Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

Cameron

JULIAN ISN’T WEARING A suit this time. A plain black jacket hangs open around a T-shirt with a movie poster on it. It’s casual, accidental. His hair falls naturally around his face rather than lying swept back and glued in place with hair products. The faintest hint of golden stubble roughens his jaw.

“You look nice,” I say when I approach him on the street.

A look of genuine surprise opens Julian’s face. “Thanks?”

“Is that a question?”

“Kind of,” he says. “I mean, this is just whatever’s left over in my suitcase. You’ve seen me all done up for work and jeans and a T-shirt is what earns a compliment?”

“You look more normal this way,” I say.

“I’m not normal when I’m working?”

“Not really. You’re … you’re trying too hard. You’re doing that performing thing you do. But like this, I don’t know, you seem more like a person.”

For some reason, this explanation spreads a smile across Julian’s face. He actually glances down at his feet for a moment, uncharacteristically shy before he collects himself and looks back up at me.

“Come on,” he says. “It’s right in here.”

He looks like he might take my hand but thinks better of it at the last moment. He leads me into a storefront that’s painted black and says “UNDERGROUND TOUR” in big gold letters. Part of me can’t believe I’m actually doing this. It’s one of those touristy Seattle things that people who live here often skip. It’s even located near all the tourist stuff that people flood every time a cruise ship pulls into the port.

A small group of us shuffle our feet and wait awkwardly for the tour. Julian smiles over at me, standing close enough that our fingers could brush together if he so much as flinched. But again he doesn’t take my hand, and again I feel like he kind of wants to.

The tour takes us, predictably, underground. They aren’t lying about that part of it. We descend below the bustling city, into dank tunnels lit gracelessly with harsh modern lights. We often have to stick to designated walkways. The stuff down here truly is old, as our tour guide informs us. For some reason there are a lot of toilets. One is intricately painted and sits on a little pedestal.

Thankfully, not all of the architectural flourishes belong in a bathroom. We pass brick archways and head down stone tunnels, glimpse drawings of old Seattle and examine antique devices. It’s half museum and half history lesson, with the tour guide giving us deep dives into everything around us.

“This is kind of amazing,” I admit as we take in framed black and white photographs of Seattle while it was being built.

“You like it?” Julian says.

He’s smiling at me, all those perfect white teeth on display. Does me enjoying a silly tour really make him that happy? It seems strange, yet he hasn’t stopped grinning this whole time.

“Yeah, I do,” I say. “Thanks for suggesting it. I don’t think I would have done it on my own.”

“Really? But you live around here.”

“Yeah, but you never do the tourist stuff in the place where you live. It would have been easy to miss this.”

“I guess that’s true. I’ve never gone up the Empire State Building even though I pass it five days a week.”

“Maybe you should sometime,” I say.

“Have you gone up the Space Needle?” he counters.

“No, but that’s not nearly as tall, and half the time it’s cloudy and you can’t even see anything.”

“Whatever,” Julian says with a playful roll of his eyes. “My point stands. How about this — I’ll do the Empire State Building when I go home and you’ll do the Space Needle. We’ll send each other pictures from the top.”

My stomach clenches around the suggestion. I assumed that once he went home that would be it for this strange reunion. We’d go back to silence. I could be done with all this confusion and mess in my mind and forget about him. Yet the moment Julian insinuates that we’ll keep chatting even after he leaves, some piece of me wants to agree.

“We’ll see,” I say noncommittally.

He lets it drop as the tour continues. We stop under a grate that looks up at the city above our heads and the tour guide explains how Seattle’s city planning unfolded over the years. I barely hear her, my ears full of static as I replay that interaction back in front of the black and white photos. Can I let this continue? I should have shot him down, made it clear that this ends tonight. I agreed to go on this tour, but afterward, I have every intention of saying goodbye and going home.

At least, that’s what I’ve been telling myself. Yet I didn’t park on the street this time. I parked in a garage, somewhere I could safely leave my car overnight if I had to. At the time, I rationalized it as parking in the closest, most convenient location, even if it costs a little extra, but my excuses are starting to sound hollow even to myself.

I miss the tour guide’s explanation, following the group in a daze. I hope I look interested when we stop in front of some ancient bit of machinery I can’t identify. My head is whirling, but Julian seems calm beside me. If he has any expectations for how this night might go, he’s masking them incredibly well. I suppose that’s what he does, though. That’s why he’s here. Because he’s good at charming people, at luring them in, at showing them only what he means for them to see. Am I another sucker roped in by his games? Is this an elaborate trick like when he touched my knee and leaned in like he wanted to kiss me back in college? I don’t know what he stands to gain by interfering in my life anymore. Maybe it’s fun for him. It’s always seemed fun for him.

My uncharitable appraisal sits in my stomach like a stone, dragging me down, but as I watch Julian delight in every bit of trivia, every weird gadget and strange photo, I struggle to truly believe my own pessimism. I’m not good at people like he is, but this Julian, the guy in jeans and a T-shirt who invited me on a cute tour, doesn’t feel like a guy hiding some sinister alternative motivation.

God, I hope I’m right about that.

The tour ends in a gift shop. Julian is entranced by all of it, every silly little trinket and corny T-shirt and cheap piece of junk. I humor him, tagging along. Am I doing this to hang around him longer? The tour is over. We could eat. We could go our separate ways. The thing I came here for is done. There’s no reason to hang around except … except wanting to. Do I want to?

“Hey, you alright?” Julian asks.

I blink. A rotating stand of keychains greets me when I come back to the world. I finger one idly, not really caring what it is.

“I’m fine,” I say. “It was a long tour.”

“Over an hour,” Julian agrees, “but it was really good. Thank you for doing this with me, Cam. It was nice.”

I don’t dare look at him, not when there’s so much sincerity in his voice. “It was,” I say.

“Do you like that one?” he says, nodding at the keychain stand. “You keep going back to it.”

In truth, I didn’t even notice which keychain I was fondling. It’s a miniature Space Needle with “SEATTLE” written across the base. It’s the sort of thing you buy if you’re a visitor to the city and want a cheap memento of your trip. I’d die from shame if I had something like this hanging on my keychain.

“It’s fine,” I say.

Julian reaches past me to snatch it. His arm brushes against me as he moves, and electricity prickles my skin even through our shirts and jackets. As soon as he has the keychain in hand, he makes for the checkout counter.

I catch him in the line before the counter. “What are you doing?”

“Buying this for you,” he says simply.

“I don’t need a keychain of my own city.”

“Sure, but this way you won’t forget our deal. I’ll get myself an Empire State Building when I get home.”

He winks at me, like this is some hilarious, marvelous joke we share and not the corniest promise of all time. Yet I don’t stop him from buying the trinket, and when he hands it to me, I put it immediately on my keychain. I hold the whole thing up for him.

“Happy?” I ask.

“Yes, actually. Now you’ll have to remember me even after I leave.”

Normally, this would land like a joke. He would wield his words to jab at how much I don’t intend to remember or miss him. But the laughter is missing from his tone, and when he meets my eyes, something desperate lingers behind them.

This can’t be real. It simply can’t be real. This guy has been messing with me since high school. He hit on me in front of our moms simply to upset me. His interest wasn’t even sincere the one time we mistakenly hooked up here. He just likes to get a rise out of me, whether that’s by calling me his brother or, well, actually getting a physical rise out of me. It’s all one big game for Julian, and it always has been.

But I’m struggling to figure out what his angle is tonight. The tour was nice. The gift is cute in a dorky way. That look he levels at me lacks even a twinge of mockery or mirth. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Julian was being sincere.

When we leave the gift shop, a hazy gray mist has begun to fall. It’s not enough to do more than dampen the sidewalk and our exposed faces. Without a word, Julian and I start walking the same direction, which happens to be the direction of his hotel.

“I parked in a garage up the street,” I eventually offer by way of explanation.

“Oh, I see. Do you want me to pay for it? My company wouldn’t notice.”

I wave his words away. “It’s under two hours. It won’t be bad.”

“Right, yeah.”

His words droop like rain-drenched leaves. He hoped I’d say something different, I’m sure, but he doesn’t push, doesn’t comment on it.

My throat is tight when we reach the garage. I halt, and Julian stops a step past me, eyes a bit wider than normal as he takes in the concrete structure that marks the end of our strange reunion. He opens his mouth, closes it, shakes his head at himself.

Is this really the Julian I’ve known all my life? If he wants something, why isn’t he spinning some slimy, slick line? Why isn’t he goading me until I give in? Why is he just standing there ?

Why do I want to fix this?

“Are you going to invite me up?” I grumble.

His eyes brighten like they’re the only thing in this gray city that the sun can actually reach. He straightens, a smile flickering over his lips.

“I wasn’t sure if you wanted me to,” he says.

“Christ,” I mutter, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Just do it quickly before I change my mind.”

His grin is all teeth. “Cam, do you want to come up?”

I heave a sigh. The answer should be no, but I started this mess, so I suppose I should finish it. It’s only one more night, anyway. Then this ends once and for all, stupidly charming keychain promise or not.

“Let’s go already.”