After she paid, we sat out in the parking lot on a curb. Ivy twisted off the cap and handed the bottle to me.
“Really keeping it classy out here in rural New York,” I said and took a swig of the wine. “This is disgusting.”
“I paid for it, so drink up,” Ivy ordered.
“I just can’t believe Camilla would cheat on me,” I complained as I took another swig of the wine. Though it was cheap, the alcohol was welcomingly numbing.
“It happens to a lot of people,” Ivy said.
“Yes, but not to people like me,” I said bitterly. “I mean, look at me! I’m incredibly good-looking, I’m a billionaire, for fuck’s sake, I bought Camilla everything she wanted, and she cheats on me with fucking Arnold. I mean seriously. Arnold’s spent the last seven years pissing away his trust fund, and he’s losing his hair.”
“Yeah, I’m shocked that she would give up such a great catch,” Ivy said dryly.
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” I asked, taking another swig of the wine.
“Your hedge fund has been acquiring magazines and laying people off, buying up housing and kicking people out, and aren’t you in business with the Svenssons now?”
“What’s wrong with the Svenssons?”
“They’re crazy and grew up in a polygamist cult,” she said flatly.
“Well, look at Ms. Judgmental with her nineties Toyota,” I said meanly.
“Gee, and he’s shocked that karma just up and punched him in the face,” she said to the night sky.
“That’s cruel,” I told her. “I’m the victim.”
“You’re a whiny little man,” she snapped.
“I’m not little,” I purred, leaning into her. The cheap wine had gone straight to my dick. Along with being generally unpleasant, Camilla had subjected me to a serious case of dead bedroom. In the wine-fueled haze, Ivy was starting to look not so bad. She was cute in a curvy way.
I could definitely hit that.
The wedding planner glared at me. “How much did you have to drink?” She snatched the bottle out of my hand and shook it. The remaining dregs sloshed in the empty bottle.
“For someone who complained about the quality of the wine, you sure drank that entire bottle quickly.”
“I needed some gas in the tank of my love machine,” I told her.
“Your breath smells like alcoholic grape juice. You’re like an adult toddler.”
“And you smell like fish, but you don’t see me throwing that around, because it’s rude, and weird smells are between a woman and her doctor.”
“Welp.” She stood up and dusted herself off. “Thanks for the terrible evening. I’ll be calling your friends now.”
“Wait.” I grabbed her hand.
Ivy pinched one of my fingers between her nails.
“Ow!”
“A number,” she said impatiently.
I tipped my head back and watched the bugs bounce off the streetlights.
“I can’t deal with them right now,” I said quietly. “I can’t deal with my friends and their pity. I can’t deal with my sister, who’s just going to say ‘I told you so.’ I can’t deal with my stepmom, who is going to want me to give Camilla another chance because she’s a sorority sister of Camilla's mom’s. And I definitely cannot deal with my fucking father, who all through my life could never resist screwing over his only son and now has literally screwed me over.” I looked up at Ivy. “I just I need a break.”
She glared at me then rolled her eyes. “I’m not paying for a hotel. My credit card is already on life support as it is. So you can sleep outside, or you can call a friend. But me and my phone are leaving in the next two minutes.”
“Or,” I said, smiling slowly, “there’s a third option.”
She curled her lip. “No.”
“I’m the cutest stray you will ever take home!” I cajoled.
“I already picked up a stray cat, and it was an epic disaster.”
“Please?”
“You’re going to make my apartment smell.”
I did my best Baby Yoda impression.
“Gah! Why do you have to be so attractive? Don’t say anything. Your ego is already ginormous.”
I smirked.
“Fine,” she huffed, “I will take you home. But if my cat hates you, and he will, you cannot stay!”
3
Ivy
Evan sat in the passenger seat, one arm lying casually on the armrest of the door, as I drove back into Manhattan.
He is so not staying at my apartment. I should have set a firm boundary, but thanks to my mother and her awful parenting, I had absolutely no boundaries, as evidenced by the fact that I had not insisted on payment before the wedding, and Weddings in the City was now twenty thousand dollars in the hole.
It’s fine. Fergus will hate him. Then bye-bye Evan.
The feral cat that I had so graciously invited into my micro NYC condo hated people. He regularly attacked me and my friends. The only thing he liked was food. That was our bonding thing, and as such, he had grown enormous. Fergus the Magnificent was a Maine Coon. A member of a huge cat breed already, Fergus was now as fat as an English king.
He hissed audibly as we approached the door.
“Sorry,” I told Evan as I stuck the key in the lock. “Fergus is probably going to attack you. He’s very sensitive, so if he gets too riled up, you cannot stay here.”
And in three, two, one, Evan is out of here, and you will be eating the last of the Cameli’s lasagna.
I opened the door. Fergus sprang out into the hallway, and I jumped back from habit. My cat was an ankle biter. Evan bent down and extended a hand. I winced. Fergus was going to take out an eye.
“Hey there, kitty cat! Oh, look at you, you’re such a big kitty! What a good boy!”
Fergus sniffed Evan then rubbed his head against Evan's hand.
“What a good cat!” Evan picked him up and snuggled Fergus to his chest.
What. The. Fuck. That fucking traitorous cat!
“I cannot believe it!” I fumed. “I feed him, I give him a warm place to sleep, and he repays me by biting and clawing me!”
“Fergus?” Evan kissed each of the cat’s toes, and Fergus purred as loudly as a vacuum in his arms.
“Not my precious Fergus! No he doesn’t. He’s such a good cat!” Evan, cuddling Fergus, waltzed past me into my tiny condo.
I had scrimped and saved to buy this condo. It wasn’t my first choice of residences, or even my second or twenty-fifth, but it was mine, from the outdated tiny kitchen to the bathroom with the leaky faucet to the fire escape and the single window with its struggling plants that looked out onto a dim alley.
“Fergus, are you going to give me the grand tour?” Evan asked the cat, bouncing him.
“You better be careful,” I warned Evan. “Fergus is going to chew your nose off.” But I knew as I said it that Fergus was instantly in love with Evan. I had never even heard Fergus purr, and now he was like a jet engine.
“So grand tour… well, here,” I pointed to a little galley kitchen, “is where I heat up food. That door at the end leads to the bathroom.”