He kept swaying from side to side as if he was trying to rock what I realized was a gray kitten. And the thing looked like it was one more sudden movement from shuffling of his mortal coil.
“Uh, is this your cat?” There was a lot to unpack around what was happening in my house at that moment, but I was trained in crisis intervention, so I kept to triaging the situation.
“I found...her.” Rocco didn’t sound too sure about the gender assignment as he looked down at the kitten—which, after closer inspection, seemed to just be a very dirty white—and then back at me, his dazzling blue eyes pleading. “I didn’t know what to do. Is there a vet open on Thanksgiving? I’m not even sure how I ended up here.” Rocco let out a shaky breath and he looked pale. He was really panicking over this.
“I found her under the car next to mine at the gym parking lot. There were only like four cars there, so I figured if I left her she probably wouldn’t make it.”
He was speaking in a very low, soothing voice, obviously trying not to startle the cat, and I knew right then and there my defensive walls were in imminent danger of going up in flames. I needed to get it together or Rocco and this cat were going to end me.
“Okay, and you figured I’d know what to do?” I tried hard not to sound rude as I desperately tried to put up some kind of boundary. Of course, this elicited multiple disapproving sounds from the Afro-Caribbean Peanut Gallery. I gave my dad the “give me a second” look and he backed off, but stayed close enough to intervene if I didn’t live up to his hospitality expectations.
I was startled by the things happening to my head and my body at the sight of Rocco standing in my door on Thanksgiving morning looking like I was his last best hope. I knew I needed to not get caught up in this, just as I knew I was for sure going to.
“Rocco, I don’t have any pets.” I’d also told him how I felt about them. “How do you figure I’d know what to do in this situation?” I made a circular motion in front of the area where he was standing with the cat. He blushed immediately and with every word I said looked more like he regretted ever coming here. Yes, my parents were going to give me shit for being an asshole, but I was barely refraining from fully taking on Rocco and his cat as my new life’s mission.
“Mija.” That was my dad. How he managed to convey “I am disappointed in your lack of empathy and care for this poor man and defenseless animal” into a four-letter word was a skill I hoped to master one day.
Still looking at Rocco, I noticed a shiver run through him, and that’s when I realized he was only in a tank top. He’d wrapped the kitten in his sweatshirt.
That was the precise moment when it really sank in Rocco was about to wreak havoc in my life. Because this gorgeous, softhearted mess of a man had literally taken his shirt off his back and given it to a stray cat. I would’ve laughed if I wasn’t actively trying to assess how close my parents were to inviting Rocco for dinner and making me go with him to the vet. That was when the cat let out the saddest, most pitiful sound ever, and Rocco jumped like two feet in the air.
It was official, the entire universe had it out for me.
Before I thought too much about it, I tugged on his arm (okay, his rippling bicep) and pulled him inside. I looked over at the kitchen where my sister was the last soldier standing in the Nosy AF Squad.
“Paula.” I waved her over. “Go to the closet where the dryer/washer is and get a laundry basket from the stack on the shelf. Put one of the beach towels in it.” I glanced up at Rocco, who was still standing there clutching the kitten, but at least had some color back in his cheeks. From the way he was fidgeting, it could be from embarrassment. And even if my stupid heart skipped a beat at the over-the-top adorableness unfolding, I was staying strong.
I pushed down the cooing that was practically bursting out of me, and when I opened my mouth, I was