Page 73 of The Music of Us
I turned to Rumple. “Do you see two mice? Be honest.” I gave him a firm look. “It’s just one, isn’t it?”
Rumple looked at the mouse, then back at me, like he was thinking something along the lines of,You remind me of Auntie Snowball after she hits the nip too hard.
I laughed, as one does when one has an imaginary conversation with a cat. Then I leaned down to kiss his little fuzzy forehead, except I ended up aiming wrong and kissed the air instead.
Bunny chose this moment to hop in and observe this action with a decidedly critical expression.
“Don’t judge,” I admonished. “I’m doing this for you, you three-legged ball of love.”
Yeah, I probably should’ve eaten breakfast.
I’d planned on snagging a muffin, but to eat the muffin, I’d have to spit out the watermelon gum I’d been stress chewing since I got here, which I did not want to do. I figured I’d eat later. I mean,Take with foodhadn’t been a rule or anything; it’d merely been a suggestion.
Maybe it shouldn’t have been just a suggestion, though, because I was starting to feel kind of drunk.
Or, I guessed this was what it felt like. I’d never actually been drunk.
Okay. I could do this. Slightly wobbly, I stood up, grabbed two full trash bins without spilling anything, and then gave myself a mental round of applause.
This was the world premier concert of “I Can Do This, No, Really, I Can,” starring me. And the crowd was going wild.
If “the crowd going wild” meant an audience of cats staring at me with slight concern.
Carefully, I made my way toward the door. All I had to do was dump these bins out the back and deal with the next three reservations. Amber was coming in the afternoon after her dance class, and I could go home after she arrived. Piece of cake. I didn’t need to worry about the band either. Jake, Phillip, Aspen, and Leon were here to discuss their performance in two days, and from the sound of things, they hadn’t argued once.
The only thing I needed to do was resist the incredibly stupid idea of falling head over heels for—
I sneezed, making my head jerk forward.
Allergies, as it turns out, like hindsight, were a real—
I rounded the corner and nearly slammed straight into Jake’s chest before I could finish that thought.
Ugh. When did he get so tall? I’d nearly been taller than him before he left. It was disgraceful. I found myself scowling at his chest. Which was weird, because it was actually a really nice chest. It looked like the kind that would be nice to snuggle up to and fall asleep on.
Wow, a nap would be nice right now.
No, Lucy. Stop. Stay awake. Get to work.
Also: Stop staring at his chest. It’s not going to help the Don’t Fall for Jake agenda.
I forced my eyes away from his chest and up to his face.
Which, coincidentally, also did not help the Don’t Fall for Jake agenda.
Realizing how close we were standing, I took a jerky step back, my motor skills as haphazard as a toddler’s.
Jake glanced down at the twin trash bins in my hands. “Need any help with those?”
“No, thanks. I’m okay, just—”
Phillip, Leon, and Aspen all broke out into a clamor of cheers and giggles in the cat room, the noise cutting through to my allergy-induced migraine. My head spun like a disco ball. The noise needed to stop.Now.
“Please tell Alvin and the Chipmunks over there to keep it down,” I heard myself say out loud. Oh my God, what was coming out of my mouth? Were the allergy meds really hitting that hard? “My head’s killing me.”
“Okay,” Jake agreed. Had he lowered his own voice a notch for me? It sounded softer, somehow. Or maybe it was my imagination. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep them quiet.”
Apparently concerned about my headache, Jake studied me. His face did that thing where his eyebrows pinched together slightly and he pursed his lips. It was his mysterious, broody face. The one that caused, like, half a dozen people to fall in love with his poster, or whatever. The irritating one.
