Don't Go Baking My Heart

Keiran hung up, but true to his word, he sent Devon the number. He drummed his fingers against his desk as the phone rang and rang. He preferred to get this out of the way now. He hated things lingering on his to-do list. Nothing was more satisfying than completing a task and crossing it off the list. Old-school, perhaps, when there were apps for that, but it worked for him. He used technology for other things.

Cherisse wasn’t answering, but Devon didn’t let frustration get the best of him. If you couldn’t reach someone directly, and they had an assistant, chances were you could reach them that way.

Against his better judgement, he opened his WhatsApp, and sure enough, there was a new video from Reba of cats doing something strange. As Cherisse’s assistant, she could help him. But would she want to? He’d never responded to any of her videos, effectively leaving her on read for months—not that his lack of reply had stopped her from sending them—so he couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t take offence to him reaching out now that he needed her to get to Cherisse. Reba was an unpredictable factor that he had been ignoring until now. He didn’t have much data to discern a pattern of how she could react. But he had to try.

He typed:

Devon: hello.

Stared at it a few minutes. Deleted. Tried again. Went with something a bit less abrupt.

Devon: What are these cats even doing?

Hit send before he could reconsider.

And waited.