Until the World Stops - L.A. Witt Page 0,20

on with the coronavirus in Italy when a door opened at the end of the hall. Tilly’s head snapped up.

When Tristan started down the stairs, she shot out of bed and thundered after him, meowing in that way that meant “Dad, I’m starving! Feed me!”

“She already ate!” I called after her.

“She says you’re lying!” came the response.

I laughed halfheartedly and tried to focus on the article I’d been reading. The words didn’t make much sense, though. Not when my mind kept pulling me back toward that brief exchange I’d had with Tristan.

When it came to Tilly and only Tilly, we could interact without all our usual baggage getting in the way. We were both suckers for cats, which was how we’d ended up getting one in the first place—MA2 Colby had taken a picture of her when she’d gone to the shelter to get her own cat, and after she’d told us Tilly’s sad story, Tristan and I had immediately agreed we had to give her a home.

We both adored her, and spoiling her rotten had softened some of the animosity between us. It was kind of hard to keep up the teeth-grinding and scowling when we were laughing as we watched our cat chasing fake mice, batting at a toy on a string, or getting fucked up on catnip.

There’d been a scary incident a few months ago when she’d been acting weird and hadn’t been interested in food. I’d had to go to work while Tristan had taken her to the vet, and I was sure we exchanged more texts that day than we ever had before. Even after the vet had said she’d be fine, Tristan had sent me pictures of Tilly snoozing happily in his lap at home and, later, eating some of the fancy-ass food the vet had prescribed. I appreciated that. He got how attached I was to her, and he didn’t belittle me or give me shit for being so worried about her. In fact, if the roles had been reversed, I had no doubt he would’ve been peppering me with texts asking for updates too.

Knowing he cared that much for our cat, and that if she was sick, he’d indulge my semi-panicked need for updates every twelve seconds, had admittedly been incredibly endearing. Tristan was a good guy. Maybe we weren’t compatible enough to do this forever, but the way he doted on our cat, the way he was wrapped around her little paw…

So what happens to Tilly when it’s time for us to—

I shook that thought away just like I did every time it tried to force its way into my head. She was only going to be able to go with one of us. We’d even floated the idea of getting two cats for that very reason, but then realized we’d have to separate the cats, and if they ended up bonding with each other…

I closed my eyes, pressed back against my headboard, and pushed out a breath. Was anything simple anymore? Any goddamned thing? No. And what did we do? Keep finding ways to make things more complicated. Because of course we did.

Well. I was definitely awake now.

I got up and took my sweet time showering. I even shaved, which I’d only started doing on my days off after Tristan and I had moved in together. Any excuse to keep a closed door between us.

After I’d gotten dressed, I went downstairs, silently praying he’d gone back up to his bedroom or was going out somewhere.

No such luck. He was in the kitchen, having a conversation with Tilly.

“You already had your wet food,” he was saying. “No, don’t look at me like that. The empty can is right there, and—”

“Meow! Meow!”

“That isn’t going to work on me. You know it—”

“Meow?”

He sighed heavily. “You already had some, and—”

“Meow?”

Another sigh. “How about some treats?”

There was some crinkling, followed by the thump of Tilly jumping onto her perch in the kitchen.

I walked into the kitchen just as he was handing her a couple of treats and informing her, “That’s all you get. There are crunchies in your bowl.”

She munched happily on her treats. That would tide her over for, oh, a minute or two. It was cute how he was such a sucker for her. Not that I was in any position to judge, given how often she extorted me for treats, food, catnip, or lap time.

Tristan sealed the bag of treats and reached up to put it on top of the fridge. “Oh.