Just after three, a soft knock roused Dez from snoozing on the couch. Only one person could be rapping on his door rather than ringing the buzzer on the street entrance. He rose quickly. He didn’t want Fran looking at him so concerned and worried again.
He opened the door to find Fran, and the ginger Tom who’d slept on Dez’s stomach a couple of nights ago, weaving around his feet. Fran carried a plate with a couple of slices of what had been the hero cake. He smiled cautiously. “The staff ate the rest of it. But it’s your cake. So…do you want a piece? Or do you have some fundamental moral objection to cake?”
Dez cracked a smile. “No. Cake is good.” And since there were two slices, Dez assumed Fran wasn’t here just to drop off a piece and go away. “Come in,” he said, standing back. “You too, Ginger,” he added.
“Riley,” Dez reminded him. The cat found the couch, no doubt still warm from where Dez had been lying, and made himself at home.
“Lives the life of Riley, I’ll bet,” Dez said.
“I try. Poor sod’s had a rough life, if his scars are anything to go by.”
“They’re all rescue cats, right?” Dez led the way to the kitchen to get some small plates.
“Yes, I work with a local rescue center. You wouldn’t believe some of the things people do to animals.”
“Oh, I would. And to kids.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” Fran looked awkward and put the cake plate on the table. “Maybe I should go.”
“No,” Dez said a bit too quickly and restrained himself. “You don’t have to. Look, you want a cup of tea or coffee? Can’t have cake without a cup of something.”
“Oh, God, yes, a cup of tea would be great.”
“Just tea? Not one of those fancy frothy coffees you do in the café?”
Fran shook his head. “I drink too many of those. Just a cup of tea would be perfect, thanks.”
“You have to be downstairs soon?” Dez asked as he fussed about making tea.
“No. It’s break time. We close from three till six to give the cats a break and prep for the evening session. The girls can handle that. They keep trying to stop me from doing any work because of…” He gestured at his bruised eye.
“Sounds good to me. You should be taking it easy.” He handed a mug to Fran after checking what he wanted in the way of milk and sugar. “Sorry the mug doesn’t have a cat on it.”
Fran laughed as they took their mugs and slices of cake to the living room. “I’ll be honest, it’s a relief to be in a place where every single thing isn’t covered in cats.”
“Except the sofa,” Dez said, nodding toward the snoozing Riley.
“Except that.”
He watched what Dez would do next. Like it was a test of some sort. Dez put down his tea and plate, picked up Riley, then sat with the cat on his lap. Fran smiled and sat at the other end of the couch.
“I wanted to say sorry,” Fran said after he’d eaten a few bites of cake. “I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. In front of people. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“It’s fine,” Dez said, trying to sound dismissive. “No problem.”
“It was, though,” Fran said quietly. He looked around the room, dim with the curtains drawn. Dez fooled himself into thinking he did that because of the sun’s glare. But in truth, he liked it dim. He liked to be out of the light. “You, um…I Googled you.”
“Yeah. I don’t want to talk about all that.”
“You’re still on sick leave.” Fran spoke as cautiously as a man treading on a frozen lake in early spring.
“That’s right.” And probably not going back for a long time. Maybe not ever unless he’d be satisfied with a desk job.
Fran glanced around again, then looked at Riley, purring loudly as Dez stroked him. “You’ve definitely made a hit with Riley. He’s friendly anyway. All the cats are, of course. But I’ve never seen him quite that much at home. Do you like cats?”
“Yeah. They don’t make a fuss.” When Fran peered into his cup of tea, Dez felt bad. “Thanks, though. For the cake. It was a nice gesture and I’m sorry I wasn’t very gracious about it. I’m just not comfortable with that whole ‘hero’ thing. I’m not a hero.”
“That’s not what the newspapers say.”
“I’m sure a clever lad like you knows that the best use for most of the newspapers is lining a litter tray.”
“Well, that’s true. But if it makes you uncomfortable, I promise I won’t use the ‘H word’ again.”
Dez smiled and raised his cup in a salute. “Appreciated.”
“Damn,” Fran said, checking his watch. “I should get back. Lots to do.” He stood. Dez made to do the same, but Fran waved him to stay in his seat. “No, don’t disturb Riley. In fact, keep him for the afternoon if you want. Just pop him back to my place when you’re tired of him.”
Dez tried to imagine growing tired of the warm fuzz ball purring under his hand. He couldn’t see it. “Thanks. I’ll do that.”
“Then I’ll see you both later.”
* * * *
As it happened, Dez didn’t see Fran again for a couple of days. One of the staff took in Riley when Dez carried him downstairs, and he wished he’d kept the cat longer, until 9 PM, when the evening sitting finished and Fran had gone back to his own flat.
But Dez answered the door on Monday morning—the only day of the week the café was closed—to find Fran waiting there. No cat or cake this time, just a sheepish smile on a face that looked freshly shaved and made Dez very aware of his own bristly chin. Fran appeared mildly alarmed when Dez opened the door, as if he might bolt like a startled cat. But he rallied.
“Hey. I just thought I’d pop over to see how you were. It’s just…I haven’t heard you go out for a couple of days and I was wondering if you were ill or something. I wanted to check if there’s anything I can get for you.”
“I’m fine,” Dez said gruffly, embarrassed. Did he appear so pathetic that Fran felt the need to check up on him like he was an elderly neighbor? But Dez probably looked pathetic, in sweatpants and a T-shirt and hoody, none of them especially clean. “That is, I wasn’t feeling too good for a couple of days. I’m okay now.” It wasn’t a lie, but he hadn’t had a cold or stomach bug. He’d just had a rough couple of days, with barely any sleep.
Fran continued standing there, looking part nervous and part hopeful.
“Want a cup of tea?” Dez asked. And regretted it. The kitchen was a mess.
But Fran nodded eagerly and followed him inside the dim flat. Again, Dez had drawn the curtains to shut out the strong morning sun, even though it seemed to be a beautiful day. Dez tried to keep Fran out of the kitchen, but he was too keen to help. Thankfully he didn’t say anything about the dishes stacked in and around the sink.
“Damn, no sugar,” Dez muttered as he made tea. “No biscuits either. Sorry.”
“That’s okay.” Fran got the milk out of the fridge—what little milk there was. He frowned at the nearly bare shelves. “Someone needs to go shopping. I was heading to the supermarket myself. You want to come?”
“That’s okay.”
“I know you don’t have a car. I can give you a lift.”
“I have a car. I just can’t drive right now.”
“Yeah, I see you coming back from that little supermarket up the road. But those places never have much of a range. Come to the big one with me.” He grinned. “If you’re a good boy, I’ll let you have a go on that airplane ride thing.”
Dez rolled his eyes, but couldn’t say no anymore. Even so mundane a prospect as going to the supermarket took on a certain attraction if it meant going with Fran. “Okay. Can you give me fifteen minutes to get ready?”
“Hell, I’m generous. Take twenty.”
“You want me to give you a knock?”
“Oh, no. I’ll wait for you here.” Fran cracked his knuckles like he was about to play a flourish on the piano. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep myself entertained.”
Dez was both excited and mildly alarmed by this pronouncement. But he eventually understood what Fran had meant by “entertained” when he came out of his bedroom twenty minutes later to see clean dishes on the draining rack. Impressive for such a short time. He supposed Fran was used to cleaning and resetting between sittings in the café and wouldn’t waste a second of time.
“You didn’t have to…” Dez gestured helplessly at the kitchen.
“Someone had to. Come on, we’re going shopping.”
* * * *
“I suppose you have to buy a ton of cat food,” Dez said as they maneuvered carts into the supermarket.
“Yes, but not from here, not with the markup. I buy it wholesale.”
“You…want to split up?” Dez asked. He didn’t want to impose himself on Fran. The guy had given him a lift, but that didn’t mean he wanted Dez trailing him around the store like a puppy.
“No. Unless you want to.”
“It would probably be faster.”
“What, you have a hot date or something?”
Dez barked a laugh. “Yeah, chance would be a fine thing.”
“You can’t have any trouble getting dates.”
A flush rose in Dez’s neck and face. “Let’s say I have trouble getting second dates.”
“Oh, dear. What do you do to those poor women?”
Was that a test? Did Fran want to know which sex he dated? Did that mean…?
A certain liveliness in Dez’s stomach area joined the flush. He sensed he would fuck this up. He always did, somehow. And he didn’t want to fuck it up. Not with Fran. Because there was something…he had hopes there. Oh, god, he needed to reply; he’d been silent too long. Come on, talk, keep it simple.
“I don’t date women.”
A grin spread over Fran’s face. “I knew there was a reason we got along so well.”
Dez turned and grabbed a random bag of veg on the shelf to hide the fact he was grinning, too. Okay, stay calm. That didn’t have to mean much. A good-looking, fun guy like Fran definitely wouldn’t have any trouble getting…dates. Maybe he was just glad to have another gay bloke around he could talk to, be friends with. God knows, Dez would have been happy to have such a friend ten years ago.
But Dez hadn’t seen Fran do a lot of entertaining. No parties that he’d heard. Maybe Fran worked too hard to party or date much. A small business was very tying. A business that included animals, even more so.
“How’d you come to start the cat café?” Dez asked as they cruised up the dairy aisle.
“I knew this Japanese girl when I was at uni, and she told me about the cat cafés in Japanese cities. Because people often live in places too small for pets, and work long hours, the idea of cafés with pets took off there. A couple of years ago, I got an inheritance from my grandmother and I decided to open my own business. As it happens, I love cats, but I didn’t much fancy opening a cattery. This is a lot more fun. Well, aside from the paperwork. Oh em gee.” He said that last with a dramatic gesture. “So much paperwork! The council had no clue how to license the place.”
“I can imagine.”
“The license I have is for performing animals. Can you imagine that? Performing cats! Some days I’m lucky if certain of them deign to wake up when the customers are in. If they were staff, I’d sack them.”
Dez laughed. “Yeah. Well, the way people will just sit and watch cats do anything, even sleeping could be a performance.”
“That’s true. I put up a video on our website of four of them sleeping in a heap in a basket. It’s half an hour long and it’s had thousands of views. The most action is a paw stretch or an ear flick. We cat lovers are nutters, aren’t we?”
Did that “we” included Dez, or was he being asked as an outsider? Was he a cat lover? He glanced at the cat-themed badges pinned to Fran’s denim jacket. Maybe he was becoming one.
“Yeah, we’re nutters okay.”
* * * *
When they got home, they helped each other inside with their purchases. As Fran locked his car, Dez waited for him at the door, carrying in the last couple of bags.
“Thanks for the lift,” he said. “And the whole trip. I…needed to get out. So thanks.”
“Yeah, you seemed like you needed to. It was no problem. It was fun.”
“Can I…make you dinner tonight? To say thanks. The café is closed all day, right? Including the evening?”
“It is. And, yes, I’d like that.” He again gave that kind smile of his, and Dez feared this was a pity date. But if pity was all he could get for now, he’d take it. He hadn’t earned much else.
“Is seven-thirty okay for you?” Dez asked when they got to Fran’s door at the top of the stairs.
“Perfect. Cats get fed at seven and they can amuse themselves for the evening. I’ll see you then. Bye for now.”
Fran kissed him on the cheek. It was a peck, a goodbye kiss, and he was off right after it with a wave and a grin.
Okay, that had just been a friendly thing, right? One gay bloke to another? Fran seemed the sort for that kind of gesture. Open, a little flamboyant. Because who’d expect a guy running a cat café to be straight anyway? Not like the way they expected a policeman to be straight.
Dez climbed the final set of stairs to his own flat, the last two shopping bags dangling from one hand. He’d never been up for those kinds of gestures—kisses, even from friends, not romantic partners—in public. He’d never really been in an environment where he felt he could do that without being…challenged. Okay, aside from a gay bar or two, but he’d never gone to those often. He’d always felt a bit awkward. The people he met there could be police-phobic, usually with good cause.
Never mind. He should stop over-thinking that kiss. If it meant something else, Fran would follow up. Again, he seemed that sort of guy. Not full of fear and running an endless internal monologue of self-doubt and second-guessing.
Dez let himself into his flat, then caught a whiff from the kitchen bin starting to get pretty ripe. Okay, he thought, putting down the bags. He had a few hours until Fran would arrived. Time to clean the hell out of this place.