Wes’ and Adam’s eyes met, and Adam raised an eyebrow, and after a moment, Wes nodded.
“Okay.”
“Yay!”
* * *
The Dirt Road Cat Shelter had begun its life as a house Rye Janssen inherited from a grandfather he’d never known. Over the course of the last two years, with a lot of help from River and many other residents of Garnet Run, Rye had built it into a first-rate shelter, with a huge social media following, adoption events, and, recently, a line of bespoke cat treats.
The outside of the shelter had retained the cabin shape, but the inside was nothing like one. The entrance was a set of two consecutive doors to keep cats from getting out, because inside, rather than being contained in pens, the cats had free rein of a complex network of cat ramps, tunnels, and obstacles that ran along the upper half of all the walls and led to a back room that was completely openwork metal mesh backed with Plexiglas that looked outside, so the cats had a panoramic view of the trees behind the shelter.
River grinned when they walked through the door, their blue eyes, usually wary, lit up with excitement.
“River!”
Gus ran at them and grabbed them around the waist, and River tweaked Gus’ unruly ponytail.
“Hey, Bug. You wanna see some cats?”
“I wanna see the one that goes backward.”
River smiled.
“Hey, Adam. Hi, Wes.”
Adam hugged River and Wes shook their hand.
There was no one else in the shelter, so River led them to the room full of toys and beds where most of the cats spent their days. Many of them snoozed in puddles of sun. Others batted at toys, scratched the posts in the corners, and tumbled around with one another.
“This is Archimedes,” River said, leading them to a large black cat with long whiskers and owlish yellow eyes.
Gus plopped down beside the cat and peered at it.
“Come here, Archimedes,” River said, and threw a felt fish.
The cat scrambled toward the toy, but did so backward, with its head turned around to watch where it was going. When he got there, he tossed it himself and ran forward. Then got it and ran backward again.
“Whoa!” Gus exclaimed.
Wes leaned close to Adam.
“You really think that cat’s cuter than Bettie?”
To be fair, the cat’s movements had given Adam a bit of an Exorcist vibe, but he still thought it was adorable.
“Yes, because cats.”
“It’s just because certain animals are socially constructed as cute and others as scary,” Wes grumbled.
Adam knew it was true. He made a silent promise to himself that he wouldn’t say anything negative about Wes’ pets again. Even if he was scared of them, it was no reason to rain on Wes’ slimy parade.
River introduced them to some of the other cats and one of them took a liking to Wes. It was a small orange cat named Shirley and it kept pouncing Wes’ legs whenever he walked past.
“You looking to adopt a cat by any chance?” River asked.
Wes scooped Shirley up and looked at her.
“I don’t know if she’d get along with Janice and Banana.”
“His raccoons,” Gus explained to River.
River raised their eyebrows and nodded, the picture of diplomacy.
“Well, if you decide you want a cat, she definitely likes you.”
“I’ll think about it,” Wes said. “Thanks.”
He gave Shirley a pat on her little head and deposited her onto the nearest cat ramp.
Rye and Charlie walked through the front door, waving hello, and Adam had a sneaking suspicion that River might have texted Rye to tell him Wes was here. He narrowed his eyes at Rye, but Rye just winked.
“Hey, Adam,” Charlie said. “And this must be Gus.”
He held his hand out to Gus somberly, and she shook it just the same.
“You’re Daddy’s boss,” she said, sizing him up. And his size was about thirteen times hers.
“That’s right.”
“You should be really nice to him because he’s the best,” Gus instructed Charlie very seriously.
“I will certainly try my hardest,” Charlie pledged.
“This is Wes,” Adam said, before his daughter could negotiate a raise or stock options on his behalf. “Wes, this is Charlie—he owns and runs Matheson’s Hardware—and his partner, Rye, who created this place.”
“Nice to meet you,” Wes said. His voice sounded choked and he immediately retreated to the cat playroom. Gus and River followed, leaving Rye to grin at Adam and bump his shoulder, and Charlie to look on benevolently.
“That’s him, huh?”
Adam nodded.
Rye opened his mouth to say something, but stopped and regarded Adam. At whatever he saw in Adam’s face, he simply said, “Good for you.”
* * *
Turning back onto Knockbridge Lane, Adam saw a pile of packages on the driveway. He spared a moment of irritation for the delivery person who hadn’t put them on the front stoop, but it was quickly erased when he saw that there were more packages crowding the stoop.
“What the hell?”