On arriving home that afternoon, April expected Romeo to be waiting at the back door, meowing loudly and waiting to come inside for dinner. But he wasn’t there. She opened the door to the back deck and stepped outside.
‘Romeo!’ She leaned on the deck railing and scanned the garden. ‘Romeo!’
Where was the little rascal? She eyed the trees. Maybe he was up too high and didn’t want to come down or was stuck. ‘Come on, Romeo. Get your furry butt over here!’
‘You’re saying it wrong.’
April flinched. She turned left to face the source of the male voice at the house next door.
Holy moly. She almost toppled over the railing. The sight of him paralysed her voice box.
‘You’re supposed to say, “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?”’ he said, as a small smile lifted one corner of his lips.
‘Oh, I’m ah …’ She watched him standing there, in a tight-fitting white singlet of all things on this cool afternoon, watching her with his chocolatey eyes, a dark shadow of a beard across his jaw. He was definitely no old guy, couldn’t be more than thirty … thirty-five at the most. ‘Just looking for my cat,’ she explained.
His tattooed arm muscles bulged as he folded them across his chest. ‘Your cat’s name is Romeo?’ The tone of his voice went upwards at the mention of her pet’s name.
She stiffened. ‘Yes. Why? Do you have a problem with that?’ April didn’t know why she felt defensive. Maybe it was his amused smirk, or the way he stood still with such a strong presence and confidence, like he was the king of his backyard.
The man held up his hands. ‘No, not at all. What one names one’s cat is one’s own business.’
What was with all the ‘ones’? Did he time-travel here from Shakespearean times or something?
April glanced around, if only to tear her eyes away from his commanding physique that had her captivated like a teenager with hormone overload. ‘Romeo, Romeo!’ She looked back at the man who now wore a full-on smile, his hand waving in circles encouraging her to say more. She rolled her eyes and released a small smile of her own. ‘Romeo,’ she said in a floaty, girly voice. ‘Wherefore art thou, Romeo?’
Cringe-worthy.
The man chuckled, then cocked his head towards the back corner of his garden. April squinted, peering into the bushes. Two glassy eyes shone in the dark corner behind the orange tree. ‘Oh, Romeo! What are you doing over there?’ April huffed, stepping down the deck steps and approaching the weathered wooden fence that separated her house from Number One. ‘Sorry,’ April said. She leaned her hands on the top of the fence that came up to her shoulders and got a closer look at her hidden cat. He was having a stare-off with another cat, a tortoiseshell tabby. ‘Is the other cat yours or have all the neighbourhood cats flocked to visit the new resident in the street?’ she asked.
‘Not all the cats, just yours,’ he corrected. ‘She’s mine actually, picked her up from the shelter yesterday. Supposed to leave her inside for a week or so to get used to the place, but she had other ideas. First time she goes out and she’s already found herself a boyfriend.’
‘Don’t worry, Romeo is de-sexed.’
‘Good to know. Though I think making out is the last thing on their minds at the moment.’ He glanced at the cats, now sharing occasional hisses at each other.
How was it that within minutes of meeting her new neighbour she’d already quoted Shakespeare, mentioned the word de-sexed, and now they were chatting over the fence about cats making out?
‘Romeo,’ April called out. ‘Come on, back home now.’ Her cat ignored her, his unblinking eyes fixed fiercely on the other cat. She glanced down the length of the fence, thinking she’d have to go around the property and through his house to get Romeo. The man didn’t seem the slightest bit interested in helping her out. ‘Um, would you mind, ah …’ She gestured to the animals.
The man raised his eyebrows like he didn’t know what she wanted.
‘Can you, um … can you please pick up my cat for me?’
He shrugged again. ‘They’ll finish when they’re ready. You can’t force a cat to do anything.’
‘But I need to bring him inside for his dinner, and I have … things to do.’
The man placed his hands in the pockets of his jeans as he watched the cats. April furrowed her brow. Clearly he didn’t have things to do.
The wind chimes on his back deck jingled as the breeze picked up. Maybe he was a wind-chime maker, or some kind of artistic person who didn’t rush anything. ‘Well, if we’re going to stand here and wait for nature to take its course …’ April took her hands off the fence and crossed her arms, catching his glance as he turned to face her. ‘So, what do you do?’
‘I don’t do,’ he replied.
‘Huh?’
‘I’m a human being, not a human doing.’
And a slightly weird, albeit incredibly attractive human at that.
‘Obviously, but you must do something. I mean, everybody does something, right?’
Romeo hissed loudly and the man’s cat reciprocated. Then she pounced into the bushes, and Romeo followed. Leaves rustled chaotically, and hisses and growls emerged. April nibbled her bottom lip. If she could, she would climb over the fence and retrieve her cat, but it wasn’t the most practical solution. ‘We really should—’
‘Shh,’ he said, ‘give them a minute.’
Shh? He was telling her to ‘Shh’? Maybe he was one of those nature documentary people, observing animals in their natural habitat and commenting on their behaviour.
April’s stomach grumbled. She needed to get inside and make a start on dinner. Going for the direct approach wasn’t working with this guy, so apart from the idea of launching herself into his garden, maybe she should get him talking a bit more and then he might be kind and pick up her damn cat and give him the hell back. ‘What’s her name?’ she asked.
The man shrugged. ‘Dunno.’
‘You have a pet cat and haven’t named her yet?’
‘I’ll wait till the right name comes to mind.’
‘You like waiting, don’t you.’ Oops, that was supposed to be a thought, not speech. That happened to April a lot, words just seemed to come to life on their own.
‘Patience is a virtue,’ he replied.
‘Patience is a pain in the arse.’ Oops, another thought turned speech. The man looked her in the eye again, his gaze narrow and his head tilted a little, as though she was an animal in his nature documentary and he was trying to understand her behaviour and impulsive speech. April shoved a chunk of her wavy hair behind her shoulder. ‘Anyway, if she has no name, how do you expect her to come to you when you need her to?’
‘She’ll come to me when she wants to. Cats are very independent.’
April drummed her fingers on her folded arms, while he seemed more relaxed by the minute.
‘See? Look.’ He pointed to Romeo who was edging slowly away from the bushes and the other cat.
‘That’s it boy, over here,’ she said. She made little clicky sounds with her tongue, then wished she hadn’t, as the man released a slight chuckle at her Skippy the kangaroo-sounding clicky noises.
‘Treat them a little more like humans and they’ll be more receptive, you know,’ he said.
‘Are you a vet?’
‘No.’
‘A nature documentary maker?’
‘No.’
‘A …’ She’d run out of ideas, and he was also getting more amused with her by the minute, judging by the grin on his face. Geez, the guy had nice lips. He probably used lip balm. They would be soft to kiss. April! No men, remember? And definitely no strange, unhelpful men who lived next door.
‘Hey there, buddy. Thanks for the warm welcome to the neighbourhood.’ The man effortlessly leaned down and picked up Romeo, who although tense, didn’t try to scratch him or leap from his grasp. He handed him over the fence to April and she held onto her pet tightly for fear of him escaping.
‘I think I’ll call you The Cat Whisperer,’ she said to the man.
‘And I’ll call you The Cat Matchmaker.’ He turned to his Cat-Without-A-Name who was hiding under the small gap beneath the polished timber deck. He picked her up and patted the top of her head. ‘Come on, Juliet, how about some dinner?’ He stepped onto his deck and opened the back door, but not before he turned his head back briefly and flashed April a satisfied smile.
The door clapped closed and April stood by the fence, her mouth slightly agape. Had he just named his cat Juliet in response to her cat being called Romeo? She didn’t know whether to laugh or tell him not to be so silly, but he had gone back inside without so much as a ‘nice to meet you’ or ‘my name is so-and-so’.
April shook her head and turned towards her house. But when she stepped up onto her own deck and glanced back at the scene where the weirdest first meeting of all time had unfolded, something beside the reclining timber armchair on the deck caught her eye, and surprise fluttered in her chest. A terracotta pot sat there, and a unique flowering plant bulged from the potted soil; long, slim, red petals radiating out from the centre.