Page 75 of Seasons of Love
Slade looked at the photo and laughed aloud.
"Babe, are you telling me that you've been feeding a stray cat all this time?"
"I didn't know she was a stray. She told me her name was Harley."
He laughed again, pulling me toward the bathroom.
"Sounds like you need feeding more urgently than I thought." He sprayed the warm water over me before using my shampoo to wash my hair. "Tell me, how did she tell you her name?"
I rolled my eyes. "I asked her if her name was Ginger, and she seemed offended by it and then she jumped on the bike, so I asked her if her name was Harley, and she meowed."
Okay, now that I said that aloud maybe it sounded a little weird.
He ran the water over my head to wash off the shampoo.
“I guess we’re now the proud parents of a cat named Harley, aren’t we?”
I shrugged. “I guess we are.”
“Oh, Aiden, Aiden, what am I going to do with you?”
I ran my hands over the silver hairs on his chest. “I can give you an idea…or a hundred.”
Slade’s phone ringing in the bedroom put an end to our shower and brought back some of the anxiety that Slade had successfully banished.
29
SLADE
Relief washed through me when James told us he’d successfully deleted all the videos from Richard’s laptop and cloud. We just needed to execute part two of the plan, which unfortunately involved Aiden calling Richard to come over.
Aiden stilled when the intercom buzzed and looked at me like a deer in headlights.
“Hey, you’re gonna be fine. You’ve got this.”
“What if I can’t get his phone?”
I’d pressed the buzzer to let Dick in the door downstairs, so we only had a minute. "Then we'll try again another time. It's unlikely he'll notice all the videos on his cloud are gone, so we have time."
I kissed him and went to hide in the spare room, leaving the door open a crack, so I could overhear them.
Moments later Aiden opened the door.
"Hey, beautiful. So glad to see you finally. You really could have made an effort to get home earlier. I missed you so much."
I clenched my fists until my knuckles were white and I felt my nails bite into my palms. Even the guy's voice was annoying.
Calm down, Slade. We have a plan.
"Nice to see you too, Richard. Please come in."
"You don't look pleased to see me, honey."
I couldn't hear anything for a moment until Aiden replied, "I'm just tired from the trip, that's all."
"Anyway, I spoke to your mom yesterday and she's coming to visit soon. I think it's only wise that I move back in, don't you think?"
"Why?"
