Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray (scary books to read TXT) 📗

Street is just okay. A little bland, but I like their pineapple fried rice. There was this great Thai place near my old apartment in Manhattan. The decor is kooky, but they make the best pad thai in Manhattan.”

“Where did you live before?”

“Upper East Side, but before you judge, I was on Second Avenue during peak subway construction when it was so loud all the old ladies who lunch moved out and rents went down, so I could afford it. It was a strange apartment. The toilet was in one little room on one end, and the rest of the bathroom was on the other. It made mornings with my roommate require some choreography.”

“Olivia told me when she first moved to the city after college, she lived in an Upper West Side studio that didn’t have a bathroom. She had to share with everyone else on the floor. I thought that kind of stuff was a myth.”

“Hey listen, moneybags, we all have to make sacrifices to afford to live here. If Diane didn’t give me such a steep discount, I couldn’t afford to live anywhere within three subway stops of the Cat Café.”

“Did the apartment come with the job offer?”

“No, actually. I was commuting from the Upper East Side, which was awful. I had to walk all the way to Lexington Ave to get the subway, then ride the train for an hour very early in the morning to make it to the café by opening, then walk another six blocks when I got here. So when my lease was up, I mentioned to Diane that I was thinking of moving closer, just in a, ‘Hey, if you know of anyone looking for a roommate in Brooklyn, let me know’ kind of way. I’d been working at the Cat Café for maybe six or seven months at that point. And Diane goes, ‘I just lost the tenants in a one-bedroom upstairs,’ and she offered it to me for a rent she knew I could afford, since she pays my salary. It’s basically half what anyone else in the neighborhood would pay for a one-bedroom.”

“Wow.”

“On the flip side, I’m kind of at her beck and call. I help her out with errands and stuff when she needs a hand. That’s the trade off, I guess. I don’t mind at all, though. She’s really very nice.”

Caleb frowned. “She’s nosy.”

Lauren smirked. “So you’ve met her.”

“I have, yeah. Always asks me a lot of questions about my personal life.”

“Yeah. She does that. Worse than my mom.”

They chatted about their families. Lauren’s parents lived near Columbus, Ohio, and she had a brother who was currently finishing his law degree at Georgetown. Caleb was an only child, and his parents lived in Maine. He did have a hint of a New England accent—there was something very Boston about the way he pronounced certain vowel sounds—but it had faded to the point that it wasn’t always detectable.

Talking and sharing personal trivia with Caleb was…nice. And it felt like a date. But she and Caleb weren’t even in a real relationship, were they?

“So you like food,” Caleb said.

“I love food. Who doesn’t?”

“I dated this girl in undergrad who wouldn’t eat in front of other people.”

“Like, at all?”

“Yeah. We only dated long enough for me to figure that out. We’d go out to a restaurant, and she’d order a meal, eat none of it, and ask for a doggy bag.”

“I will admit to ordering a salad on dates sometimes so the handsome stranger I’m dining with won’t judge my choices, but I can’t imagine just not eating.”

“You haven’t ordered a salad any of the times we’ve had dinner together.”

“We’re not dating, are we?”

“Fair.”

Lauren didn’t want to dwell on that point, so she said, “My friend Lindsay is a food writer, so she’s gotten me into some pretty swanky restaurants.”

Caleb smiled. “I’ve gleaned from talking to the other vets at the clinic that an important component of being a New Yorker is talking about the best meals you’ve eaten.”

“Lindsay got me into Gramercy Tavern to try their tasting menu because she went to culinary school with one of the sous-chefs. So good. I didn’t know food could taste like that.” She mimed drooling. “What was your best meal in New York?”

Caleb laughed. “My ex and I ate at Morimoto for our last anniversary. The sushi was actually a little plain, but the rest of the seafood was some of the best I’ve ever had. Clean and fresh. And remember that I’m from Maine. I grew up eating seafood right off the boat.”

“Yeah?”

“One of my cousins is a lobsterman and has a little mussel farm off the coast.”

“You can farm mussels?”

“Yeah. You drop these ropes into the water that are covered with what is basically mussel seed, or baby mussels. Then they grow right there on the ropes.”

“And they’re safe to eat?”

“Yeah, totally. They grow bigger and taste better than mussels found in the wild.”

“I had no idea. You know about all kinds of animals, don’t you?”

“It’s true, I do.”

“What’s the weirdest pet anyone brought you?”

Caleb chuckled. He appeared to think about it for a moment. “One of my patients in Boston was a fennec fox. Those are the ones with the huge ears.”

“You can have those as pets?”

“Not legally, and I wouldn’t recommend it. This guy was tame, but they’re little predators.”

“I mean, so are cats.”

“True, but fennec foxes belong in a desert climate, not a house. House cats have adapted to indoor living over many generations. The fox was a cute little guy, though. About the size of a Chihuahua. On the other hand, he had this squeal that would blow out your eardrums.”

Caleb cleaned up after they ate and then invited Lauren to his bedroom. As he closed the curtains, she said, “This wasn’t a date, was it?”

“No,” he said. “This was two…people…eating dinner.”

“Is that what we are to each other? People?”

“People who sleep together.”

Well, all right. Not a lie. “You know, we haven’t really argued today.”

“I can