Jenny’s condo had been all about modern minimalism, everything painted a cool shade of cream, the furniture relegated to shades of white with sterling silver accents. Even the decor had been colorless—black and white prints from some Manhattan gallery that I was sure cost as much as all the furniture in the house. Now that I had my own place, I indulged in my yearning for bright, bold colors. My living room was a cheery yellow, my bedroom a cool, beachy blue, the kitchen fire-engine red. I had hung bright prints on the walls, sewn coral colored curtains myself, and scattered throws and pillows over all the comfy, slightly worn furniture I had collected from yard sales and resale shops on the mainland. It was cozy and a little cluttered and exactly what I wanted. Best of all, from the bay window in my bedroom I was high enough to see a sliver of the bay through the branches of the trees that dotted this street.

“I’ll never understand why you didn’t take the first floor place instead,” Andrew muttered as he followed me up the creaky wooden stairs to the third floor.

“Because the first floor apartment was way too big for one person,” I told him for the hundredth time. “Besides, it doesn’t have a view.”

“It also doesn’t have stairs.”

I reached the landing on the third floor ahead of him, slipping my key into the lock as I called over my shoulder, “You’re such a wimp. It’s no wonder I kicked your ass tonight on the field.”

Before he could argue with me about our respective performances, I got the door open and stepped into my apartment. My cat, a fluffy orange tabby that I had rescued right after moving in, immediately jumped from his perch on the coffee table to wind himself around my legs, mewing loudly.

“Hello, Mr. Howe,” I told him, reaching to pick him up. But he shot through my legs like a dart, heading straight for the landing where Andrew stood.

“Hello, cat,” Andrew said with little enthusiasm.

“Be nice to him! You’re his favorite person.” It was true, no matter how annoying I might find it. Though I was the one who had rescued him from the shelter and provided him with daily food and a warm bed—not to mention all the kitty toys he might want, scratching towers, and the fishy treats that he loved so much—it was Andrew that he had fallen head over heels with at first sight. Andrew, who had no special love for cats, could barely tolerate Mr. Howe—though he did approve of the name, an homage to the greatest hockey player to ever live.

“Hello, Gordie,” Andrew said dutifully, picking him up and allowing the cat to nuzzle into his ear and cheek. “Did you miss me?”

Gordie purred, clearly blissed out at being held by the great Andrew Powell.

“I’ll just go get your food,” I said. “You ungrateful cat, you.”

“Now, don’t be jealous,” Andrew said, stepping into the apartment and shutting the door behind him. “It’s not Gordie’s fault that he has such good read on human character.”

“He only likes you because you have the same hair color. He thinks you’re just a bigger version of a tabby.”

“Ouch.”

I left Andrew to cuddle Gordie while I went into the kitchen to get his food. The moment the cat heard the cabinet door open, he came running in after me. “Fickle cat,” Andrew called after him. I had to agree with him as Gordie rubbed up against my shin while I filled his food bowl, purring and flicking his tail.

“Sure, now you love me best,” I said, placing his bowl on the floor and scratching him behind the ears before heading back to the living room.

“You ready?” Andrew asked.

“Let’s just wait until he’s done eating.”

He rolled his eyes. “You do know that people leave their cats to eat on their own all the time, right?”

“And you do know that the beer will still be there when we get to Cora’s? So just calm down.”

He sighed dramatically but didn’t argue, instead grabbing an old issue of Sports Illustrated and sitting on the couch. We had covered my Gordie-can’t-eat-alone rule a number of times. He would call me overprotective, and I would call him mean. He would try to convince me that just because my little sister had once choked on a grape when I was babysitting, terrifying me and scarring me forever, that didn’t mean my cat was going to choke and die when he was alone. And I would tell him that there was no point in risking it.

Knowing we’d be waiting a few minutes, I went to my bedroom to change out of my dirty baseball clothes. Showing up to Cora’s in cleats and a muddy uniform was hardly unacceptable, but I figured it would be nice to look presentable—particularly when I knew Andrew’s cousin Iris, who also happened to be David’s girlfriend, would be there looking immaculate as always.

I appeared in the living room a few minutes later in skinny dark-washed jeans, a black tank top, and my high black boots, my hair loose over my shoulders. Andrew looked up at me over his magazine and his mouth dropped open a bit. I felt a rush of somewhat smug pleasure. It was always so hard to get a reaction out of him. Sure, he would gape at and flirt with just about every creature with a pulse, but the most I could usually get out of him was a grunt and a “shirt looks clean” whenever I asked him how I looked.

But the satisfaction melted away when he returned to his magazine. “Pretty fancy for Cora’s.”