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Close to dinnertime the following Saturday, PJ shoved the last box of Ava’s craft supplies on top of the veritable wall of boxes we’d stacked in his home office. We’d run out of room at my place halfway through the day, so he’d graciously—more or less—allowed me to store the last load in his apartment.

“Good lord, LaTashia.” He wiped his forehead with the tail of his Browncoats T-shirt. “Between the stuff you already had and this mountain of crafting paraphernalia, you don’t need Central Paper anymore. You can open your own store out of your apartment.” He scowled at the towering stacks. “Well, out of your apartment and mine.” He shot me a sly grin. “You know, if you’d ditch your SUV for a MINI like Moocher, you could have stowed all this at the front of your garage.”

I snorted. “I’d rather buy a house than a MINI.”

He tilted his head and looked up at me, tapping his lip with one finger. “You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“Don’t.” I sat down in his Aeron chair. “You know that’s on my personal bucket list. But there never seems to be any time.”

“Then make time. Make time for you for a change.” He levered himself up to sit on the desk. “Now that Ava, rest her soul wherever it landed, isn’t around to demand the half of your free time that isn’t occupied with moi, you’ll have more than you can shake a stick at.” He squinted at the ceiling. “Not that you’re the type to shake sticks.” He grinned, a little more wickedly. “That’s my specialty.”

I covered my eyes. “I don’t want to know.” As he chuckled, my nose started to tickle. “Aaaashooo!” I peeked out from under my hand—sure enough, Mary Pickford had sashayed into the room, teal feathers clinging to her whiskers. “Oh, shoot, Peej. I still haven’t called the cat rescue league.”

He rolled his eyes. “Just text me the contact info. Silly girl, you don’t have to do everything yourself. But in the meantime…” He leaned across the desk and snagged a small plastic bottle. He shook it, its contents sounding like a maraca. “This is for you.”

I rubbed my watering eyes. “What i- i- aaashooo! Is it?”

“Over-the-counter allergy meds, of course.” He opened the bottle and tipped a tiny white pill into his hand. “Go on. Take it.” He nudged a sealed bottle of water toward me. “Compliments of the management.”

I accepted both of them and downed the pill. “Thanks, Peej. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Of course I did, my darling.” He patted my shoulder. “I’ve got you and we’ve got each other. It’s written in the stars.”

A smile teased my lips. “In that case…”

“No.” He reared back, holding his palms up as if to ward me off. “No no no. I recognize that smile. You’ve got crafts on the brain. Isn’t it bad enough that I’ll be living with a metric crap-ton of your infernal supplies for the foreseeable future?”

“Don’t be like that. I’m helping my friend Margaret with a mosaic over at the tearoom, and we could really use your help.” I wiggled the bottle, sloshing the last inch of water back and forth. “C’mon, Peej. It’ll be fun.”

He gave me the side-eye and scooped the cat up to cradle against his chest. “You have a very peculiar notion of fun, LaTashia.”

“There’ll be scoooones,” I singsonged.

He averted his gaze, scratching the purring cat behind her ears. “I refuse to be drawn into your wicked schemes.”

I grinned and took another sip of water. No matter how much he fussed ahead of time, he’d come around as usual. Because he was right, although maybe not in the way he meant. We got each other.

And always would.