Page 60 of Autumn at the Cat Cafe

He went inside, resisting the urge to watch her walk away—not an easy decision whatsoever—and closed the door, then leaned against it. He could have spent all day in the hallway talking to her... gazing at her... touching her.

“Meow?” Sir was looking at him from his perch on the back of the couch, his head tilted in what seemed like slight befuddlement.

“Yeah, Sir,” Leo mumbled. “I’m confused too.”

The day passed relatively quickly. When Via returned from upstairs, Birdie handed her a cell phone. “Here,” she said. “Print off that picture of Squeaks. She’s going right there.” She pointed at the golden photo frame.

“What did she do?” Via asked.

“Jumped on counters, annoyed Luna, flung her litter, among other things.” Birdie didn’t sound offended, though, just irritated. They’d had ornery cats in the café before. Some took longer to adjust than others.

“Will do.” Via looked at the little gray cat, sleeping peacefully in one of the baskets by the counter. “I thought she was doing fine.”

“She’s feeling herself, that’s for sure.”

She went to her office, printed the picture off Birdie’s phone, and walked back up front. Birdie removed Sir from the frame and put in Squeaks. He had set a personal record for the café.

She spent the rest of the day deep cleaning all the litter boxes and vacuuming the baskets and cat houses, something she did at least two, sometimes three times a day. In between tasks she visited with customers and took some time to give each Pawsitive Vibes cat individual attention.

About an hour before closing, she sat on the couch with her unfinished autumn sweater, wondering if she’d set herself up for failure. One glance at her bucket list on the board and she’d decided to take a visit to Fantastic Fibers. Yes, she had plenty of things to do to fill her time, but that particular item on her list had been bugging her. She didn’t like to leave things unfinished, and this was the year she’d mark off that task. Besides, Sir loved going to Fantastic Fibers and he’d been ready to take another walk anyway. Frederick always gave him a scrap ball of yarn to play with.

After Frederick had fixed the mess of stitches on her needles and she bought an extra skein of the autumn-themed yarn, she returned to Pawsitive Vibes and saw Leo there. He wasn’t sweating, but his shirt was darker around his neck and upper chest. That must have been quite a run he went on. But for once, what was sticking in her brain weren’t his looks or even him touching her arm for a decent length of time—although she wouldn’t complain about that. It was a friendly touch, after all.

“I always mean what I say.”So far he had proven that. But she still couldn’t fully trust him. Now she was wondering if she would ever be able to trust another man, other than her dad and brother.

Dora plopped down next to her on the couch. “That’s going to be pretty... if you ever get it done.”

“Hey, I’m working on it.” She dropped another stitch. Pondering her trust issues was bad for her concentration.

Squeaks jumped on Dora’s lap. “Such a sweet kitty,” she murmured as she rubbed her chin against her hand.

“You do know she’s the new NCOTW, right?”

“Yes, but I don’t know why. She’s always been well behaved around me.”

“Me too. Maybe it’s Birdie who’s the naughty one.” They both chuckled and she returned to her sweater, immediately dropping four stitches. “Nuts,” she said, grabbing the small hook Frederick had showed her how to use to pick up dropped stitches. “Maybe I should have taken up crochet instead. I can’t seem to get the hang of knitting.”

“You’ll figure it out,” Dora said. “How’s friends with Leo going?”

She knit a stitch. “Fine.”

“Hmm.”

“What doeshmmmean?”

“I don’t think you two can be friends.”

“Excuse me?”

“There’s too much chemistry between you.” Dora moved her hands around like fireworks going off. “Sparks, everywhere sparks.”

“Don’t you have your own relationship to obsess over?”

“Why are you denying your feelings for him, Via?”

Ugh, three stitches dropped. She wasn’t going to get anything done on the sweater today. She shoved it and the knitting needles into the new project bag Frederick insisted she had to have.“It’s covered with kitties,”he’d exclaimed.“How can you pass it up?”He knew she couldn’t and it was totally adorable. It was even autumnthemed and had a mulberry background and gold bottom, with various cats lounging around in a movie theater.

Unfortunately Dora was expecting an answer. Her sister could be as stubborn as any Dalton, and Via knew she wouldn’t leave her alone until she got one. “All right, here are the reasons.” She started ticking off her fingers. “One, he’s going back to LA. He can’t wait to get home.”