Aaron peered into the window of a cat room with a slight degree of interest while he waited for Keeley to come back with a shelter employee. Most of them were sleeping. How much did cats sleep anyway? He had no idea.
Truthfully, he had never even entertained the idea of getting a pet before he thought it might be away to get Keeley to like him more. What do you even do with them? Before today, he had never so much as petted a cat.
He hated admitting ignorance but he had noticed that Keeley was the type willing to help people out—if he didn"t know something, she would help him with it no matter how begrudgingly. It would be easy to stay in contact with her asking for cat advice over the next several weeks. A perfect excuse.
Keeley"s voice sounded from around the corner. "…he"s never had a cat before and works all day so he"s looking for one that"s relatively calm and independent. Do you have any like that?"
"Oh yes, we have several cats fitting that description," the shelter worker in a lime green Happy Paws tee s.h.i.+rt answered.
"There he is. Aaron!"
Keeley waved him over. He straightened and walked over to them briskly. The shelter worker smiled and gestured for them to follow.
"Tell me more about what you"re looking for," the woman encouraged.
"Um…what she said. I have a demanding job and often work ten hour days but my place feels very empty so I wanted a pet," he improvised. His real reason would sound weird.
"Well you definitely don"t want a super young cat; they tend to have more energy. I have a few laid-back ones I can introduce you to in this room over here."
The shelter worker, whose nametag said Lisa, opened the door to a room with eight cats in it. One was eating but the rest were peacefully snoozing in various locations. Keeley crouched down and petted a large ginger cat sprawled out on the ground.
"That"s Rusty," Lisa said helpfully. "He"s pretty friendly but when he"s not sleeping he"s the more active sort. I think Dinah might be a good fit for you. She"s the one in the cubby hole up top."
They both looked up and saw a gray cat with small white and light orange patches speckled throughout her coat.
"Oh, she"s beautiful!" Keeley exclaimed, standing on tiptoe to get a better look.
"She"s a diluted tortoisesh.e.l.l. She"s six years old and prefers peace and quiet but she can be sweet and cuddly when she feels like it. Dinah would make an excellent companion."
She dropped back down after peering into the cubby. "Do you think she would let me hold her?"
Lisa nodded. "Just wake her up first by petting her so she"s not too startled."
Keeley gently began talking to the cat as she pet it and Dinah slowly opened her big gray eyes, blinking several times. She gingerly lifted the cat out of the cubby and held her close to her chest.
"She"s purring! Here, you hold her, see if you want this one."
"Hang on—" Aaron protested, not knowing what to do, but Keeley had already placed the cat in his arms and told him how to adjust them so the cat would be more comfortable.
The cat tilted its head back and stared at him before shutting her eyes and beginning to purr.
Keeley stood with her hands on her hips, a disbelieving little smile on her face. "What do you know; I think she actually likes you."
"Is that so surprising?"
She shrugged. "Never in a million years would I have seen you as the kind of person an animal would snuggle up to."
"Why must you always insult me?" he asked frostily. Keeley seemed determined to think the worst of him in any situation.
"Come on, does the truth always have to be insulting? Don"t tell me I"m the only one who was surprised you wanted a cat."
She wasn"t. Cameron would laugh his head off if he could see his boss now. Aiden probably would too even though this was partially his idea.
"…my subordinate was surprised as well."
"You actually talk with your subordinates?" There was that same insulting tone of disbelief.
Aaron was slightly annoyed. "I"ll have you know, this is the friend who told me about this place."
Her eyes widened. "You"re friends with someone who works for you?!"
He was sorely tempted to let out a giant sigh. "Yes, Keeley, believe it or not I do have friends at work. Well, sort of. They would probably consider themselves my friends."
"But you don"t," she said shrewdly.
"They"re annoying a lot of the time," Aaron admitted. "But I do spend a fair amount of time with them so I suppose they count."
Lisa watched them with a perplexed expression. When this couple came in, they seemed like they were on a date but watching them interact now it seemed more and more like the girl didn"t like this guy at all.
She decided to interject before things got more awkward. "So, what do you think of Dinah?"
Aaron nearly forgot there was another person in the room. He cleared his throat. "She will do quite nicely. I"ll take her."
"Excellent!" Lisa exclaimed with a broad smile. "You can go ahead and put her down and follow me to come fill out the paperwork. I"ll send someone back for her in a bit."
Keeley stood off to the side, watching other cats through the windows of different rooms while Aaron filled out the adoption application at the counter. He paid the ridiculously low price of $25 and one of the shelter workers brought Dinah out in a cardboard box covered in air holes that had a handle on the top.
The cat meowed pitifully on the ride back to Aaron"s apartment.
"Poor baby. Molly doesn"t like being in the car either," Keeley said while craning her neck to look at the box. "Are you planning on changing her name or keeping it?"
"Keeping it. I"m not that creative," he confessed.
"Eh, I kept Molly"s name too for consistency. She used to be somebody else"s pet but they left her out on the streets when they moved after owning her for years," she said sourly. "I hate when people abandon their family members out of convenience."
That sounded oddly pa.s.sionate. She did seem to love animals. Abandoned pets might strike a chord with her because of that.
"Yeah, that"s a pretty c.r.a.ppy thing to do."
She let out a small snort before hiding it with a cough. What was that about?
Suddenly her expression grew serious. "Hey, this might just be a whim for you but Dinah is your family now. You can"t abandon her if you find cat owners.h.i.+p isn"t to your liking, got it?"
Aaron scowled. Again with thinking the worst of him. "I wouldn"t do that. I stick to my commitments."
Keeley"s doubt was written all over her face. "Promise me, Aaron. Take care of your cat."
"Okay, I promise! Why do you think I"d abandon it?"
"Because this is really out of the blue for you…I don"t want her to suffer because you change your mind later after saying you"ll take care of her."
She seemed genuinely worried for the cat. Exactly how unreliable did she think he was?
"I won"t," he said flatly. "I take care of my people…and animals, now."
"Alright," Keeley said skeptically before dropping it.
Aaron was disgruntled. Something about that conversation seemed off.
She didn"t know him well enough to automatically jump to the conclusion that he would abandon the cat when he lost interest, did she? Especially since they had been apart so long.