Don't Cry for Me

by Rachel Lacey

  Not knowing what else to do, she rewatched Josie’s video while she waited. They’d need kitten formula, which she could apparently get at most pet stores. So much for the half-and-half in her fridge. She had just pulled up a list of local pet stores when her phone rang with an unknown Manhattan exchange.

  Eve connected the call. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” came the vivacious voice from the video. “This is Josie Swanson. You’ve found a litter of abandoned kittens?”

  “Yes,” Eve told her gratefully. “Someone dumped them in a trash can.”

  “It happens all the time, unfortunately,” Josie said. “About how old are they, if you had to guess?”

  “Newborn, maybe,” Eve said. “Their eyes are still shut, and I think their umbilical cords are still attached. Can I bring them to you tonight? I’m honestly not sure how long they’re going to survive otherwise.”

  “I’m so sorry, but I can’t take them. I’d be happy to meet you, show you how to care for them, and give you some supplies, though.”

  Eve’s stomach clenched in a combination of disappointment and frustration. She’d been so sure Josie was going to help her. She was tired and hungry, her feet ached, and she needed these kittens out of her apartment so she could get back to the mountain of work awaiting her. “I don’t understand. You run a kitten rescue. Why can’t you take them?”

  “I really wish I could, but I own a bar in Brooklyn, and we’re short-staffed at the moment. I’m tending bar twelve hours a day, and these guys will need round-the-clock care.”

  Eve bristled at the implication. “I work full-time too. I can’t keep them.”

  “Look, you’re in Manhattan, right?” Josie asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell you what. Bring them here. I’ll make some calls while you’re on your way and see if I can find someone to take them for you. If not, I can give you some formula and show you how to care for them, at least temporarily.”

  “Bring them to your bar?”

  “Yes,” Josie confirmed. “Sorry, but I’m working all night.”

  Eve’s entire body tensed, and her pulse quickened. She couldn’t handle walking into a bar, especially not tonight. Her gaze fell on the kittens. What choice did she have? But if she brought them to Josie’s bar, she was going to convince her to keep them, because there was no way Eve was bringing them back home with her. “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  2

  Josie Swanson carried a frothy lager in each hand, plunking them on the bar in front of the two men seated across from her. “Haven’t seen you guys all week. I was starting to think you’d found a new bar.” She pressed a hand against her chest. “Don’t break my heart like that.”

  Dougie laughed heartily, reaching for his glass. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Jo.”

  “Been working late, is all,” Sal added.

  “Well, I missed your handsome faces,” she told them affectionately. Dougie and Sal had been coming to Swanson’s every evening for a beer after work since Josie was a little girl, doing her homework in the back room at her dad’s desk while he tended bar. As her list of regulars dwindled, she’d come to depend on their business as well as their company.

  “And we missed you,” Dougie told her.

  “Glad to hear it,” she said as she slid down the bar to check on the loner a few stools over who’d been drowning his sorrows in whiskey for the last hour. “Another?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  She poured his drink, and he took it with muttered thanks, his gaze dropping to the glass in front of him. “Bad day?” she asked, offering a sympathetic ear. Bartending 101, her dad had called it.

  “Lost my job,” he told her before taking a gulp of whiskey. “Budget cuts.”

  “That’s terrible,” Josie said. “I’m so sorry to hear it. Next one’s on me, and after that, you need to slow down, okay? Drink some water.”

  “Yeah, yeah, thanks.” He drained his glass, eyeing Josie. “What time do you get off?”

  “I don’t,” she told him with a smile, taking that as her cue to move down the bar to where her best friends Kaia and Adam sat in their usual seats, deep in conversation. “More beer?”

  “Yes, please,” Kaia nudged her empty glass in Josie’s direction. “Did that guy just ask you out?”

  “He sure did.” Josie took both of their empty glasses, bending to load them into the dishwasher below the counter.

  “Wish he’d ask me out,” Adam commented, glancing down the bar. “He’s hot, in a nine-to-five kind of way.”

  “I don’t think you have a shot with him,” Josie told him, “but didn’t you have a date last night anyway?” She grabbed two clean glasses and began to fill them from the tap.

  “I did, but…” Adam made a face.

  “That bad, huh?” Kaia asked, smoothing back a black curl that had escaped the knot on top of her head. Her brown skin was flawlessly smooth, a byproduct of her current job selling all-natural cosmetics at a little shop in Chelsea Market.

  The three of them had been friends for years, and consequently, Kaia and Adam were regulars at Swanson’s, showing up almost as frequently as Dougie and Sal.

  “Not terrible, just…blah,” Adam told Kaia.

  “Blah could define every recent date of mine,” Josie said as she set fresh beers on the bar in front of her friends. “I’m not sure I even remember what sparks feel like at this point.”

  “I’ve had plenty of sparks,” Kaia said, taking a thoughtful sip of her pilsner. “But my relationships all seem to go up in flames.”

  The front door opened, and Josie glanced up to see a brunette wearing a gray pencil skirt and a white blouse step into the bar. She carried a large blue bag, held delicately in front of her as if it might contain a litter of tiny kittens. This had to be Eve. Except… “Oh my God.”

  Kaia followed her gaze, sitting up straighter on her barstool. “No kidding. Now she is hot. I bet she could give you sparks, Josie.”

  “Do you know who that is?” Josie asked, eyes still locked on the brunette in the doorway.

  “Should we?” Adam swiveled on his barstool to stare at Eve.

  “Do you have a hot date you didn’t tell us about?” Kaia asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Josie told her. “I’m working. No, she found a litter of kittens in a trash can, and she’s brought them here for my help, but she only gave me her first name over the phone. That’s Eve Marlow. You know, from Do Over? That business makeover show on the Life & Leisure channel?”

  “I don’t watch any of those shows,” Kaia said. “But if that gorgeous woman is here to see you, don’t keep her waiting, television star or not.”

  Josie ducked out from behind the bar. “So which one of you wants to watch the bar for me for a few minutes while I have a look at these kittens?”

  “I’ll do it.” Adam slid off his stool and came around behind the bar, leaning in to stage-whisper, “This gives me an excuse to go introduce myself to the hottie over there.” He nodded toward the businessman staring gloomily into his empty whiskey glass.

  “The hottie who hit on me?” Josie asked playfully.

  “He might be bi,” Adam said with a shrug. “And it’s not like you’re interested in him.”

  “All true. Go for it.” Josie watched as Eve approached the bar.

  “Hi.” Her brown eyes landed on Josie’s. This close, there was something intense, almost intimidating about her stare. “Josie, right? I’m Eve.”

  Josie nodded, unable to hide her smile. She’d watched enough episodes of Do Over to be sure the woman in front of her was the same one who made business owners cower and even cry on a regular basis with her blunt observations and icy demeanor. Josie found herself a bit dazzled and overwhelmingly curious as to how much of Eve’s television persona was truly hers and how much was made for ratings. “You didn’t mention your last name when we spoke on the phone, Eve Marlow.”

  Eve’s eyes widened slightly. “I gu
ess I didn’t.” She lifted the bag in front of her. “They’re in bad shape.”

  Josie sobered at the reminder of why Eve was here. “Let’s go upstairs, and I’ll have a look at them.”

  “You own a bar as well as run a kitten rescue?” Eve asked, falling into step beside her as they walked toward the back hallway.

  Josie punched in the code to unlock the door to the stairwell and held it open for Eve, who had her hands full with the bag of kittens. “The bar was my dad’s, and his parents’ before him. He died a few years ago, so it became mine, which is why I’ve had to put my kitten rescue on the back burner for the time being.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Eve murmured as she followed Josie up the stairs to her apartment.

  “That’s life, isn’t it?” She paused at the top of the stairs, glancing back at Eve.

  “Yes, it is.” Eve looked down at the bag in her hands.

  Josie led the way into her apartment. “You can put them here on the table. I warmed up a snuggle pad for them. Were you able to put something in with them for the ride?”

  “I warmed up a bag of rice like you suggested.” Eve set the bag on the kitchen table and folded back the sides, revealing the tiny cargo inside. These kittens couldn’t be more than a few days old.

  “Oh, wow. They are tiny, aren’t they?”

  Eve nodded, resting her hands on the table. “I think some of them are dead.”

  “Yeah, it looks that way.” Josie’s heart ached to think of someone throwing these helpless babies in the trash, of their mother wondering what had happened to them, of the fate they would have met had Eve not saved them. She lifted a black kitten, and it let out a pitiful squeak, legs waving in the air. “Hi, there. You’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”

  She quickly put the kitten into the warm nest she’d prepared for them before lifting the next one, giving each kitten a quick check as she transferred them. The black one and the gray tabby were the feistiest. The gray-and-white kitten and the solid white one were more subdued. Two tabby mixes hadn’t survived their ordeal.

  Josie wrapped each of them in a small cloth and said a few words for them, a ritual she’d had far too much experience with. Her eyes misted over as she tucked the tiny packages into the cooler she’d prepared…just in case. “I’ll bring them to the shelter tomorrow before the bar opens to be cremated.”

  Eve watched, her expression unreadable.

  “Okay.” Josie blinked away her sadness for two tiny lives she’d never even known, focusing on the next task. She moved around the kitchen, mixing and warming kitten formula. “These guys need to be fed and stimulated to go to the bathroom. You did a good job warming them up. That was the first step in their survival.”

  “Show me what to do,” Eve said matter-of-factly.

  “They’re so small and weak, we’ll start out offering them formula in a syringe.” Josie put a small amount of formula into two syringes, fitted them with nipples, and handed one to Eve. “Kittens this age don’t have a gag reflex yet, so it’s really important not to put too much formula in their mouths. Why don’t you start with the black one? He seems to be the liveliest. Just squeeze a few drops into his mouth and see how he does.”

  Josie lifted the white kitten and demonstrated how to hold them for feeding, waiting until the kitten had swallowed before offering a few more drops. Eve picked up the black kitten, holding him awkwardly. She watched Josie closely, doing her best to imitate her feeding methods. As Josie had anticipated, the black kitten mewled hungrily, sucking down formula with a lot more gusto than the white one Josie held.

  Once both kittens were full, Josie pulled out a few paper towels and demonstrated how to stimulate them to pee. “Their mom would lick them to help them go to the bathroom,” she told Eve. “They can’t go on their own yet.”

  Eve’s nose wrinkled, but she picked up the paper towel without complaint. “Like this?” She rubbed it over the kitten’s bottom, releasing a stream of pee that splashed across the front of her white blouse. “Jesus,” she whispered, rearing back but not dropping the kitten.

  Josie stifled a laugh. “Poor thing. He really had to go.” She glanced at Eve’s blouse, her gaze snagging briefly on the way the top button strained over her breasts and the lace visible beneath it where the wet fabric clung to her bra.

  She and Eve finished with the first two kittens, and Josie took a quick peek at them before they went back into the nest. “This white one is a girl, and the black one is a boy.”

  They repeated the process with the other two kittens, revealing two more boys. When all four kittens were safely snuggled against the heating pad, Josie released a deep breath, raising her eyes to stare across the table at Eve. She’d been quieter than Josie had expected, so far, anyway, and more cooperative. Not at all how Josie might have expected her to behave, given the circumstances.

  She was a small woman, several inches shorter than Josie’s five foot six, her petite frame accentuated by the neat tuck of her blouse into her snug-fitting skirt. Josie dragged her gaze past Eve’s still-wet blouse to her face, where she found herself caught in Eve’s piercing stare. A funny tingle spread through Josie’s belly.

  I’m not even sure I remember what sparks feel like at this point…

  Oh, she remembered now, not that she had any intention of acting on them, because this was Eve Marlow, host of Do Over, the show where she went into failing businesses and fixed them. Saved them. The show Josie herself had applied for a spot on earlier this year.

  She pictured the mostly empty bar downstairs, the way she struggled each month to find enough money to pay the bills and still order enough booze to keep them in business. As her staff quit one by one, she took on their shifts herself, saving money by having fewer people to pay, at the expense of her YouTube channel and her kitten rescue.

  Eve could save her bar, if Josie could just convince her to feature Swanson’s on Do Over. This bar had been her dad’s pride and joy…aside from Josie, of course. He’d poured endless blood, sweat, and tears into it, had raised Josie in the apartment upstairs, the one she now rented out to help keep herself afloat, keeping this smaller one for herself. Swanson’s was the only home she’d ever known. After losing her mom to cancer when she was five and her dad to a bullet two years ago, it was all she had left of them.

  She’d do anything to save this place. Anything.

  Eve placed her hands palm down against the table, narrowing her eyes at Josie, reminding her how long they’d been sitting here in silence, staring at each other. Had she seen Josie checking her out? Was Eve even interested in women?

  Josie licked her lips and swallowed. “So I can give you formula and—”

  “I can’t keep them,” Eve interrupted, her tone icy and clipped, the way she spoke on her show. “If you don’t take them, I’ll have to bring them to the shelter.”

  3

  Eve watched as Josie’s eyes went wide before her shoulders slumped in defeat. It didn’t matter that it was an empty threat or that Eve felt an odd twinge in her chest at the idea of Josie being disappointed in her. Right now, she had to focus on finding a replacement Do Over episode before Friday, and the kittens were better off with Josie anyway. It was as simple as that.

  “The shelter will euthanize them,” Josie told her with heartbreaking earnestness. “They aren’t staffed for orphans.”

  “You said on the phone that you would call other rescuers?” Eve kept her tone neutral the way she would on camera. The minute Josie realized she had no intention of bringing them to the shelter, it was all over. Eve lost every bit of her advantage.

  The truth was, those helpless kittens stirred something maternal in her that she’d thought to be long dead and buried, and the feeling was as painful as it was inconvenient. She didn’t have time for it, not this week. And she wasn’t sure she had the mental strength for it…ever.

  “I did,” Josie confirmed, her gaze falling to the bundle on the table between them. “I haven’t found anyone ye
t who’s able to help, but I’ll keep calling.”

  “I can’t keep them,” Eve repeated, not letting herself look at the kittens. She focused instead on the woman before her. Josie was even prettier in person than she had been in the video Eve had watched. Her hair, which had been long and lavender on YouTube, barely brushed her shoulders now, blonde streaked with turquoise.

  There was something intoxicatingly…vibrant about her. Her hazel eyes gleamed with affection as she watched the kittens, something so warm and pure there. Eve could get lost in those eyes if she let herself. Which she definitely could not. She needed to convince Josie to take the kittens, and then she needed to get the fuck out of here.

  She hadn’t stepped into a bar since…

  She blinked away the memory before it had even formed. She couldn’t be here. And she couldn’t let herself get emotionally attached to these kittens. She couldn’t do any of it, least of all let herself feel anything but annoyance with the woman sitting across the table from her.

  “I’m working twelve-hour shifts downstairs this week,” Josie said. “These kittens need to be fed and cared for every two hours. I can’t do it, Eve. I had to leave a friend of mine behind the bar just to come up here with you. I mean, who knows what kind of mayhem he’s caused by now.” She laughed, but it wasn’t the same effervescent laugh that had captivated Eve when they first met. Now, she sounded somewhat panicked, eyes darting from Eve to the bundle of kittens.

  “I guess we have a problem, then,” Eve said quietly.

  “I’m working until we close at two,” Josie said. “These next twelve hours are critical for them. Please keep them tonight, and I’ll make more calls tomorrow.”

  Eve’s skin flushed hot as Josie met her eyes. No. Absolutely fucking not. “I’ve never cared for an animal in my life, not a full grown, healthy one, and certainly not a half-dead newborn one that requires round-the-clock care.”

  “They aren’t half-dead anymore,” Josie countered. “And you’ve done a great job with them so far.”