Best Laid Plans (Garnet Run 2)

“That’s what it is,” Charlie insisted. “You’re a part of the community so the shelter is a community business. People want to know what’s going on in the community.”

Rye had his doubts, but Charlie’s big mouth began paying dividends almost immediately. Marie, it turned out, had once worked for a nonprofit arts organization in Cheyenne and offered to help Rye apply for grant money to fund the shelter.

Simon’s grandmother, Jean, volunteered to do some landscaping in the front of the shelter—”To give it that established, been-here-forever look!” she explained. She also offered to experiment with recipes for gourmet cat biscuits that Rye could sell when the shelter opened. Simon had encouraged him to take her up on it since she wanted to help in some way but was extremely allergic to animals.

Mike at the bank turned out to be invaluable in helping them do whatever legal zoning blah blah boring was required to have the space be both residential and a nonprofit, and pointed them toward his accountant uncle who helped them set up their nonprofit status and do something that Rye didn’t understand or care about but which Charlie assured him would help come tax season.

The next step was to raise the money they’d need to buy equipment, food, toys, litter, and everything else for the cats.

When Jack and Simon came for dinner that weekend, they all sat sprawled around the living room, brainstorming. Marmot took advantage of the preponderance of laps suddenly available to her and prowled from person to person, seeing whom she preferred.

The expression on Simon’s face when she finally plopped down on his lap and curled up was tender satisfaction, and the look on Jack’s face watching Simon was as mushy as Rye felt watching Charlie.

They batted ideas back and forth. A GoFundMe seemed like the most basic first step. Jack had done them before and offered to take point on it. Simon offered to design a website for the shelter so that any donor could click over to the site from the fundraiser and see what they were supporting. He also put the creation of social media accounts and graphics, and a logo for the shelter on his own list.

“The only thing I still need to make the logo and sites is the name of the shelter,” Simon said.

Jack had thus far insisted on referring to it as The Cat House when discussing it, even though Simon had pointed out to him that cathouse had another meaning.

“Uh, Paw’s Place,” Jack threw out. “Wagging Way.”

“Wagging is more dogs,” Simon said. “And Paw’s Place sounds like an apostrophe nightmare. Is it one single paw’s place? A place for all the paws?”

“The Hopping Home,” Jack said, rolling onto his back and addressing the ceiling.

“Sounds like somewhere dying bunnies go to cross into the next dimension,” Rye said.

Charlie snickered. “Aren’t you supposed to be good at naming things, bro?”

“Hey, books are different,” Jack said with a faux pout.

They batted names back and forth for a while, each one worse than the last, until Simon got bored and suggested that they do a fundraising auction. They could ask local individuals and businesses to donate something to auction off with all funds to go to the shelter.

“We can tell business owners that we’ll list them on the website if they donate something to the auction—or if they just want to make a direct donation,” Simon explained. “And it will help them gain visibility to new clients and goodwill with the community. I can donate a website redesign.”

“I’ll donate some copies of my books, if you want?”

“Thank you both. Seriously,” Rye said. “Um, this asking people for donations thing sounds like a Charlie job?” Rye said, looking at Charlie hopefully.

“Sure,” Charlie said, and squeezed his hand.

“Soooo,” Jack said, eyes on their hands. “How’s it going? You two, I mean.”

Rye scowled at Jack but Charlie just smiled.

“Going real good,” he said. “Real good.”

* * *

And it was. At least, it felt good to Rye. The last few weeks had been the happiest of his life. Being with Charlie had already felt good. Having something to work on together, though—something that Rye felt could actually make a difference—had made it so much better.

Now he was here because he was Charlie’s partner. They shared chores and expenses and dreams for the future. They shared a bed and showers and a plate sometimes, if Rye was too sleepy to get up and get his own.

They collaborated like a dream, Rye good at coming up with ideas of what they could do, and Charlie good at the practical steps of achieving them.

It was all going so well that sometimes Rye caught himself staring at his new life like his brain was trying to figure out how they had gotten here.

Rye was cooking dinner when the text from Simon came through.