I glanced at Newt, who was smiling knowingly. I shook my head at him, then tweaked his nose. “What are you smiling at?” I asked.
“Nothin’,” he said with a grin.
“Really?” I asked, sending him a fake frown.
“He almost said a bad word,” Newt whispered.
“But he didn’t,” I said. I saw Nolan was watching us both with a hidden smile.
“If he does, I know how you can punish him,” Newt said, lowering his voice.
“Oh yeah, how?”
He made a big deal of curling his finger toward me. I leaned across the barrier and let him whisper his idea into my ear and automatically laughed. God, I just loved this kid.
“Oh no, what?” Nolan asked, his eyes going wide. “You gotta tell me,” he said to Newt. “So I can make sure I don’t say one.”
Newt eyed me, and I nodded. It was Nolan’s turn to get a finger crooked at him. When he heard his potential punishment, he let out a dramatic sigh and clutched his hands over his heart. “No, you can’t take away the pedicure!” he said to Newt. “Dallas will never let me hear the end of it!”
My brother laughed and said, “Okay, you gotta be good then.”
“I will, I swear it,” Nolan vowed as he put up his hand like he was making a Boy Scout pledge.
“Excuse me,” the woman holding the kitten Newt had given her said as she knelt down next to us. “Is Mater a good cuddler?”
“Okay, Cat Whisperer, you’re on,” Nolan said to Newt.
Newt winked at him, then said to the woman in all seriousness, “Yes, he is. But he cuddles even better when he’s got Chick with him.” My brother proceeded to sell the woman on the merits of adopting two kittens as Nolan and I stood.
“Isaac, if you could help me out for a little while, I’d be really grateful,” Nolan said. “I know it’s a lot to ask—”
“You didn’t ask, I offered,” I reminded him. I knew what I was doing was stupid, considering the lies this man and his boyfriend had told me, but unlike with Maddox, I didn’t get the sense he was being disingenuous. And the reality was, he needed help. “Let’s get to work,” I said. “The sooner we get done, the closer some of your animals are to finding their forever homes.”
Nolan nodded and returned to the cabinet to search through it. I turned to check in on Newt to tell him the plan, but he was deep in conversation with the woman discussing why three kittens was even better than two, so I left him to it. I rifled around the desk for a legal pad and pen, then began working my way through the small crowd of people inside the office. It was a good two hours before the crowd dissipated.
Darkness was just starting to fall when I looked up from where I’d been entering the names of potential adopters into a spreadsheet on the computer so their information would be easier to sort through when the time came. My eyes fell on Dallas and Nolan who were standing just outside the office door. They had their arms around each other and were just holding onto one another. I glanced over at Newt, who’d fallen asleep against Loki’s side. The kittens were tucked up against Newt’s little body.
It wasn’t until Nolan softly called my name that I realized I’d been lost in a daydream about how badly I wanted every day to be like this for Newt. Where it wasn’t about anything but him just being a kid.
I startled, then shook my head and said, “Sorry.” Dallas and Nolan both smiled in understanding. My eyes dropped to Dallas’s hand. His nails were painted neon green with little globs of pink all over them, which probably were supposed to have been polka dots.
It was on the tip of my tongue to lay into both men about lying about my car, but when Dallas handed me his phone so I could read his message, I merely said, “Sure, you can talk to me about something,” and handed it back to him.
It was Nolan who outlined their idea, and admittedly, the job offer caught me off guard. While my plan had been to help them for the day, what they were offering was something more long-term. Nolan made it clear it could be for as long or as short as I wanted, and while I knew there was no way I could accept, I found myself wondering what it would be like if I could. I had no doubt the job offer was made out of pity and in an attempt to get me to stick around for a bit, since both men seemed to have the same thoughts as Maddox–that Newt and I were in trouble and needed help.