Rusty Nailed (Cocktail, #2)(64)

Shit was about to get real. Really real.

Poor Clive didn’t know what was going on. After moving from Jillian’s house, back to the apartment, back to Jillian’s, back to the apartment, he barely knew where his litter box was. Luckily, the Stanford sweatshirt was long gone.

Uncle Euan and Uncle Antonio had chosen to move out of our building when it went condo, so my cat sitters were gone. I didn’t want Clive at the new house until I’d had time to kitty proof it, so off he went to kitty day care.

I felt like the shittiest mommy on the planet. And Simon’s feelings on the matter were not helping.

My veterinarian had recommended this great pet hotel. I say hotel, because this was not your average boarding place. He had his own room, with his own flat-screen TV playing hummingbird porn 24/7.

“It’s just temporary. I promise, sweetie.” When we went to tour the place I’d brought Clive along, and he and Simon looked around with the same expression.

Are you kidding me?

“We can’t leave him here, this place is ridiculous!” Simon whispered as we walked down the row of kitty rooms.

“This place is great. Don’t you be ridiculous,” I whispered right back as we followed the owner down the hallway.

“And this will be Clyde’s suite!” she sang out, opening the door onto the cutest little room I’d ever seen.

“It’s Clive. Not Clyde; Clive.” Simon sighed, rolling his eyes at me. My eyes told him to shut up. I took Clive from him, setting him down to get the lay of the land. He looked around, scratched at one of the posts, and looked back at me. “Where’s my window ledge?” he wordlessly asked.

These two. Honestly.

Simon and I argued about it on the way home. Clive sat regally on the console between us in the Range Rover, hind legs tucked into the cup holders. The pet hotel was a little cheesy but it was great. And it was a means to an end. It would only be for a few days while we got a feel for the new space. I’d been with Clive much longer than Simon, and I knew if there was one loose floorboard, one cupboard with a wonky door, he’d go exploring and it’d be impossible to find him later. Simon protested that I was being ridiculous and a control freak.

I simply wanted to kitty proof the joint. That’s it. And in order to do so, my cat had to spend a few nights in an overpriced pet hotel with room service. The way Clive and Simon were acting, you’d think I’d suggested he spend a few nights on Alcatraz.

But here we were, moving day, and Simon had finally agreed it was in Clive’s best interests, as well as his own, to take him to the pet hotel before closing on the house. I’d kissed them both that morning, telling Clive to enjoy his adventure. He arranged his paw in a way that one of his little kitty fingers was sticking straight up. Not an accident, I’m quite sure.

I planned on working through lunch that day, trying to get everything pulled together so that when Jillian came back to work on Monday, it would be like she’d never left. No, better than when she left. I really wanted her to know how seriously I’d taken running her business while she was gone, even bringing in a few new clients while taking care of our existing ones. And mentoring a new intern with the same patience and guidance that she’d given me when I walked through those doors for the first time.

And that while, yes, we’d lost the carpet on the third floor, I’d replaced it with something even better.

I’d put together storyboards showing the progress on the Claremont; very striking. I’d streamlined one of the payroll reports so she could see not only total hours worked for her hourly employees but how many hours had been allocated to each project. And I almost had all the invoices for all active accounts and projects categorized and color coded in different colored folders, which were spread out all over my office.

I was checking my math on a particularly long itemized receipt when Simon unexpectedly sailed in with a pizza box at twelve thirty. He plunked it down square in the middle of my desk with a flourish.

“Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” I exclaimed, looking up from my adding machine and realizing that I’d lost count for the third time.

“It’s called lunch, babe,” he said with a proud smile, pulling sodas out of a bag and looking for a place to put them down. “Damn, woman, I’ve never seen your desk this messy.”

“Simon, wait, don’t—”

He’d picked up three of my folders and stacked them together to make room, mixing up everything I was working on. “There we go—much better.”

I took off my glasses and glared at him. “Do you have any idea how much time that took me to organize this morning?”

He looked guiltily at the stack. “Oops?” he offered.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” I took the stack from him and started to separate them all over again.

“It’s House Day, Nightie Girl.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “I thought we could celebrate with a little lunch, and I know what you’re going to say before you say it: You’re too busy. No problem—that’s why I brought lunch to you!”

“Hey, Caroline, did you still want me to work on the cost projections for—oh, hey, Simon!” Monica said, breezing in from the hallway and stopping short when she caught sight of my boyfriend. She had a monster crush. It normally made me chuckle to watch her stammer and stutter around him, but today I didn’t even feel a flash of amusement.