But from her spot on the floor, she could hear the noise clearly when it came again, and it was only because she knew this closet as well as she knew her own that she could tell immediately where it had come from. She thought of that bad-smelling basement from college, remembered the roommate who had an old and recalcitrant cat that had a sad habit of missing the litter box.

She knew what that sound was.

She moved her flashlight so it wouldn’t beam directly on to the small storage door she already knew she’d find partway open.

And when she gently pulled it the rest of the way, two sets of wide, frightened eyes peered back at her.

“Congratulations,” she said to Will, a smile spreading across her face. “You’ve got kittens.”

“The storage door,” Will said, for probably the fourth time in the last hour. “In the closet.”

Nora suppressed a smile. “Mrs. Salas tried to tell you about it,” she said, only a little smug.

“Kittens,” he said, that stunned quality still in his voice.

Nora hoped he couldn’t feel her shoulders tremble with suppressed laughter, but honestly, she doubted he could miss it. Inside what had to be the tiniest treatment room of an otherwise spacious veterinary clinic, Nora and Will sat, side by side, on a small vinyl-covered cushioned bench, waiting for the vet to return. Probably during any other time, Will would be leaning casually against the door, looking annoyingly unbothered while he kept his distance from her, but Nora had the feeling he was so shocked his legs wouldn’t support him anymore. It was pretty funny, but at the same time, now she definitely had her suspicions about the texture of his T-shirt confirmed (soft, indeed!), and she also was newly privy to what his skin and muscles felt like (soft and not soft, respectively) when they grazed against her, so some things about this were not a laughing matter.

She had not, in fact, laughed until they’d gotten here, a sort of spontaneous, half-stifled giggle that came out every time Will tried to explain something to a veterinary professional about finding two kittens inside a secret compartment in the closet of his not-apartment. Before, she’d managed to maintain at least a veneer of seriousness as they dealt with the practicalities—donning latex gloves Will had in his car before handling the kittens, setting them gently inside a plastic hamper they’d borrowed from Marian and stuffed with some of Donny’s shirts. Nora had called the vet while Will had dealt with some of the most immediate cleaning-related tasks associated with finding live animals in one’s closet, and then—without ever really addressing the weirdness of it—they’d gotten into Will’s car and driven to the vet’s office together.

“How’d they get in there?”

“Now, don’t start this again,” Nora said, rolling her eyes.