Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

Cameron

Six years ago…

“HEY, MOM!”

I resist laying Julian flat out on the floor as he skips into me and Mom’s apartment and greets her with a hug. His mother is only a step behind him. As our mothers embrace, I carefully look away, but that leaves me with a perfect view of the shit-eating grin on Julian’s face.

“Dearest brother, why so glum? It’s family dinner night.”

He slings his arm around my shoulders, but I immediately push him off. This “family dinner” thing was our moms’ idea, which is the only reason I’m not committing violence, but I’m far from sold on this. I don’t need Julian as part of my family. I have a family: My mother. That’s all the family I need. This interloper doesn’t belong in our apartment or our lives. Things are hard enough without him being here.

We gather around the table and do our best to have a normal meal, but how can eating dinner with Julian possibly feel normal?

Mom doesn’t seem to notice that I’m pushing my food around my plate and letting the conversation wash over me. Call it sulking if you must, but I’m not throwing my knife at Julian sitting across from me, so I consider it a feat of self-control.

He’s not even doing anything at the moment. His mere presence annoys me, as it has since we were in high school and I became the target of all his “jokes.” But I will do this for Mom. I’ll do this because she’s holding Miss Brooks’ hand and smiling and looking happier than I’ve seen her in years.

Julian leaps up at the end of the meal to clear off the table. He even does the dishes, and Mom shoots me a little smile. She knows I don’t exactly get along with him, but I do my best to smile back before retreating to my room. It’s the only safe place away from Julian in this apartment, and I don’t want to ruin this night for Mom by being pissed off.

Naturally, Julian eventually follows me.

I’m lying on my bed looking at a music book when he struts in, taking in my room like it belongs to him. I sit up, teeth grinding together when I tell him to “get the hell out.”

“Relax,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “Our moms are busy being cute. They need some space. Where else am I gonna go?”

“Home,” I suggest.

He ignores me, flopping onto my bed beside me. His blond hair fans out around him as he lies there looking at the posters I tacked to the ceiling.

“Why there?” he says.

“What?”

“Why’d you put your stuff on the ceiling instead of the walls? Kind of hard to see it this way.”

I’m crushing the music book in my hands. I stare at the carpet between my feet instead of looking at him. “So I see it before I fall asleep.”

I hear him sit up beside me. “Seriously?”

“Why would I bother lying?”

“Damn,” he says. “That’s some kind of hardcore genius stuff.”

“The hell are you talking about?”

When I glance over, Julian is smiling at me, and it’s not as unpleasant as it should be. “Geniuses are always weird about their genius thing, you know? Tesla barely slept. Einstein hated socks. Marie Curie had a radioactive night light.”

“None of that is true, is it?”

“Who knows?” Julian shrugs. “But this is your genius thing.” He waves at the posters on the ceiling. “Falling asleep thinking about your heroes.”

I don’t know what to say to all this, so instead I keep quiet and look back down at the floor. Julian shuffles a little closer, close enough for our thighs to meet.

“I’m gonna have a genius brother soon,” Julian says.

The knee-jerk “I’m not your brother” response springs to my tongue, but I never get it out. Julian’s hand lands on my thigh. He squeezes, and I look up to find his face way too close to mine. Those pretty blue eyes fill my vision, but for once they’re not laughing. They’re deadly serious.

My lips part around a gasp of surprise. Julian leans in. I have half a heartbeat before this starts becoming something way, way different than our usual bickering—

And that’s when someone knocks on my bedroom door.

I shove Julian so hard he falls off the edge of the bed with a thump. My heart jolts back to life, pounding so hard I can feel it my throat.

“What the fuck?” I snarl at him.

“Cameron?”

My mother stands in the doorway, her face ashen. Julian’s mom is only a step behind her, and she takes in the scene — my face flushed with rage, Julian on the floor, the crumpled music book — and her expression hardens.

Just like that, this happy family dinner crumbles between my fingers.

“We should get going,” Miss Brooks says.

Mom looks devastated before she can stop herself. “We haven’t had dessert.”

Miss Brooks leans over to kiss her. “Let’s save it for next time, okay?”

But there never is a next time. There never is another attempt at bringing both families together. Mom and Miss Brooks see each other less after that, growing more and more distant until the relationship finally ends. I ask Mom once if it’s because of what happened that night, if it’s because they found their sons about to make out, but Mom always denies it.

I don’t buy it. Julian crossed the line that night. Our moms were trying to find some happiness, and of course he had to go and make it about himself. Of course he had to put all of us in an untenable situation. He took my mother’s happiness away that night, squandered it in service of his own selfishness. And I’ve never forgiven him since.

BUT I HAVE SLEPT with him.

The memory sticks to me like gum on the bottom of my shoe all day. I leave his hotel first thing in the morning and go home to shower and collect myself, but when I get to the café in the afternoon, I’m still thinking about it.

My co-worker Sebastian is at the café when I arrive. We have a small overlap in shifts. He’s bouncing around behind the counter, dancing to whatever pop song is playing in the café. He’s way too chipper for my liking when my own life is such a conflicted, confusing mess, but he’s also a professional dancer, so coming in to find him skipping around the café isn’t all that unusual. His long ponytail sways as he sweeps while bopping his hips.

I take my place behind the coffee bar and check on supplies and stuff before the shift begins. Tux is in his usual spot on the stool behind me, purring away at the sight of me. I pet him, and when I turn around, Sebastian is leaning on the counter, his ponytail spilling over his shoulder.

“I think I got everything. You good to take over?” he asks.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” I say.

He reaches over the counter to ruffle my already messy hair. “Look at you, soaring on your own.”

I would complain, but he trained me for this job, so he knows of all my little stumbles while I was learning. I thought Henry might train me since I knew him from college, but my shifts aligned better with Sebastian’s. It worked out fine. With him being a dancer and me being a guitarist, we have music in common, and that point of connection helped me settle in even if our personalities are so disparate.

Sebastian checks his phone. “Shit. I’ve been here too long. I want to make it home before Luke and get a couple things ready.”

He winks at me, and I roll my eyes. His boyfriend Luke would be mortified to have personal details come up at the café. The two of them couldn’t be much more different, but apparently it’s working because ever since they got together a few months back Sebastian has been relentlessly happy.

I see him off. He leaves the café and nearly skips down the street. He waves as he passes the windows, and I give him a curt wave in return, but it’s a bit of a relief to have the café to myself.

At least, it is until the silence hits me.

We change shifts at this time of day because it’s usually quiet. There’s all of one customer here and the cats are mostly sleeping. So almost the moment Sebastian leaves, I have little to do but replay last night. I scrub the coffee machine and recheck the supplies to try to take my mind off it, but it’s difficult when I was in Julian’s hotel room kissing him goodbye mere hours ago.

Kissing him goodbye. Jesus, what came over me? Why did I allow a thing like that? He was just so … nice at dinner. It was normal. If we didn’t have the history we have, it would have been a nice date followed by a fun night. But we do have our history, and that knowledge weighs on my mind, muddying what should be a pleasant memory.

I make the mistake of checking my phone. I thought Julian would be busy with his sales guy stuff today, but I have several texts from him.

Good morning.

Okay, good afternoon, I guess.

I’m having my coffee and wondering if you still put too much creamer in yours.

I was on the way to a lunch meeting and saw a sign for an underground tour. Seattle has an underground? How does that even work?

His one-sided conversation rambled on all morning, apparently, but I was too busy driving and getting ready for work to notice it. I type out a response. Yes, I still put creamer in my coffee, but it’s a normal amount. Yes, Seattle has an underground. No, I don’t know anything more about it.

Part of me wonders why I’m responding at all, why I keep giving in to this pull. In New Jersey, I pushed him away easily. It wasn’t even a thought outside of that one weird moment in my bedroom. I told Mom that, too. After that incident, I tried explaining to her that it was all Julian. I didn’t start that shit. I wasn’t into him at all.

I suppose I can’t go on claiming I’m not into him. I pounced on him eagerly enough last night. Surely, it was only physical, though. He’s a good-looking guy; anyone could see that. Since he’s headed home in a few days, it shouldn’t matter how I do or don’t feel about him. He’s hot. We hooked up. The end.

Except I don’t typically spend the whole next day texting with a hookup, and Julian’s messages are still pouring in. The moment I replied, he apparently started typing. I’m getting a slew of updates on how his day is going. It’s as overwhelming as talking to the guy in person, yet here I am standing at the coffee bar diligently reading every message, and even sending back a few of my own.

“Well, look at that. You’re smiling.”

I startle at the voice, nearly dropping my phone, but it’s just my final co-worker, River. He has a yoga mat tucked under his arm. His dyed blue hair sits in a tight bun at the back of his head. He’s not shirtless yet, but if I’ve come to learn anything while working here, it’s that River never stays fully clothed for long. I suspect it’s part of the appeal of his yoga classes. The cats that climb all over his students are fun, but River being topless is an even bigger draw for many of his clients.

“I’m not smiling,” I say. “Do you have a class today?”

“Yup, starts in about half an hour. Thought I’d arrive early and get into my flow.”

“Cool.”

I wait for him to leave, but he lingers at the coffee bar, his slate gray eyes narrowing. There’s something unsettling about those eyes. They’re so pale that they’re downright eerie in certain lighting, and right now they’re boring directly through me.

“Your aura is different today,” River says. He cocks his head to the side. “There’s more yellow than I usually see in you.”

“My aura is fine,” I say.

This is far from the first time River has diagnosed my aura. Usually he proclaims me “black with orange undertones.” I suppose that’s a bad thing, but I wouldn’t know. He’s never declared me “yellow” before.

River shakes his head at me. “Something happened. You’re never yellow, but today it’s like the sun trying to break through stormclouds. Some day you’re going to let it out, man, and everyone will see how creative and kind you are under that cloud you hide yourself behind.”

I’m not going to get out of this by arguing with him about the validity of aura colors, so I hold back a grimace and shrug at him instead.

“I’ll keep it in mind,” I offer.

“I hope you do,” River says. “Namaste.”

With that, he finally wanders off to set up for his class. I would breathe a sigh of relief, but for some reason River’s prognosis sticks with me today. What if he’s right? Not literally, of course, but what if he’s sensing what I’ve been worrying about? What if something has changed with me? What if giving Julian a chance even temporarily is a sign of some deeper malady?

I shouldn’t have slept with him, but if I was going to do it, I at least should have put some distance between us afterward. Staying the night and texting with him today is too … too familiar. And sure, Julian is familiar, I’ve known him for half my life, but everything was simpler when I kept him at arm’s length. Now I know how his lips taste, how softly his sighs of pleasure can brush against my neck, what his cock feels like in my hand. That’s information I never should have learned.

A pang of guilt nearly doubles me over. I lean against the coffee bar and ignore my buzzing phone while I attempt to catch my breath.

Last night felt good. Really good. This morning felt good. But as my everyday life intrudes on those moments of temporary madness, I can’t help wondering how colossal a mistake I’ve made. Julian messed with my life enough when I lived in New Jersey. I should never have given him a chance to do it again three thousand miles and five years away.