Rusty Nailed (Cocktail #2)(64)
Author: Alice Clayton

“I’m Fred, here to do your closets.”

“Okay, Fred. Let’s start in the den.” I gestured for him to follow me, holding up my other hand toward Simon to tell him to do exactly the opposite. As I started to open the door, Simon shouted, “Not the den! Clive’s in there!”

Too late. Like a feline torpedo, he darted out and ran for the kitchen. I grabbed for him as he sped by, but he wiggled through my fingertips and continued on.

We’d been trying to keep him away from the commotion during the day, letting him out only at night. Usually he stayed in the “sewing room” upstairs, as that room wasn’t getting much work done.

“Why the hell was he in the den?” I yelled, trying to follow Clive. He was startled by all the strange men in the house, and was doing his best dodgeball around all of them.

“They were working on the floors upstairs today, so I brought him down. That’s why the door was closed,” Simon yelled back, diving for him and crashing into a painter. “Everybody fan out,” he said, and just like that, Clive now had six strange men chasing him.

“Stop it! Everyone stop, you’re scaring him!” I shouted over everyone else shouting at Clive.

Fred made a grab for him, and Clive spun out Tokyo Drift style, ran up a ladder, down a ladder, and made for the dining room.

Toward the window seat.

Toward the rusty casement window that never shut tightly.

And went

right

through it.

He was there, and then he was gone.

I got there just in time to see his tail disappearing through the garden wall, into the twilight.

chapter twenty-one

I walked the streets of Sausalito until 2:00 a.m. that night. Jillian and Benjamin came over, so did Mimi and Ryan. Sophia was there. And if Neil hadn’t been out of town covering a big game, he’d have been there too.

Armed with flashlights, catnip, and Pounce, we scoured the neighborhood. I went through every backyard I could, crashed through bushes, climbed the secret stairs, and scurried down every pathway in the hills above the seaside town. I could hear my friends calling for him all around, shaking their Pounce cans.

Clive was long gone.

I knew everyone would have stayed out there all night, but when the fog got too thick to see through, and everyone’s teeth were chattering, we called off the search. Mimi had stayed back at the house in case he returned, and while she waited she created a Lost flyer with a picture of Clive and my phone number. We’d print them in the morning and hang them up all over town.

I said good night to everyone, thanked them again for their help, and closed the door. And turned to Simon.

“I’m exhausted, so I’m going to head up to bed. I’ll be up early tomorrow; I want to get a jump start on getting those flyers up.”

“I’ll come up with you,” he said, starting to turn out the lights.

“Leave that one on,” I said when he reached for the dining room light. I could hear the plastic sheeting blowing back and forth over the hole in the window. I’d slammed it shut so hard earlier that I’d broken a loose pane. He nodded and I went upstairs.

My head hurt, my eyes were red and stinging with the tears I’d refused to shed. I plodded up the stairs and stopped at the end of the hall, looking down toward the tiny room at the end of the hall. Under the eaves.

When Simon got to the top of the steps, he stopped behind me. “Caroline?”

I felt him, warm and solid and so close to me. “A nursery?” I asked.

“Hmm?”

“You and Ruth were talking about that room becoming a nursery?”

“Babe, it’s late. Let’s go to bed,” he replied, his tone icing a bit. He moved past me and into our bedroom. I followed him, my steps falling harder on the newly refinished floors.

“It is late, but answer my question,” I said as he sank onto the new inflatable bed and started taking off his shoes.

“Look. She said something to me about it being a nice room for a nursery, and I agreed. That’s it. End of story.”

“Wrong. Beginning of story. You want a nursery?”

“Caroline, come on. It’s late,” he said, starting for the bathroom and yanking his shirt off.

“Hey, come back here,” I insisted, following him. “We’re not done talking about this.”

“I think we are. You’re exhausted, I’m exhausted, and you’re making a bigger deal out of this than it needs to be,” he snapped, kicking off his shoes.

“This is a huge deal. Are you kidding me?” I shouted. “You want a nursery and you don’t even tell me about it? Yet you’re talking with Ruth about it? Who seems to have all kinds of things to say on the topic?”

“I didn’t say I wanted a nursery. Dammit, Caroline, that’s not how it happened at all.”

“Well, do you? Want a nursery?”

“Sure. Yeah. Of course I do.”

The world exploded.

“Don’t you?” he asked.

The world exploded twice.

“I don’t know! I have no idea! Why in the world do I have to know that right now? Tonight?” I asked, my voice beginning to break. It was all too much—the house, the job, the car, the chaos—and Clive.

Brain and Backbone took a deep breath and steeled themselves. Heart couldn’t be anywhere near this. “Why the hell didn’t you fix that f**king window, Simon?”

Silence. The kind of silence where you can hear the words you just said ringing back to you.

We stared at each other across our master bedroom. How the hell did I get a master bedroom? Master bedrooms were something to aspire to, to grow into. Grown-ups had master bedrooms, and I didn’t know that I wanted to be a grown-up anymore. I just wanted my cat back.

“Jesus, Caroline, I’m so sorry,” he said.

I couldn’t look at him. I just couldn’t, because I knew I’d cave. And I was too angry to cave; too confused to cave.

I walked away, went downstairs, got my keys, and left.

• • •

I went to a diner. It was the only place that was open, and I didn’t want to just drive around all night. And also, I wanted pie.

Was it fair to blame Simon for what happened with Clive? Two schools of thought on this one.

Technically, yes, I could blame him. He didn’t fix the window that I’d specifically asked him to fix. Had he fixed the window, Clive wouldn’t have run away. And right now? It felt good to blame him.

The other school of thought, the mature-adult school, said that there’s no way I should even dream of blaming Simon for this. He loved Clive almost as much as I did, and he already felt terrible for what happened. So the right thing to do would be to call him, invite him down for pie, apologize for blaming him, and then band together to find our boy.