Tapping the floor a few more times, the cat slowly inches to me, and I can’t help but look over to Candace with a victorious grin as I reach out and pick up the cat.
When we reemerge from underneath the bed and get up, cat in my arms, she stands, hands on hips, miffed.
We manage to get the cat dried off, and after everything is cleaned up, we head to bed. Lying there together, Candace stares at the cat that is sleeping down by our feet, purring softly.
“She’s so cute.”
“You’re so cute,” I tell her, and when she looks at me, she smiles.
“I bet she was the runt of the litter,” she says. “She’s so small.”
“Hmm,” I hum as I pull her closer to me.
“I wanna keep her.”
“I knew this was coming.”
“What?” she questions when she tilts her head up to me. “You can’t tell me that you don’t think Tatiana is adorable.”
Laughing, I question, “What did you just call her?”
“Tatiana.”
“I’m not calling her that,” I say firmly, refusing to call the cat a name like that.
“Why not?”
“Because it’s way too girly.”
Candace laughs at me when she says, “Well . . . she is a girl, Ryan.”
“She’s a cat,” I say. “And where did you get Tatiana from?”
“She’s a famous ballerina that I’ve always loved. I like the name.”
“What’s her last name? Maybe it’ll sound better than Tatiana.”
Candace answers through her giggles, “Riabouchinska.”
“What the hell is that?”
“She’s Russian.”
Sliding down in the bed to face her, I kiss her lips before saying, “I’ll call her Ana.”
She gives me a sweet grin, asking, “So we can keep her?”
“No. She can stay here until we can figure out what we’re gonna do with her. But we’re taking her to the vet as soon as we wake up to get her checked out before we bring her back here.”
I kiss her again, slowly, lingering against her soft lips when she begins to mumble, “I’m glad I had this with you.”
When I pull back, she adds, “Everything about today . . . I’m glad it was all with you.”
Rolling on top of her, I spend a great deal of time letting her know, in my own way, how much I love her as I thoroughly kiss her.
Chapter Fifty
“Baby, make sure you leave enough food out for Ana,” I call out to Candace who is upstairs.
The seasons have gone by fast and now we are packing up, getting ready to head to my mom’s for Christmas. We were just there for Thanksgiving a few weeks back. I didn’t get to spend a whole lot of time with Candace because she was too busy plotting Black Friday shopping tactics with my mom and aunts. It was fun to see her so into it, finding deals on toys she thought we should buy the kids for Christmas. She left me at home while she spent the whole night and half of the next day shopping just to wind up sleeping for the rest of the afternoon.
“Do you have everything?” Candace asks me as she walks down the stairs.
“Yeah, it’s all in the car.”
“Did you give Tatiana her new toy?”
“Yes, babe,” I sigh. Candace insists that we buy that cat a new toy every time we leave her for a few days. Even though the cat has been living with us for over a month now, I still haven’t fully agreed to letting it stay with us permanently. Life has just been crazy with Candace’s performance schedule around the holidays; she’s lucky she was allowed this time off to go out of town. Plus my photography has really picked up, and I’m now in several galleries in the city. Needless to say, trying to contact vets and whatnot hasn’t been high on the list of things to do. I know she loves that cat, and it’s so funny to see how they mirror each other. Tiny, quiet, and both very timid. I can’t lie, the cat is adorable, and when Candace isn’t around, she spends a good amount of time in my lap. But I love teasing Candace about my loathing relationship with Ana, so I keep up the charade because she’s so f**kin’ cute when she gets all defensive over that cat.
Picking up Candace’s coat, I help slide it over her arms before we head out into the blistering cold. Once I help her into the car, I hop in, blast the heat, and start heading down to Oregon.
“Jase called this morning,” she says as she takes my phone to sync it through the speakers. “Their connecting flight got delayed and they didn’t make it to Ohio until after midnight.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah. And then it took them over an hour to get to Mark’s house. Said they are having a horrible snow storm.”
When Candace selects The xx to play and sets the phone down, I take her hand in my lap, and ask, “So what do you wanna do while we’re away?”
As she leans her head back against the seat, she responds with, “Nothing. I’m so worn out, all I want to do is lay around in my pajamas.”
“So I get to keep you hidden away in my bed the whole time?” I say with a smirk, and she smiles back at me.
“No, but I think lying around, watching movies, and eating are all my top priorities.”
Bringing her hand up to my lips, I kiss her knuckles as we sit back and listen to ‘Angels.’
“I always think of you when I hear this song,” she murmurs as she gets comfortable in her seat.