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“Alright, you little terror, come over here.”

He sat down and Ebi, the sometimes-crazy cat, leapt right up beside him.

Mari pressed her lips together as Ebi elegantly sprawled in his lap and started licking at the open end of the treat.

She shook her head and sighed as silently as she could while she retrieved the small package of cat food and used the travel fork she carried with her to scrape the food onto the plate.

When she was done, she turned to look at the couch.

Heath’s lap was now full of cat.

“I don’t know how she makes that little body look so big.” The words had spilled out without any kind of control.

Heath looked back at her. “It’s like she expands and contracts with her field of gravity.”

“Huh,” Mari felt her lips purse up a little as she thought over Heath’s words. “I never thought about it like that, but it makes some sense.”

Putting the plate down on the floor for Ebi to attack, she moved closer to the couch, leaning her hip against the arm.

“She does seem to think she’s the sun and I revolve around her. So the gravity thing sounds about right.”

The room went quiet as Ebi’s front paws reached out and pressed against Heath’s hand, holding it in place as she devoured the treat.

“It doesn’t look like she’s in any hurry to move.”

His voice was softer than it had been a moment before and Mari tipped her head to try and get a better look at his face. When he lifted his chin, she was struck again by the color of his eyes. A dark grey like she’d never seen before.

“Maybe,” he paused for a moment and she blinked a few times, trying to focus on his words instead of how he made her feel, “we should just let her stay where she is.”

Mari dipped her chin down and looked at Ebi. The cat looked like she was in heaven.

Her eyes were focused on Heath’s face and there was nothing about that that Mari could argue with.

He was appealing in so many ways.

Too many ways.

“Uh…” Mari remembered the plates that she’d ordered. “We still have our meals. Why don’t I bring the plates over here to the couch?”

“Sounds good to me.” Heath smoothed a hand over Ebi’s head and Mari had to bite the inside of her cheek. Ebi wasn’t big on touching.

Well, she wasn’t big being touched by me, she thought.

Mari retrieved the bag of food and her purse, setting the purse on the table beside the couch. Inside she had hand sanitizer, she didn’t go anywhere without it. Years of necessity had made it a secondary nature thing.

Where she went, so did the sanitizer.

Even when she didn’t take Ebi with her.

She even had sanitizing wipes in a resealable package as well.

She took out those wipes and offered them to Heath.

He held out his free hand that wasn’t holding the treat and Mari felt like an idiot. He couldn’t exactly wipe his hand by himself.

“Here.” She used the wipe on his hand. Palm. Fingers. Back and front. And then she did her own hands and dropped the used wipes into the little plastic trash bag she kept in her purse as well.

When she looked up, Heath was craning his neck to look into her bag. “What else do you have in there?”