Like Cats and Dogs, Kate McMurray [miss read books .TXT] 📗

still too hurt from the divorce. Maybe he doesn’t trust you. Maybe he doesn’t believe he’s worthy of you.”

“That arrogant bastard?” Paige said. “Ha.”

“I’m serious. I think that’s a man who views his divorce as punishment. He may think he did something or he is a certain way that makes him unworthy of love. I mean, I’m just spitballing, I don’t really know. I do know you were right: When he first started here, he was grumpy and closed off, but I’ve seen him soften in the last few weeks. He even smiles sometimes now. And he’s very protective of that little kitten, Giant. It’s like he doesn’t want to let him go. It’s very cute. Surely you agree.”

Lauren rubbed her head. She didn’t know what to believe anymore. She just knew the facts at hand. She and Caleb were great together, but he didn’t want a relationship. He’d just told her nothing had changed. For her own sanity, she had to assume that was true.

Page shook her head. “He broke her heart. We don’t like Caleb.”

Diane laughed. “I wouldn’t rule him out just yet. That’s all I’m saying.” She stood up. “Now I’m going to take that little kitten home. Assuming no one else tries to shut us down today, I’ll see you all at the staff meeting tomorrow. Hang in there, Lauren.”

What Diane said rang in Lauren’s head long after Diane left. A little later, when she was bussing the tables in the cat room, Paige said, “I hate to say it, but I think Diane is wrong. There’s no point in waiting around for Caleb if he doesn’t want a relationship.”

“I’m not waiting around.”

“No, I know. Just… I don’t know why he was here today, but he’s a bigger scumbag than I thought if he’s going to jerk around your heart like that.”

Lauren laughed. “Thanks, Paige. I appreciate it. I’m just…ugh. I don’t know what’s going on with him. But I’m not going to sit around pining for him if he’s not interested in me. So don’t worry about that.”

The words sounded more confident than Lauren felt. The more she thought about it, the more puzzling she found Caleb’s behavior. It was likely he did care, but he thought he couldn’t be in a relationship for whatever reason.

None of this mattered. If he didn’t want to be with her, he didn’t want to be with her.

With a sigh, she carried her bin full of dirty dishes back to the kitchen to run them through the dishwasher.

It wasn’t her job to worry about Caleb.

Chapter 26

Caleb had a rare two days off in a row. He spent the first one basically just bumming around his apartment, alternately napping and catching up on his DVR. On the second, he went to an exhibit about early color photography at the Brooklyn Museum that he and Lauren had talked about checking out together before they broke up. Caleb didn’t know a lot about photography, but he thought the exhibit was interesting. As he walked around the rest of the museum, he couldn’t help but think this would have been more fun to do with Lauren. She probably knew a lot about art that he didn’t.

Everything went sideways shortly after he got home, when Kara called.

Without much preamble, she said, “I have a tax issue. I need some information from you.”

Without putting up much of a fight, Caleb went to his computer and looked up the information she needed. When he was done, he said, “If that’s all…”

“You’ve never been the type to easily forgive,” said Kara.

“You want me to forgive you? To what end? You’re in California, I’m in New York, we never speak anymore. You’ve got young Peter. What do you need me to forgive you for?”

“We were married for five years. Doesn’t that mean something?”

“Apparently not. It didn’t stop you from breaking your vows.”

She grunted. “Could you not see how incompatible we were? Not at first, but… I changed. We both did. We had so much fun in the early days, but then we grew apart. You wanted your carefully detailed plan of work, kids, the perfect little house in the suburbs. I wanted travel and adventure.”

“You could have talked to me about that.”

“Would you have listened? The things I wanted weren’t a part of your plan.”

“You didn’t give me a chance to revise the plan!”

“I didn’t call you to fight.”

It hit Caleb quite suddenly that Kara had made assumptions. She’d assumed Caleb was immovable. He might have resisted, but he would have listened to Kara. Maybe he wasn’t the most flexible, but she hadn’t even given him a chance to try.

Just like he hadn’t given Lauren a chance.

He sighed. “Maybe there’s some magical future where we can talk civilly again, but that time is not now. You had an affair and left me and destroyed the clinic we ran together. In what universe is that something I should just get over quickly? More to the point, you haven’t been in touch with me at all except through your lawyers in eight months, and you’re only getting in touch with me now because you need something. So don’t pretend like this is some friendly overture. I can’t talk to you right now.”

“Just like Caleb. So fucking stubborn. Are you really so hurt you can’t even talk to me?”

“Kara. It’s not even that you left me. That alone is something I shouldn’t forgive you for. It’s that you didn’t trust or respect me enough to come to me to talk to me about why you were unhappy. We never had a conversation. You made a decision without involving me. But I was your husband, Kara. You should have come to talk to me. You should have trusted me.”

“Well, that’s all over now. And if you’re just going to yell at me, I have better uses for my time.”

She hung up, which seemed right. Caleb sighed and put down his phone.

Was he just playing old tapes? Had Kara tried to tell