Page 19 of She’ll Steal Your Heart
Mia smiled as she approached the counter, resting her palms against it. “Any problems while I was out?”
“Nope,” Jordy told her, reaching up to adjust their glasses. They were Mia’s assistant manager and easily her most dependable employee. Without them, Mia never would have been able to take the weekend and most of today off. “Today’s Lovely Bean shipment hasn’t come in yet, but it’s still early.”
“Okay,” Mia said with a nod. “I’ll check the order status and make sure nothing’s amiss.” Every Monday, the café received a shipment from the local company that provided their coffee beans. Mia glanced toward the cat enclosure to see Wendy sitting with several guests, talking animatedly to a little girl who had Pearl in her lap. It was a relief to walk in and see everything running smoothly.
After talking to Jordy for a few minutes, Mia headed to her office, where she spent the next two hours sorting through emails, invoices, and all the other paperwork that came with owning a business. The delivery from Lovely Bean arrived at four. Once everything was put away, Mia helped Jordy at the counter until closing. The last few hours of the day were always busy as people stopped in for caffeine on their way home from work.
Promptly at seven, Jordy flipped the sign on the door to Closed while Mia finished up with their remaining customers. While Jordy wiped down tables, Mia packaged the leftover pastries for Jordy to drop off at the local shelter on their way home.
Wendy waved to her from the cat enclosure, and Mia let herself in. Wendy was a volunteer with 4 Paws Cat Rescue, which provided the adoptable cats who lived here in the café, but she also worked for Mia part-time as a cat care specialist.
“How’s it going?” Mia asked.
“We received an adoption application for Pearl,” Wendy told her.
“Oh good.” Mia glanced at the calico cat, who was currently winding herself in figure eights around Mia’s legs. She bent to scratch Pearl behind her ears. “I knew this girl wasn’t going to be here long.”
“Definitely not,” Wendy agreed. “She’s a catch. This family seems like a great match for her too. Their daughter was so smitten with Pearl, and the feeling seemed mutual.”
“Wonderful,” Mia said, remembering the little girl she’d seen holding Pearl earlier. “Any progress with Gilbert?”
She gestured toward the black cat, who was in his usual spot at the top of the cat tower, gazing down at her with wide yellow eyes. The foster coordinator at the rescue wanted to talk to Mia at the end of the week about moving him into a foster home, fearing the café was too hectic of an environment for him to come out of his shell.
It might be the best move. Some animals—and people—simply preferred to be left alone, but Mia’s inherently competitive nature made her want to help Gilbert find his forever home while he was still under her care. She’d try to carve out some extra time to work with him this week.
“I haven’t been able to get him down from his tower,” Wendy said regretfully.
She helped Mia clean up the space, and then she and Jordy headed out, locking the front door behind themselves. Once the café was empty, Mia brought out several cans of cat food. She spread the contents across paper plates for the cats to enjoy. Gilbert merely watched from his perch, his eyes seeming to gleam at her in the low lighting.
“If you’re still here in October, you’d make a great Halloween cat,” Mia told him. The cat watched quietly as she opened the last can of food and held it toward him. “Hungry?”
He sniffed the air, watching her for a minute before he crept down to the lowest level of the tower. She held the can toward him, letting him eat from her hand. A thin purr reached her ears as he ate, and Mia smiled. He demolished most of the can before sitting back on his haunches to wash his face.
Mia extended her free hand for him to sniff before she stroked him beneath his chin. “Sorry the café’s been overwhelming for you. I’m going to spend some extra time with you this week to help you feel more comfortable. What do you think?”
He leaned into her touch, purring louder. This was the most interaction she’d had with him yet, and it made her all the more determined to keep working with him so he could stay here until he was adopted. He’d be fine if he was moved to a foster home first, but she didn’t want to see him shuffled around too much. The sooner he went home with a family, the better.
After a few minutes, she stood and picked up the empty plates, then carried them to the back room to throw away. She double-checked that everything was locked up and secure for the night before heading upstairs to her apartment.
A high-pitched meow greeted her as she flipped on the light in the living room. Mia set down her bag and bent to pet Lola, who had trotted over to greet her. Lola sniffed Mia’s hands and looked up at her with hopeful amber eyes, meowing again.
“Do I smell like cat food?” she asked, rubbing Lola’s head. “I’ll get you some in a minute. I need a shower first, and then I’ll fix supper for both of us.”
She walked to her bedroom and stripped out of her clothes, tossing them into the bin in the corner. This was one benefit of living alone. Not that she’d been shy around Kristin, but they’d never made a habit of walking around their home together naked. Brushing thoughts of her ex-wife out of her mind, Mia started the shower and stepped inside.
As she lathered up her skin under the hot spray, her thoughts drifted to Lauren. What was she doing this evening? Surely she wasn’t hanging out at the hostel with a bunch of people she didn’t know, but where else would she go? She must have other friends here in the city since she’d lived here almost her whole life, but Mia hadn’t heard her mention anyone.
Mia finished her shower, wrapped herself in her favorite robe, and padded into the kitchen to peruse her dinner options, discovering that her refrigerator and pantry were depressingly empty. Sighing, she pulled out a premade meal from the freezer. She’d never been much of a cook, but cooking for one was even less fun.
Mia didn’t miss Kristin, but she did miss having someone at home with her. She missed sitting across the table from someone, sharing a meal and talking about their day. She’d never lived alone before, having shared an apartment with roommates during college before she moved in with Kristin.
Toward the end of their marriage, she’d dreaded going home after work. Mia had fantasized about having her own place, no one to fight with over what to watch on TV or whose weekend plans took precedence. She’d wanted a bed to herself, and now that she had it…she was lonely.
Maybe that meant it was time to start dating. She wasn’t ready for anything serious yet. She’d only been divorced for eight months. But as she sat alone at her kitchen table with a microwaved meal in front of her, she acknowledged that it might be nice—exciting, even—to go on a date. Surely there were other single women her age out there.
For now, all Mia wanted was a fun night on the town with a woman whose company she enjoyed. Maybe a night of casual sex, although it had been such a long time since she’d had casual sex, she could hardly imagine it now. God, what did dating even look like these days? Would she have to use an app on her phone?
Lola sat at her feet and meowed, reminding Mia that she hadn’t fed her yet. As Mia left her own meal on the table to fetch a can of food for her cat, she decided it was time to get herself on a date before she turned into a cat lady. She unlocked her phone as she ate and typed “dating app” into the search bar.
