Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

Cameron

DAD WALKING OUT was bad. Mom dating her is so, so much worse.

I don’t make it two steps into the café before there’s an arm around my shoulders and a shrill voice in my ears.

“Hey, bro.”

I shove the man trying to tackle me to the floor away. Not gently.

“I am not your brother.”

Julian dances away and puts his hands up, but that shit-eating grin of his suggests he’s not sorry at all. “My bad. Step-brother?”

My nostrils flare. I ball my hands into fists. My teeth grind together too hard for me to squeeze a word out between them.

Ever since our moms started dating, Julian hasn’t let me enjoy a single moment of peace. He was annoying in high school; he’s at least twice as annoying now that we’re at the same university. Couldn’t he have enrolled anywhere else? Why oh why did he have to choose City University of Montridge? This dude infests every second of my life. Our moms are constantly together. We see each other around campus. And we both work here at the Boyfriend Café. The one thing I hoped to leave behind when I moved out to go to college is stuck to me like dog shit on the soles of my shoes.

But I’ll never tell Mom a word of this. When Dad up and left out of the blue, it almost broke her. It almost broke me too. I was thinking about my high school graduation. Then I arrived home one day to find my mother weeping on the couch. He’d simply packed up his stuff and left, abandoning both of us. He was never the warmest father, but his abrupt departure was a level of assholery I never suspected of him.

I did my best to help Mom pick up the pieces. I got a job so I could help with bills. I very nearly dropped out of school — college isn’t cheap — but Mom insisted I go get my degree and said we’d figure it out. I’m working just about as much as I can while I try to get a music degree. I don’t know what good that degree will do us, but it’s the only thing I’ve ever been any good at, so I don’t have much choice.

All of this would be so much more bearable if he wasn’t here.

“Hey, we match,” Julian says.

“We absolutely do not match,” I grumble.

“We totally match. We’re like twins. How cute!”

I grind my teeth. We couldn’t look much more different if we tried. I have dark hair that I like to keep tidy and even darker eyes, while Julian is all blond mop and glittering blue eyes and flashy smiles. He’s also a hell of a lot paler than me. Sure, we’re both wearing gray vests and blue ties for work today, but that is where the similarities begin and end.

“Come on, admit it,” Julian says. “You were thinking of my dazzling eyes when you chose that tie. That’s why we picked the same color. It’s brother telepathy.”

I roll my eyes almost to the back of my skull. “I don’t make a habit of thinking about your eyes.”

“Cam, I’m wounded!” Julian blinks at me like I could ever actually be charmed by him.

“Good,” I drawl.

I extract myself from the conversation as swiftly as I can, heading to the back of the café to make myself tea and get ready for my shift. Our co-worker Henry, who’s one year younger than us, is back there making his own tea. Our resident ray of sunshine smiles when he sees me, but the expression falters once he gets a closer look at my face.

“Are you okay?”

Julian is back on me, his arm around my shoulders. “Big bro is feeling grumpy today. Didn’t get enough sleep? Up all night with a hot date? Come on, you can confide in me.”

I shove Julian off of me nearly hard enough to send him into the tea supplies. “I am not your brother.”

“But you could be if our moms get married.”

I close my eyes and take deep breaths. It’s only four years. And we’ve already completed one, so it’s only three years. Three years. Then I can get out of here. Mom and I are all we have, and I’ll do anything I have to to take care of us — even tolerate Julian Brooks.

“HEY, CAMERON.”

Part of me wants to flinch at that greeting, even five years and three thousand miles away from my former life in New Jersey.

“Hey, Henry,” I say as my former Boyfriend Café co-worker strides into the new café where we both work.

Henry got me this job when I reached out to him more than a little desperate. It’s a solid gig. Take care of the cats. Make some coffee. Be nice to customers. Henry said they really needed the help when they hired me. I get pretty much as many shifts as I want, which has improved my finances dramatically.

It hasn’t been easy moving all the way out to the West Coast, but Mom and I both wanted it. After her relationship with Julian’s mom broke up, there wasn’t much to keep us in New Jersey. Plus, Mom has some relatives out here, cousins and stuff that I never knew until we moved. They’re nice enough, and it’s good having family around. It doesn’t feel like we’re completely on our own anymore. I even have my own apartment these days. It’s nothing extravagant, but I have to admit, it’s nice having my own space. Being a twenty-seven-year-old man living with his mother wasn’t the most appealing possible option. It’s not that I don’t love her, but the guys who flirt with me after my shows aren’t exactly people I want to introduce her to.

Still, Seattle and the surrounding area certainly isn’t cheap. It’s great for music and culture, but not for affordability. I live north of the city, between Seattle itself and Tripp Lake, where Henry’s Rainbow Rescue Cat Café is located. That means a lot of time driving up and down I-5, but for the first time since Dad left, my life is sort of on track, so I can’t complain too much.

A cat butts his head against my ankle. I bend down to scoop up Tux, a big black and white fellow who’s almost too affectionate and sweet. He’ll get adopted out of here way faster than the other rescue cats, and I’ll miss him when he goes, but that’s what we’re here for. We aren’t simply trying to sell coffee. All the cats here are rescues, and part of our mission is finding them good homes.

Henry joins me behind the coffee bar, petting the squirming cat in my arms. I set Tux down on the counter and let him scamper off to his next adventure.

“How’s it been here so far today?” Henry asks.

His red-brown hair is its usual artistic mess. He’s every bit as sunny and sweet as he was in college, just as I’m every bit as irritable and dour. Henry put in a good word for me here regardless, trusting me not to ruin his reputation with my crappy attitude. So far, it’s been a pleasant arrangement. I can slap on a smile for customers, just as I did back in college, and things are better out here than they were in New Jersey. I don’t have to fake it as much when I greet customers in the morning.

For one thing, Julian isn’t here.

As far as I know, he stayed in New Jersey, but I never checked. There’s nothing I want to do less than think about Julian Brooks now that I’m finally free of him.

“Quiet morning,” I reply. “We had our usual coffee rush after I opened, but since then it’s been pretty tame. I guess people don’t want to come out on a rainy day.”

I gesture at the front windows of the shop, where several cats lounge watching rain drops streak down the glass.

“Rain shouldn’t scare away people around here,” Henry says with a sigh. “It’s not even cold yet.”

It’s true. It’s only September, the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the Pacific Northwest’s infamously wet winters. The temperature is still plenty comfortable.

“They’ll come back,” I say. “They’re still processing the shift into fall.”

Henry smiles. “You’re right. Pretty soon, they’ll want their pumpkin spice lattes and cats. How much longer do I have you today?”

I glance at my phone to check the time. “Another hour or so. Then I have to get to a rehearsal. I need to leave before the traffic gets bad.”

“Okay, no problem,” Henry says. “I was hoping to check up on stock before things get busy. Chloe asked me to figure out if we’re low on anything before she puts in the order.”

Chloe is our boss, and she’s a pretty good one at that. She gave me a shot, and she’s pretty hands off. Sometimes she’ll pop in at the café, but she trusts us all to do our thing. She doesn’t come around simply to breathe down our necks.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ve got you covered.”

I wave at the nearly empty café, and Henry hurries off toward the backroom. I stay at the coffee bar, where Tux is lounging on the counter. I stroke his soft black fur. I even dare to touch the white spot on his belly that we named him for. He endures my attention patiently, flopping onto his back so I can give him belly rubs and rumbling like a jet engine.

If only people were as easy to deal with as Tux and the other cats. My whole life has been a series of disappointments when it comes to humans. First, my dad bailed on Mom and I without a word. Then, Julian made my college years a living hell. They were hardly the only people to let me down, but they’re definitely the top of the list. I haven’t seen my father even once since he left. He hasn’t reached out, hasn’t called, hasn’t emailed, hasn’t sent a birthday card. Nothing. He was in my life for seventeen years, then he vanished like he never had a son in the first place.

It wasn’t because I’m gay. I might be carrying around some baggage, but that is not among the luggage weighing me down. My parents both knew, and it never made a difference. In fact, how little it affected my father when I came out should have been my first clue that he was checked out. He didn’t really react at all. Why should he? He didn’t care. He probably already knew he was leaving by then.

I shake my head. Tux is getting irritable because of the way my hand has gone still on his belly. I resume my petting duties, trying to push depressing memories out of my head. It’s hard, even with this much time and distance between me and the event that upended my life in high school. Mom and I are finally building something happy and secure for ourselves. Moving out here was great for both of us, even if it has proven difficult financially. But we’re getting by. We will get by. We have help out here. Her cousins, Henry at the café, my bandmates. We aren’t trying to do this alone anymore.

And, most importantly of all, Julian Brooks and his mother are completely, totally, finally out of our lives.

I cannot be farther from Julian than I am now. I have no contact with him whatsoever. I haven’t seen him since we graduated from our university and he insisted on hugging his “big bro” goodbye at the ceremony. Life is a little rocky financially, but that’s a small price to pay to escape Julian Brooks.

If fate is kind, I will never see him again.