She swallowed hard, her stomach growing nauseated. She didn’t know how much longer she could stay like this.

Buttons suddenly sat, gave a short whine, and started to wag his tail.

He looked back at her, as if to say, Are you coming or not? This was all your idea.

Whatever had spooked him was gone. He turned away and waddled out of sight and toward the kitchen.

Kate nearly collapsed as she let out the breath she’d been holding.

Her paralysis broke and she was able to creep down the hall, encouraged by the slobbering sounds of Buttons attacking his bowl, crunching the dry food with abandon.

The apprehension that had been steadily crushing her like a soda can was gone. She peeked into the living room. Of course it was empty. Daring herself to look out the window, she parted the blinds and jumped back.

A bird had been perched on the window. Startled when she touched the blinds, it tore off into the night. With a hand over her own shocked heart, Kate spluttered with nervous laughter, despite her chest hurting.

She’d nearly pissed herself over a bird.

Buttons hated birds. She and Andrew wondered if he’d been a cat in a previous life. She wasn’t going to be much of a fan after this, either.

It probably didn’t help that they’d spent the night watching horror movies.

Buttons nudged his cold, wet nose against her calf.

“Thanks for freaking me out.”

To top it all off, it looked like the power was out everywhere.

Kate’s head spun.

Whoa.

“Okay, now I think I’m ready to sleep.”

Exhaustion hit her like a cold fist to the temple.

Before she walked back to the bedroom, she took one more look at the window where the bird had been. A cold realization made her stomach churn.

Buttons hadn’t been growling in that direction.

* * *

Andrew had been exceedingly busy over the past two weeks, but few of his endeavors had anything to do with actual work. There was a lot of research going on.

He had to pull the trigger now, and even though everything was rushed – and kept secret from Kate – it was all going to be for the better.

The meeting with HR and his boss was nerve-wracking. Not so much because he was afraid to talk to them. His main concern was that they would say no and delay things so much that he’d miss his opportunity. At one point, as he was basically spilling his guts all over the conference room table, he started to cry. He was embarrassed as hell, but to his surprise, it changed the atmosphere in the room. Suddenly they were more than happy to work with him and grant his request. Noella from HR had tears in her own eyes when she handed him the papers to sign.