She nodded. “I need a team to help find her.”

A team? This child was crazy.

“Avery—” I started again.

“I can help,” Callan offered.

My jaw dropped and I turned to face him. “What?”

He seemed confused by my reaction. “I can help find her cat.” 

“This’ll be good,” Lennon remarked under his breath from across the table.

“So fucking good,” Bailey agreed.

Charlotte let out a small gasp. “Bailey! Language.”

Bailey bit back a smile, pressing his lips together.

“Do you know how?” I asked him. I didn’t need him getting her hopes up just for Pudding to never come home. 

I was so worried she’d never show up, but I had hope. I’d been out looking for her every evening after work, assuming that’d be when she was out and about. She was a night owl. Despite my search, luck was not on my side.

Pudding loved Avery. She had to come back home at some point for her little girl.

“I can do some research,” Callan said.

Lennon barked out a laugh. “This’ll really be good.”

“Callan the Cat Wrangler,” Bailey said through a laugh.

Lettie smacked him on the arm, but she had a smile on her face as well.

“Are you sure?” I asked him, doing my best to ignore the table so Avery didn’t think that I thought this was a joke.

Callan shrugged. “How hard could it be?”

I wanted to slap a palm to my face. Finding a lost cat was not easy, yet Callan sat there like it would be as simple as spotting a horse in a freshly mowed one-acre pasture.

Avery piped in, considering Callan officially on her cat-catching team. “Okay, here’s some things you need to know: Her name is Pudding, she’s gray, she’s a girl, and she likes when you rub your fingers together at her.”

“Rub your fingers together?” Callan questioned.

Lennon and Bailey’s fit of giggles only got worse as they watched Callan taking this seriously. I had to give it to him, he was acting like this was a job for hire and he was studying to pass the interview.

“Like this.” Avery held her hand up, showing him what she meant as she rubbed her thumb across the tips of her other fingers. “Oh, and if you do this.” She made a kissing noise with her lips.

I swear Lennon and Bailey were going to pee their pants as their faces grew red with laughter.

“Someone record this,” Reed mumbled, having a hard time holding back his smile where he sat. 

Travis’s frown he wore all night was lifting at the edges, but Charlotte stayed silent next to Avery, most likely to make it known she didn’t think her explanation was funny and what she was saying mattered. 

Oakley had a hand over her mouth next to Lennon, but her eyes were watering, along with Lettie’s and Brandy’s. Apparently seeing Callan go into cat-loving mode was comical to everyone here. 

“Alright, I’ve got this. You think of anything else, you tell your mom to call me,” Callan said to Avery.

“How will I—” I started, but before I could finish my sentence, he set his phone on the table.

“Add your number,” he said.

I tried to hide my shock as I picked up his phone and added myself as a contact, then texted myself on his phone so I had his number.

Lettie’s mouth dropped open as she eyed the phone. “Did she just add her number?” she not-so-silently whispered to Brandy.

“I think she did,” Brandy loudly whispered back.

Reed rolled his eyes as Bailey and Lennon’s laughter ebbed. 

“Text me your address and I’ll come by tomorrow,” Callan said quietly to me, most likely to keep his siblings' ears out of it to prevent them teasing him further.

Come by my house? The place was a mess, and it was already late in the evening, which meant I’d be up all night cleaning on my hurt knee. 

“Can we do another day?” I asked hesitantly. I knew it meant we were less likely to find Pudding if we waited longer, but I didn’t want him to see my disaster of a house. “Don’t you have to research?”

“I can do it all tonight,” he started, realizing the look on my face. “You don’t have to clean the house top to bottom, Sage. Rest your knee tonight. I’m not going to judge you.”

He could say that now, but one look at the current state of my home and he might be taking that back. 

“I don’t know, Callan…”

He set a hand on my thigh, most likely to reassure me, but all it did was center every ounce of my focus to where his warm palm rested over my leggings. A thin layer of clothing was all that separated me from feeling his rough skin on my bare leg.

“Don’t worry about the house, Sage. It’s okay. I promise.”

I let out a sigh. He just wanted to help. 

“Okay.” I turned back to Avery across the table. “He’ll come by tomorrow to help us find Pudding.”

Avery smiled wider than I’d ever seen. 

And Callan was the reason for it.

Well, and her cat possibly coming home.

But he wanted to help us find her, and that meant the world to Avery.

And to me.