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.
14
Callan
Another yawn escaped me as I opened my truck door and grabbed the wicker basket off the passenger seat. Despite the three cups of coffee I’d had before leaving my house, I was still tired. I’d stayed up until two a.m. researching how to lure a lost cat back home. I’d written everything down on a piece of paper, which was currently folded in the back pocket of my jeans for safekeeping.
From what I could tell, Pudding meant a lot to Avery, and I wanted to do everything I could to get her cat back, but I hadn’t a clue where to start with this. My specialty was horses, not felines. They hated me, I disliked them, so I never familiarized myself with them, but now I felt all too knowledgeable on the species.
I mentally recited what I’d memorized, on top of having written it down, as I knocked on Sage’s front door, trying my best to calm my racing pulse. I’d made such a fool of myself in the kitchen yesterday with no clue on what to talk about with Sage. My thoughts were racing at the time, much like they were now, about how she was sitting in my parents’ kitchen watching me cook, how she looked, how I looked. I’d been silently begging one of my brothers or even Bailey to walk in and spark a conversation, but I’d been left to my own devices. I shouldn’t have asked who’d been calling her during Avery’s lesson. I’d majorly overstepped with that, and I had to hope Sage had forgotten I’d even brought it up.
I didn’t typically get anxious around people in particular—it was mostly just being out in town that did it for me. But something about Sage made my pulse skyrocket and my mind race as I worried I’d stumble over my words and embarrass myself.
Anxiety was a bitch like that. I could be having the most simple conversation and I’d still jumble words together and trip over my own tongue.
The door swung open and my gaze fell to where Avery stood before me. “You came!”
“Avery, I asked you not to open the door before I got there,” Sage said from somewhere in the house.
“Of course, I came. I said I would,” I told Avery.
