by Edie Bryant
Changing Leaves
Edie Bryant
Contents
Copyright
1. Gina
2. Jess
3. Gina
4. Jess
5. Gina
6. Jess
7. Gina
8. Jess
9. Gina
Epilogue
Excerpt from Broken Record
10. Lindsay
11. Heather
12. Lindsay
13. Heather
FREE Bonus Chapter!
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 by Edie Bryant
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a reimagined version of a previously published MM romance novel. I really enjoyed revitalizing this story with lesbian themes and new lovers. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed rewriting it.
1
Gina
I was staring at the clock like I had been for the last six hours. Okay, not exactly staring, but checking every sixty seconds. I was dying to get out of here, as I had been my entire shift.
Finally, I was only five minutes away from quitting time. But even these last five minutes felt like they were dragging on heavily.
I packed my bags, grabbed my keys from the drawer, and waited patiently for the clock to read 5pm. Not that anyone would notice or care if I got up and left right now, but I felt like I was cheating work if I walked away even a minute early.
Though I wasn't. I hadn’t been doing anything in the last three hours, anyway, except browsing the internet. That was kind of the problem with my job. I was in a salaried nine-to-five position, but I was able to finish all the work I had in half that time.
I probably shouldn’t complain about having too little work. I mean, I could have been in a job position where work was very stressful. Instead, I just had to settle with complete boredom for several hours of the day. There were worse problems to have. When five o'clock hit, I was able to slide out of the office without talking to anyone. Most people were barely beginning to pack up at their desks, having jobs that required their full attention all day, unlike my own.
I didn’t dislike anyone at my office or anything; it wasn’t that I had a problem with saying bye to anyone at the end of the work day. But I always seemed to get caught up in small talk conversations that kept me chatting with them for a bit. Which, again, normally I wouldn’t have minded, but right now, I just wanted out of the damn office. It was Friday, and I wanted nothing more than to get home.
I bounded down the stairs and into the employee parking lot. I speed walked to my car, ready to hop in, when I heard a squeaking noise coming from underneath my car.
I realized what it was right away. The mew of a tiny kitten. Cats weren’t unusual around here at all, both strays and house cats. Our office building was surrounded by residential neighborhoods. It wasn’t unusual that some pets would be found roaming around the streets.
But kittens were seen less often. I attributed this to the fact that you couldn’t really let small kittens roam the streets safely. And when I knelt down under my car to see this one, I could see immediately that it was way too young to survive on its own out here. At least not comfortably.
It was a tiny little thing!
For a second, my jaw dropped. It looked so much like my own kitten that I thought maybe somehow she had stowed away in my car when I left for work and ended up here! But, no, this one was definitely younger than my own cat. And the markings were similar but a little different, though they both shared the same striking blue eyes.
They were both tortoiseshells, their coats mottled with orange, red, and black. This little thing had significantly more orange and red than my cat; she looked like she was bursting with the colors of autumn. I knew it must be a female kitten since tortoiseshells were exclusively female cats. Something like less than .05% of calico cats were male.
I was hesitant for a moment to reach and pick her up, unsure if she was feral and whether she’d run. But then, nestled in her soft coat of fur, I saw a very thin collar around her neck. Knowing she must belong to someone, I very slowly reached under the car for her.
To my relief, she didn’t flinch as I put my hands on her. She must have been very well socialized. I held her tiny body in my hands; she was shivering slightly. It was hard to tell if she was cold from the chilly fall breeze or simply scared.
I got both of us into the car and turned the heater on before directing my attention to her collar.
“Lyla” the collar said, followed by the name and phone number of her owner. Well, it was only a partial name, I guess, as only the first initial was listed. ‘J. Davis’ it read. But the last name struck me.
Davis—I hadn’t heard that name in so long. It was the name of my best friend and… Well, I guess that was all she ever was to me. Just a best friend. But somehow even thinking of her now, she felt like so much more than that.
I never imagined that nearly a decade after high school, hearing her last name would still have this kind of effect on me.
I mean, I was an adult now, for crying out loud. We were just kids back then, and I’d come a long way since my senior year. I’d gone to college, gotten a well-paying computer science job, and bought myself a house. I’d had a few long term girlfriends in that time too, though obviously, none of them stuck and I was currently incredibly single.
Still, the point is, I’d grown up. I should have been long over this. But I still missed her. Really, I’d always kind of missed her. She was the closest friend I’d ever had.
If it was up to me, I would have contacted her some time in the last decade, too. I wasn’t so strong or so prideful that I specifically tried to keep my distance from her. On the contrary, for years I searched for ways to get a hold of her.
But she didn’t make it easy. After graduation, she straight up disappeared. Changed her number, moved away, and instructed her parents not to tell me where she’d gone.
Well, okay, that last part I wasn’t sure about. Her parents, who I was always very close to, never told me that she said that. They told me, actually, that they didn’t even know where she’d gone to. But I didn’t really believe that. I think they just didn’t want to cop to the fact that they were holding her secrets for her.
This sounded dramatic, but losing her was probably the hardest thing I’d ever had to experience in my life. Even break ups with some of my long term girlfriends didn’t hurt as much as when she walked away, and it wasn’t hard to see why.
Because she and I shared a closeness that I’d never found in another person. We were best friends since grade school. We had other friends in our group, sure, but nobody was as close as Jess and I were. Our parents used to joke that we were each one half of the same mind. I thought nothing could break the bond we shared.
But evidently, something could. And actually, it didn’t take as much as I thought it would.
It was kind of my fault; I was willing to fully acknowledge that. But she didn’t need to react the way she did. She didn’t need to run off like that. We could have worked things out. I would have understood.
She should have known that.
God, I hated that this was dredging up all these old feelings. I was still so angry, so bitter, and so god damn sad over her. But I couldn’t react this way to simply reading her last name!
I’d admit, it was a little strange to see it again, especially with a ‘J’ in fro
nt of it. But it obviously wasn’t her cat. She’d moved away nearly a decade ago and I knew damn well she would never find her way back to this town.
Even when were young, she talked constantly of wanting to get out of this place. Admittedly, I imagined we’d be doing that together, and not that she’d leave so I could never see her again. But I guess plans change.
Anyway, the point was, it wasn’t her cat. It wasn’t her name. And I needed to get over this weird emotional outburst I was having and deal with the issue at hand. I had an adorable little kitten here who needed to find her owner.
I pulled out my cell phone and dialed the number, but it went to voicemail. I considered leaving a message, but I was so awkward on the phone that I froze up at the last minute and hung up. Ah, well, I’d try again at home. This poor girl looked thirsty anyway, so it was better to get her to some food and water quick. Her owner could pick her up at any time. At least, she was safe now with me.
Although I was a little nervous about how my own kitten, Callie, was going to react. I knew from the way she reacted to the neighbor’s outdoor cat outside the window that she was not a fan of other animals.
But she would have to deal with it. There was no way I was letting some poor kitten stay out on the streets tonight. And not just because she was heart meltingly adorable, though she was.
Still, I wanted to introduce them in a way that might actually promote them getting along, which meant just bringing Lyla inside while holding her in my arms was a bad idea.
So when I pulled into my garage, I looked around for Callie’s cat carrier. I didn’t use it on her often at all, only when it was time to go to the vet, so I didn’t think Callie would be pissed to see Lyla in it. And it might help Lyla get accustomed to Callie’s smell before I walked inside with her.
As usual, when I walked in the door, I heard Callie meow and begin to run to the garage from the back room. This was a daily routine for her. I’d never had a cat run to me like a dog before, but Callie was always thrilled that I was home. Though this might be the first day she was a little hesitant.
Sure enough, she ran right into the living room but halted when she saw the cat carrier in my hand.
At first, I didn’t think she noticed Lyla in the cage. I think she was just nervous to see it at all, since it almost always meant a trip to the vet or a long car ride to visit my parents, which she hated, too. I’d only taken her in the car about five times since getting her, since she wasn’t even very old. And still, she’d already learned to hate the cat carrier.
“It’s okay, we’re not going to the vet,” I told her in a comforting tone, though of course she couldn’t understand me. “But I’ve got a new friend for you.”
I set the cat carrier on the floor and Lyla meowed for the first time.
This made the hairs on Callie’s tail shoot right up. She was a long haired cat, so when her hair poofed up, it was extremely noticeable.
“It’s okay, Callie, she’s just another little kitten. Nothing to be worried about.”
This didn’t calm her, of course. She crouched low to the ground and slowly began to inch forward to the cat carrier. Lyla continued to meow happily. Her meows actually got more excited the closer Callie got. Clearly, she did not share Callie’s prejudice toward other animals. Though she was definitely a much younger kitten than Callie, so that might have had something to do with it.
When Callie was about a foot away and could see Lyla clearly, she lost it. She began hissing, all the hairs on her back puffed up too.
I could see the hissing immediately terrified Lyla, poor thing. She went from meowing happily to backed up into the corner of her carrier, cowering at Callie.
“Callie, cut it out!” I snapped, which caused her to sprint angrily back into my bedroom.
Well, this had gone about as well as I’d expected it to. I knew Callie was going to freak out, but I didn’t think Lyla would be so timid. I thought she might hiss or want to fight back. But the way she just cowered made me feel so guilty. She’d been through enough today, obviously.
I brought the cat carrier into the kitchen and set her on the counter. I didn't want to just let her out when she was this scared; plus, I didn’t trust Callie not to come back out and try something. But I got her a little saucer of water and a small can of wet cat food and put it into the carrier.
She came out for both, lapping up the water and then heading straight for the food. She was such a sweet little thing. I was such a sucker for animals in need of help. Actually, that was how I ended up with Callie in the first place.
She was a rescue too. I didn’t find her, but one of my coworkers did. She was only nine weeks old when my coworker, Angela, found her in her backyard curled up in the dog house. She kept her in a box in the garage because her two large German Shepherds would not have taken well to her being in the house.
She had a space heater for her and big blankets, but of course, poor Callie was constantly mewing for attention. Angela had asked everyone she knew if they wanted a cat, and unable to find a home, was on the verge of taking her to the pound.
But after seeing a picture of her on Angela’s phone, I couldn't let that happen. I felt for her before I even saw her and brought her home with me after work that night.
And we’d been very close ever since. Closer than I’d ever been with an animal, actually. And I always grew up with cats and dogs around.
I didn’t know if it was because she was so young and got attached to me like she might a parental figure, or if it was because this was the first pet that I had which was truly my own and didn’t simply belong to my family. Either way, I loved her and she definitely loved me. We slept together every single night, she followed me around the house, the whole nine yards.
It was actually weird that she wasn’t in the kitchen with me right now, but clearly I’d really pissed her off with this new kitten. But not much else I could do, except try to call Lyla’s owner again.
Oh, right, that was exactly what I should have been doing. And this time, I’d prepare myself mentally to leave some kind of voicemail if they didn’t answer.
I pulled out my cell phone and clicked on the number I had dialed earlier. It rang a few times and then went to voicemail again.
“Hello there,” I began, “I’m just calling because I found a lost kitten in the parking lot of my work. She's a tiny calico and her collar instructed me to call this number if she was lost. Don’t worry, she’s no longer in the parking lot. I’ve got her home with me and I’m giving her food and water. So call me back at any time to pick her up. Thanks!” I said before hanging up.
I still felt like the message I left was pretty awkward, but I did my best to ignore my social anxiety. I was sure whoever ended up getting that voicemail wasn’t going to care. They were just going to be thrilled to hear their kitten was okay. At least, that was how I’d feel.
I opened the carrier after she was done eating and slowly began to pet her. She was a little less frightened now without Callie and with a little food in her. She was sweetly rubbing up against my hand.
“How about we get you in the spare room, huh?” I asked her.
As if she understood me, she gave a soft mew.
Well, I could say I definitely didn’t mind waiting for the owner to call me back. The more time I got with this sweetheart, the better.
2
Jess
“Okay, but like, nobody could steal her, right?!” I asked in a panicked tone.
“Well, technically, they could,” the voice on the other end of the phone said to me.
“But she’s microchipped! I mean, that’s why I got her microchipped, right? The vet said that it was best to have her chipped.”
“It is good to have her chipped. Absolutely, you did the right thing in doing that. But veterinarians only look for chips if someone comes in with a lost animal. If somebody decided to just keep her for themselves and pretend she belonged to them, there’s not a lot of ways to combat that.”
“Right,” I mumbled, my head buried in my hands.
“Look, it’s only been twelve hours. You said she has a collar with your number, right?”
“Right.”
“Okay, so just relax. Most people are genuinely kind, and if they find a stray cat their first instinct is going to be to bring her back. Don’t worry. I’m sure she’ll turn up.”
“Okay. Yeah, thank you. You’ll call me if anyone brings her in, right?”
“Absolutely. I’ve got your number written down here on the counter and I’ll tell the next shift worker to be on the lookout as well.”
“Okay… Okay, thank you.”
“No problem.”
We both hung up. That was my second call to the pound today. But I just didn’t know what else to do.
I hadn’t been this anxious since… Well, since I first decided to come back home, I guess.
I had already searched my entire neighborhood for Lyla, but I decided to go back out and do it again. I wasn’t sure what else to do. I felt useless just sitting here waiting for someone to find her. Plus, she couldn’t have gotten too far, since she was so young.
I grabbed my jacket and walked out of my parents’ house. It was still so weird for me to be back here. After years of complete independence, living with my parents when I was only a few years away from 30 was pretty weird.
Although it wasn’t like I had to come back. I mean, this wasn’t me being a failure. It wasn’t as if I lost my job and wasn’t able to pay rent and had to come back home.
Actually, quite the opposite. It was my parents that were in trouble. And I felt obligated to help, especially because of how I’d treated them over the last decade.
My parents were basically the best parents you could ask for. They were kind, loving, supportive, and just generally good people. They’d never wronged me in any way. Sure, we’d had our fights, like all kids did with their parents. But it was all minor, ordinary stuff.