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

it, although I should probably get Hank home when my shift is over.” Trying to have a conversation in a crowded bar was not really Caleb’s idea of a good time. “Thanks for showing me and Hank around.”

“No problem. I’ll see you around, Caleb.”

“Yeah.” He went back inside, contemplating the fact that, had they been a couple, they might have hugged or made more concrete plans than “see you around.” It felt a little wrong to just leave Lauren after they’d spent a pleasant hour together, but… They weren’t a couple.

That’s what Caleb kept telling himself, anyway.

Chapter 18

“So, okay,” Paige said at the next staff meeting. “Have you heard about these services that bring puppies to offices to help employees calm down?”

Lauren and Monique glanced at each other. “That’s a real thing?” asked Monique.

“Yeah. There’s a pilot program in Austin. I printed out an article about it.” Paige whipped a stapled printout from her folder and handed it to Lauren. “Anyway, I had a brainstorm. What if we had a kitten party at the café? Just before we adopt out Lauren’s kittens, we get them all over here and have guests come play with the kittens. We can market it as a stress-relief kind of thing.”

It was a cute idea. Lauren nodded. “If you want to talk to Mitch to see if he has more rescue kittens, we could also potentially have adopted, please do. I’m not sure five kittens necessarily constitutes a party.”

“So you want to do it?” Paige asked, sounding eager.

“Sure, put a proposal together. We’ll run it by Diane to see what she thinks.”

Shortly after the meeting broke, Evan walked into the café. “If I ordered a coffee, could you make it Irish? I’m having a day.”

“Is there some astrological phenomenon at work this week?” Lauren asked. “Everyone seems totally frazzled.”

“Mercury in retrograde,” said Paige gravely. “We drank all the booze from the party, unfortunately. If you’re nice, Monique might put an extra caramel shot in your latte, though.”

Lauren cleaned up the table where her staff had just been meeting and was thinking about ordering a tea when Evan returned from the counter with a cup in hand.

“What happened?” Lauren asked.

“Mostly just stupid work stuff. There’s a new clothing boutique near the Atlantic Center that wanted me to design some signage for their front window, but they don’t actually want me to design so much as they want to give me a design drawn on napkins and Post-its and have me correctly interpret their chicken scratch into being exactly their vision. So there was that. But the real kick in the teeth just happened.”

“Oh, no.” Based on Evan’s facial expression, whatever he was about to say had upset him a great deal.

“Pablo has a boyfriend.”

“I’m so sorry. How do you know?”

“Well, I was walking here from the meeting with the boutique ladies, and then I thought I’d just pop into the bookstore and say hello, and then there was Pablo, making out with a beardy hipster near the romance novels in the back, which is just fucking perfect.”

Lauren reached over and put her hand on Evan’s. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry.”

“I’m too late, aren’t I? All the queer men in Brooklyn are paired up and none are left for me.”

“I don’t think that’s how any of this works,” said Lauren.

“It’s not even about Pablo per se. I mean, I think he’s sex on legs, but we’ve never had a conversation that lasted longer than ninety seconds. So I’m disappointed, but I think it’s more about the fact that it’s been so hard to meet people lately.”

Lauren nodded. She could relate to that. Perhaps her whole plan to swear off men and focus on herself wasn’t so much about Derek getting married as it was about the fact that it was hard to meet people in New York City—despite there being eight and a half million people to meet—and she hadn’t wanted to put in the effort. It was…easier not to.

And instead she’d met Caleb.

A strange thought popped into her head, probably because of all the event brainstorming they’d just done at the staff meeting. “Maybe the café should do a singles mixer.”

Evan guffawed. “Are you serious?”

“No. I don’t know. Just thinking aloud. Do people still meet at mixers?”

“You talk like you’re eighty years old. I appreciate that you’ve chosen yourself, but I for one would like to have sex again before I die.”

Lauren pointed at Evan’s phone, which was in his hand. “Aren’t there apps for that?”

“Sure, if you’re twenty years old and look like an underwear model.”

“You serving wine at your pity party?”

Evan rolled his eyes. “Shut up. I just mean…well, of course Pablo has a boyfriend. And Derek is married. And you and I are still single because there is no justice in the world.”

“Our cases are not that terminal. It’s just…a dry spell. A rough patch. You’re a good-looking guy, Evan. There’s gotta be an out-of-work actor or adjunct faculty member or someone out there waiting to be with you.” And it was true. Evan had dark hair and olive skin—he was half Colombian on his father’s side—and went to the gym with more regularity than some nuns went to mass, and he probably could have passed for a guy five years younger. He ran a successful graphic design business, he had a nice apartment, and just like Lauren, he had a lot going for him as a potential mate for someone. Lauren knew she wasn’t a lost cause, but it was hard sometimes to venture out of her comfort zone, and dating hadn’t been a major priority lately.

Except that she did have someone.

“Well, thank you,” said Evan. “You’re not so shabby yourself. Actually, you’re the best person I know, and if I were even a little attracted to women, I’d marry you tomorrow so we could be a Brooklyn power couple and have our perfectly designed penthouse in one of those new high-rise buildings close to the Manhattan Bridge. I like the