Stray for You (Rainbow Rescue Cat Café #3)

Chapter 31

Chapter Thirty-One

Cameron

I FLING CLOTHING FRANTICALLY out of my closet and onto the bedroom floor. Why the hell do I own so many hoodies? It’s probably a consequence of living in Seattle, hoodie capital of the world, but that doesn’t excuse the truly excessive amount of the things piling up on my floor.

I stand back to observe my handiwork. Along with the pile of hoodies, I’ve amassed a collection of T-shirts and a couple pairs of pants that can all go to the Goodwill. Plus, I found enough socks with holes in them that I could combine the remaining socks with my underwear and free up a whole drawer in my IKEA stand. Even with all that, I haven’t cleared out all that much space. I still claim the majority of the shelf, but Julian assured me he’s not worried about it.

“We’ll buy a second one,” he said on the phone a couple days ago.

“I don’t think they make them anymore,” I said.

“What? Why not? Everyone loves those things.”

“I don’t know. Contact IKEA management, I guess. I’m just saying—”

“It’s going to be fine, Cam. Relax. It’s just some clothes.”

I can hear that soothing tone even now. It’s the tone he’s been using with me for weeks. While I’ve run around anxiously preparing, he’s seemed nothing but calm and cool about the prospect of moving himself across the country. He didn’t bat an eye at any of it — the distance, the downsizing from his apartment in Manhattan, the prospect of finding a new job out here. None of it fazed him. He kept saying that it’ll be worth it when he gets to be with me.

My heart does a weird flippy thing every time those words echo in my head in his voice. He’s uprooting his whole life for me, and I’d be lying if I said that didn’t freak me out. What if it isn’t worth it? What if something happens? What if it all falls apart the moment we’re crammed into my little apartment together?

I look around the bedroom. Julian already has some things he keeps here. In the months since his first visit out here, he’s come back a couple times, always bringing whatever he could. We went out and got a bookshelf for the bedroom, and his favorite mystery novels sit neatly on the shelves. We also got a second nightstand for the other side of the bed, and the bathroom connected to my room is full of his toiletries. The guy has an insane personal hygiene and skincare routine that he’s threatening to impose on me.

A knock sounds at the door. I yelp, but thankfully no one is here to hear me. Well, almost no one.

Tux butts his head against my ankles. I scoop up the little guy, hugging him to my chest for comfort as I head toward the door. He was Julian’s idea too. As soon as he heard about how the cat follows me around the café and won’t tolerate anyone else, he insisted that we adopt him.

“You’re his person, Cam!” he said, and part of me suspected he wasn’t only talking about the cat.

Either way, my apartment has rapidly gone from a solitary abode to a packed home where I’m going to live with my cat and my … my boyfriend. Julian Brooks, my boyfriend.

The words make my head light, but when I open my door, there he is, bags in tow, and this all gets very, very real. He hugs me, ignoring Tux’s struggling when the cat gets sandwiched between us. His mother follows him in, carrying a few bags of her own. Together, the three of us make several trips between my apartment and Julian’s car parked on the street below, carrying up all the worldly possessions he could cram into a Honda Civic. His mother drove it out here with him. The two of them decided that a five-day roadtrip was the perfect way to spend some time together before Julian lived three thousand miles from her. I got a lot of pictures from their travels: deep dish pizza in Chicago, the scorched landscape of the Badlands, and, of course, the riotous junk of Wall Drug. All the classics for a cross-country road trip.

Eventually, the three of us sit among bags and boxes containing Julian’s things and a large pizza. We didn’t even bother with plates, simply set the pizza on the coffee table and started digging in ravenously. Tux yowls for a bite, and we have to fend off his desire for cheese while we attempt to stuff ourselves.

It’s only noon when we finish the pizza, so we set in on the boxes and bags, trying to get things organized. My heaps of Goodwill donations and socks destined for the trash don’t help matters, but eventually we manage to find a sorting system that works.

My mother even shows up at some point to help with the organizing. At first, I wasn’t thrilled with that part of the plan. Would it be weird to have her and Miss Brooks in the same room at the same time after all of these years? But Julian assured me it was not only for the best, but a potential step on my own road to recovering from my past.

“You need to see that everyone is okay,” he said. “You need to experience it for yourself. I know you, Cam. It’s the only way you’ll believe it.”

Turns out he was right. I did need to see and experience it for myself. The moment my mother arrives, she hugs Miss Brooks like it’s no big deal at all. She claims a bit of leftover pizza that none of us want after our feast, and soon we’re all working on combining my and Julian’s lives. His books go on the shelves. His clothes go into the IKEA shelf. His additional toiletries find homes on the shelves and in the cabinets in the bathroom. My mom and Miss Brooks help break down some of the cardboard boxes toward the end, when we start getting into possessions two grown men might not want their mothers seeing. I can hear them chatting in the living room while Julian and I work.

It’s the first time all day that things truly slow down. We’ve all been at this for hours and hours. In the depth of Seattle’s fall, the sun is sinking toward the horizon.

Julian pauses me while I’m scowling at a device I can only guess the use of. He takes my hands, clasping them in his while we sit on the floor of my bedroom with our joyous mess scattered all around us.

“I told you it would be okay, right?” he says.

“What?”

“Listen.”

I do, and for the first time I notice that my mom and Miss Brooks are out in the living room chatting like old friends. I mean, I suppose they are old friends, but they’re also far more than that. You wouldn’t know it by listening to them though. If there is any lingering hurt there, neither of them display an ounce of it.

My shoulders slide away from my ears. I didn’t even realize I was hunching.

“I don’t think we’re going to see much of them after today,” Julian says. “It sounds like they have a lot of catching up to do.”

I manage to smile, which is not something I thought I would do in this circumstance. I never imagined having Julian and his mom so intimately entangled in my life could be such a joyful thing, yet here we all are.

“I guess they do,” I say. “But so do we.”

I don’t disguise my intentions at all, and Julian smiles crookedly at me.

“Yeah, we really, really do,” he says. “You have no idea.”

I imagine I have some idea. We haven’t really had time for more than painfully fleeting visits since that first week we spent together in this apartment. Julian had a lot to do to prepare for a cross-country move. Even I had a lot to do to prepare for it. Plus, I adopted Tux in the meantime. My whole life has been changing in dramatic ways, which, as it turns out, is a pretty freaking exhausting process. With both of us running around trying to make this work, we haven’t had a moment to sit down and be together.

That changes tonight.

Suddenly, I can’t wait for our mothers to get out of here, but I’m not going to rush them. Miss Brooks came all this way to help us out with the move. And my mom has better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than break down cardboard boxes.

Still, it’s a little nerve-racking trying to wait out the natural conclusion of all the unpacking. Julian and I rejoin our mothers in the living room and sort out the recyclables from the trash. It takes a couple trips to get all of it down to the dumpsters in the parking garage.

When we manage it, we stand in my suddenly quiet yet full apartment, surveying the space. It has changed radically in the course of this single day. I can barely recognize the place. Tux is winding between my ankles, asking for comfort now that his home has shifted around him. This time, it’s Julian who scoops him up and nuzzles him.

“Well, I suppose that’s everything,” Miss Brooks says. She glances at her phone. “It’s only four, but personally, I’m exhausted. And kind of starving.”

“It’s seven back home,” Julian points out.

“That would explain the starving.”

“You know, there’s a really good Indian place right down the street,” Mom says.

“That sounds heavenly,” Miss Brooks says. “You boys hungry?”

I am a little, but I shake my head. I can tell Julian is thinking the same thing I am because he shakes his head as well.

“Right, well, you probably want a few minutes to yourselves,” Miss Brooks says. “But don’t forget brunch tomorrow, Jules. You promised me.”

“Of course, Mom,” he says. “I wouldn’t. I just need a breather.”

She nods, but sweeps him into a crushing hug. Tux gets trapped between them, but doesn’t seem to mind the attention. Then Miss Brooks leaves my apartment to get dinner with my mom.

God, this is a weird day.

Once they leave, Julian and I collapse on the couch. Tux skitters away, fed up with human attention for the day. I can’t blame him. It’s been a whirlwind. I’m tired down to my bones and immensely grateful to have a space of quiet filled only by Julian’s presence.

He takes my hand while we sit on the couch, leaning into me to rest his head on my shoulder. I stroke his hair while we enjoy the quiet. I could throw on that detective show we’ve been working our way through, but I think right now we both want nothing but each other. No other sounds. No other people. Just us in our new life in my apartment.

It still gives me vertigo to realize this is real.

Julian sighs as he sits up. “I feel gross from being in the car. I’m going to take a quick shower.”

I don’t want to let him go, but I do. I nearly fall asleep on the couch while he’s gone, only opening my eyes again when I hear him returning from the bathroom.

“Hey, Cam.”

I blink, and find him standing in the bedroom doorway in nothing but a towel. Not unlike the way I approached him a few months ago.

“Let’s head to bed, Cam,” he says.

Meaning strikes my brain like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, all my exhaustion evaporates, and I lurch to my feet.