“Hannah!” Grandma yelled from the living room. “Your kitten is snotting all over its box!”

“It’s not my kitten,” I muttered, putting down my glass.

“It’s totally your kitten,” Immy replied with a smirk.

I stuck my middle finger up at her and went back into the living room.

For that, I was scooping up the kitten that was not my kitten and leaving Immy to handle the octogenarians by herself.

That’d teach her.

***

I needed a vet.

The problem? It was ten o’clock at night.

Twenty-four hours after leaving the book club, I was sitting on my kitchen floor, cleaning up the second load of cat vomit today.

It wasn’t really what I’d planned to do today.

Lucifer was clearly really unwell, and a quick Google search confirmed what I’d feared: I should have taken it to the vet the moment I saw the cold coming on.

Guilt tinged every part of me. The poor little thing had been unwell because I just hadn’t done what I should have done.

I was so, so mad at myself. Despite my neutral feelings toward the little black furry critter, I did love animals, and I didn’t want any animal to suffer.

The only option I had was to go next door and see if Isaac could help me. He’d already said all I had to do was knock on his door, and that was what I was going to have to do.

I finished cleaning the mess and went to Lucifer’s bed where it had procured one of my blankets for itself. I grabbed it and went to the sleeping kitten on the sofa. After wrapping it up tightly, I held it to my chest, picked up my keys, and went outside.

His car was in the driveway, thank God. The last thing I needed right now was to drive to the other side of town and pay all the emergency vet charges.

Namely, I couldn’t.

I ran across our yards, happily noting that he had lights on in his living room.

No, that wasn’t me being a creeper. Our houses were just laid out the same, okay?

Mostly.

I rapped my knuckles against his door three times. It took a moment, but a shadow in the window gave way to him opening the door.

“Hannah? What’s—” He paused when he saw the bundle in my arms. “Is that the kitten?”

I nodded. “It’s sick. I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You did the right thing. Come in.” He stepped aside for me to enter, and even through my worry about the kitten, it took everything I had not to stare too much at his gray sweatpants.

Seriously.

They needed to be made illegal, especially on a man as hot as he was.

“Bring it into the living room. What’s wrong?” He led me into the gray and white living room and motioned for me to take a seat on the L-shaped sofa.

He took the kitten from me and sat it between us.