Page 99 of Emerson

Nothing but a straggler sock and a hoard of cat toys.

“Dillon,” he says, a desperate tinge to his voice.

That's when I see the fabric on the underside of his box-spring move in the center.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, then push up to my feet. Emery scoots back on his knees and watches me with his hands over his chest as I push off the mattress. I move to lean it up against the wall by the window, then go back for the boxspring.

“Go get a knife,” I say, lifting the side of the boxspring. Whatever is inside scratches again.

“What? You can’t stab my cat, Dillon!”

I give him my best calm look. “I need to cut the side open. I don’t know where the hole is.”

“Oh my God. Oh my God.” He runs from the room, then runs back in with a butcher knife. My heart drops down to my ass when he trips on a shoe, and we will absolutely be having a knife safety talk. Later.

I take the knife from his grasp, find the seam of the black fabric on the bottom, and slice it open. All while Emery hops from foot to foot next to me.

“Please. Please. Please.”

I set the knife down and rip the fabric open wider. More scratching and moving around.

“Oh God, Dill. We probably smooshed her. She is going to be a kitty pancake.”

My biggest fear when I grab my phone from the nightstand and use the flashlight to shine inside the hole is that it’s going to be a fucking rat inside and not the damn cat.

“Thank fuck,” I whisper. One snaggle toothed, wiry face looks back at me.

Emerson

Eleanor meows again, wiggling where I've had her tucked in my arms. Dillon went out to his truck when I had my face buried in her fur and came back with a staple gun. Apparently, that's just a thing he totes around.

He closed up the hole he made in my box spring, then found the hole Eleanor must have used to climb inside and closed that up, too. He had just gotten my bed back together when his phone rang from my nightstand. He answered it and walked out, barely giving me more than a glance.

That was at least ten minutes ago. Every minute that passes, I feel more and more stupid.

“Now what, Ellie? The least you can do after trying to kill me is give me some advice.”

I let her go with a huff when she meows her displeasure again and watch her beeline for her littler box like nothing happened.

Like I didn't spend the last twelve hours thinking she was dead in a ditch somewhere.

My apartment is a disaster, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not going to play anything cool. Not a thing. Because morning has brought back my cat and a heavy dose of reality.

Maybe I am ready to admit a few things to myself.

One, for instance, I like the cat. Two, I like the man. Dillon.

I more than like both of them.

Always have.

Eleanor finds me again when I pad out to the kitchen. She weaves herself around my legs as I dump a can of food in a bowl, and I nearly trip on her every step over to set it down.

That's when I hear him.

“The fastest I'll make it back is six hours. I've got something I've gotta wrap up here before I get in the truck.” I pause, eyeing the door to my apartment; he went out there to have this conversation without me doing exactly what I'm doing, being nosey.

He chuckles. “Kind of impressive how you can make anything a dick joke, man. You twenty-somethings think with a single head, and it isn't the one on your shoulders.”