Wednesday Walks & Wags. Melissa Storm
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9
Brownie was just a cat.
She hadn’t even gotten the chance to look at him properly, but that didn’t mean Bridget could stop thinking about him—old, overtaken by the world’s most hideous disease, one paw in this world and the other in the next.
Dr. Kate had said that Brownie had lived a very full life and for that reason everyone should feel glad. But Bridget refused to feel happy about death, no matter whom it struck. Old, young, healthy, sick . . .
Was it ever the right time to die?
At twenty-three she should be looking forward to finding herself, starting a career, falling in love, not focused on pinching every penny to buy medicine for some stranger’s cat, not quaking in fear as she considered her own mortality, as she mourned a mother gone too soon.
The friends she’d made at the cancer ward had lost parents, too, but they were getting better, forming new relationships, moving on. So why then had Bridget gotten stuck?
And would she ever get unstuck?
Honestly, she was afraid to find out.
She grabbed Teddy and cuddled him to her like the plush toy he’d been named for. She didn’t cry, but she also couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed and join Wesley for their nightly run.
Helping Samantha with Brownie’s medicine had felt good, but learning about the beloved pet’s fate had wrecked her. She hadn’t even known Samantha before that afternoon, and yet her heart ached as if the woman had been her dearest friend.
The group text she kept with her closest friends, the other three members of the Sunday Potluck Club, chimed, so she fished her phone out and responded with an LOL to Hazel’s story about yet another hilarious wedding planning mishap. So far, she’d done a pretty good job convincing her friends that she had moved on, that she was fine.
Earlier that year, they’d all expressed their worry when she threw herself into a massive fundraiser for the animal shelter, vowing to get every cat and dog adopted by Valentine’s Day. Amy, Hazel, and Nichole had given generously of their time to help Bridget meet her crazy goal, but they’d all been very clear about how much she’d worried them.
And so she’d gravitated toward other, less obvious obsessions—obsessions she could blame on something other than needing to forget her pain for a few blissful hours. None of them had questioned her newfound joy in running, especially not when she told them she wanted to look and feel her best.
Really, what woman didn’t?
And Bridget had lost a few pounds over the past two and a half weeks, but she definitely did not feel her best. If anything, she felt worse than ever, because now that running wasn’t effectively emptying her mind, she’d lost one more possibility, one more thing that could have made her feel better at last.
These thoughts played on a disturbing loop as she cuddled Teddy in her darkening bedroom. Sometime later, a soft rapping on her front door triggered Teddy’s exuberant barking and forced her from bed.
Had her friends magically figured out that she needed them? Or perhaps one of the neighborhood kids had come around to sell cookies or magazines or something else she didn’t need.
Bridget did not expect the person she found on the other side of the door.
“I thought this was you,” Wesley said, holding up a bag of takeout with a sympathetic grin.
“What?” she asked, still trying to make sense of why he was here when he’d made it very clear he wanted nothing from her, least of all friendship.
“Your apartment,” he explained as he pushed past her into the dining room and set his bag on the table. “I’d only ever seen you in the window, so I had to guess which of these belonged to you. Luckily, I got it right on my first try.”
Rosco and Baby flanked him, and he rubbed their blocky heads in greeting.
“But why are you here?” Bridget crossed her arms. True, she could really use a hug, but not from Wesley. Never from Wesley.
“You didn’t come running today,” he said as if that explained this intrusion perfectly.
She let out an irritated huff. “So?”
“So with the way you were talking last night and then you not showing up today, I worried about you.” He smiled again. Twice within the span of a minute. How very unWesley.
“I thought you didn’t like me,” she reminded him—not really a question, not really a statement, either.
His voice grew louder, firmer. “I never said I didn’t like you. I just said I don’t want to be friends.”
“And not being friends includes bringing me . . .” She peaked into the bag he’d set atop her table and a mouthwatering aroma swirled into the air.
“Some kind of soup?” she guessed once the savory blend had settled into her nostrils.
He smiled for the third charming time and took a step closer. Was he planning to touch or—worse—to hug her? Bridget enjoyed warm, friendly hugs just as much as the next person, but this was not Wesley. Why did he suddenly feel the need to act human around her? Had she really worried him that much?
His next words confirmed that she had. “I didn’t know what kind of not feeling well you had, whether you were sick sick or heartsick. I figured this would cover both bases.”
Bridget sat at the table and pulled the bag toward her, which elicited an immediate sigh of relief from her visitor. “Thank you for the soup,” she said as she pulled the container and disposable cutlery from the bag and set it up in front of her on the table. “But I’m getting a lot of mixed signals here. What do you want from me?”
Wesley lowered himself into the chair beside her, his jaw twitching with sudden tension. “I like you, Bridget. You’re a good person.”
Bridget shrugged off the compliment. She didn’t want things to be different between them, didn’t need it. “How can you even tell? This is the longest conversation we’ve ever had with each other.”
“I can tell,” he answered with yet another smile. This one did something strange to her insides. “Believe me, I can tell.”
“So another nonanswer.” She let out an exhausted chuckle. “You just might be the most complicated person I’ve ever met.”
Now he laughed, but it sounded sad. “You have no idea.”
He sat beside her silently while she enjoyed the hot soup. Normally, she enjoyed conversation with her meals and often found herself carrying on a one-sided talk with her dogs when there were no other people around to engage in lively discussion. With Wesley, though, she felt as if anything she said would be the wrong thing.
Easier just to say nothing at all.
“Come running with me again tomorrow,” he said, his bright blue eyes shining with sincerity. “Please.”
“Okay,” she said, setting her spoon on the overturned lid. “But on one condition.”
“Name it.” He froze for a moment before easing into a smile. She had yet to decide whether she liked this new smiley version of her normally scowling neighbor.
“No more running in silence. We have to talk to each other.” Yes, they didn’t have to be friends. They could be colleagues, running colleagues.
Right when it looked as if Wesley would protest, Bridget raised a hand to stop him. “We don’t need to talk about our pasts or whatever it is we’re running from, but we do need to talk to each other. It will make it easier to forget those things. At least for a little while.”
Wesley nodded and held out his palm to shake. “You’ve got yourself a deal.”
Chapter 10
While