He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Probably even better for someone who works from home.”

“Oh, I can’t keep them,” she said cheerfully. “Pets are against the bylaws. I’m sure you know that!” Truthfully, getting rid of the no-pets clause was something else she could’ve done after Nonna had passed; the main reason it was there was because Nonna had always had terrible allergies, and asthma, to boot. But she didn’t need Will to know that.

“Listen, Nora—”

The door to the treatment room opened, and there was Dr. Taylor again, holding two wide-eyed, freshly washed black-and-white kittens in the crook of each arm.

Nora did the sensible thing, which was to make an unintelligible noise in a high octave range. Will stood from the bench, and immediately, she missed the warm strength of his body beside her.

“You lucked out on the flea situation, so far as my techs could tell,” said Dr. Taylor, setting each kitten gently onto the exam table. “We had a good look over with a comb, and gave them each a little bath back there in our sink. Good sports, these two.”

He scratched one of them gently under the chin with his index finger, and Nora cocked her head to the side. Dr. Taylor was pretty cute, actually, which she might’ve noticed earlier on any given day that she was not running an errand with her very attractive sworn adversary.

“They’re healthy?” Will said, which was a better thing to be focused on than Dr. Taylor’s handsomeness in comparative terms. Nora stood, smoothing the front of her denim shirt.

Dr. Taylor nodded, pulling a small tablet out of the pocket of his white coat and swiping his finger across it. “They both look good, though we’ll need a bit of time before we get results back on the tests we ran. Now in this apartment you two share, where do—”

“Oh,” Nora said quickly, “we don’t . . . we definitely don’t share it.”

Dr. Taylor looked up, moved his eyes back and forth between them, before settling his . . . interested? . . . gaze briefly back on Nora. Well! That was nice, to be noticed. Especially when she was covered in kitten hair. Possible presence of other kitten detritus, but best not to think of it at the moment.

“Will’s my neighbor,” she said pointedly. “He has a very sensitive sense of smell but not very good detective skills, I guess. So I helped him—”

“I’m sure he doesn’t need the full story,” said Will, tightly. She looked over at him and he was giving Dr. Taylor a pretty annoyed look! She recognized it, having been on the receiving end of many of Will’s annoyed looks.

“I don’t mind,” said Dr. Taylor, winking at Nora. A wink, that was a little much. Probably he would talk about himself a lot on a first date. “Now will you be keeping the kittens, or . . . ?”