Four STARZ Members Came to Hide, Then Fell for the Cat Café Owner novel · Chapter 2 of 40

Chapter 2: Her Husband's Desk

Missy shows the four her late husband's cabin, tells them she rents a cabin, not a contract, and at three in the morning Chan nearly kisses her in her kitchen; the NDA that lands in her inbox names her.

Missy walked them to the cabin herself, in the rain, with a flashlight and a ring of keys.

The path ran from the café's back lot along the top of the cliff.

Below it the sea was the color of wet slate.

Jisung walked next to her with the grey cat's fur still on his sweater.

He had said he was fine four times, and she had stopped answering.

"It used to be a boathouse," she told them. "Then my husband bought it and made it a place to write."

"Used to?" Felix asked behind her.

"He died four years ago. I rent it out now."

The path went quiet except for the rain.

"I'm sorry," Hyunjin said, so low she almost missed it.

"Thank you, honey. Mind the third step. It's rotten."

The cabin was one room and a loft, with a woodstove and a long window over the water.

She lit the stove first, because the damp was in everything.

The four of them stood around dripping on her husband's rug.

Hyunjin walked straight to the desk and stopped.

It was an old oak desk under the window, with a green blotter and a chipped mug full of pens.

A pale ring on the wood showed where one cup had sat for twenty years.

"Whose is this?" he asked.

"His. Use it. Just don't move the blue pen."

"Why not?"

"Because it's the one he was using last," Missy said. "I know it's silly."

"It's not silly," Hyunjin said, and he did not touch the pen.

He had taken his hood down.

In the lamplight he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen standing in a puddle.

Missy looked away from him on purpose and found Felix looking at her sleeve.

"Is that a moth?" he asked. His accent made the word lazy and warm.

"Seven of them, and the moons."

"Can I see the one by your elbow?"

"You can look from there."

"I'm only looking," Felix said, and smiled, and did not move any closer.

He was lying a little, and they both knew it.

Chan came in last, shook out his jacket and hung it on a hook by the door.

Then he picked Jisung's off the floor and hung that too.

He cleared his throat.

"Ms. Larkin, before we settle in, I should tell you what our company requires of us."

"Missy."

"Missy. We're not permitted to date while under contract."

"We're not permitted to be photographed outside work."

"And we aren't to tell anyone where we're staying."

"All right."

"If anything about us gets out, it falls on whoever is nearest."

"I'm trying to tell you that being near us has a cost."

Missy folded her arms and looked at the four of them.

They were soaked and tired and pretending not to be.

"I rent you a cabin," she said. "I don't rent you a contract."

"The sheets are in the loft, and the kettle works if you hit it."

"Dinner is at the café at seven, and nobody films you there while I'm alive."

Jisung laughed, a wet surprised laugh, and Felix put an arm around his neck.

Chan only looked at her for a moment too long.

"Thank you," he said, and the tips of his ears went pink.

It was nearly three in the morning, and her cottage kitchen light was still on when someone knocked.

Missy had been up since midnight, because she was always up.

She had stared at the same page of the same book for an hour.

A nightmare sat just behind her eyes, waiting for her to close them.

She opened the back door.

Chan stood in the rain with his collar up and no umbrella.

"I saw your light," he said. "I'm sorry. I couldn't sleep either."

"Get in here before you drown."

He took his shoes off at the mat and set them side by side.

Then he stood in her kitchen with his hands behind his back, looking at the mugs on the drying rack.

"They're not in a line," he said.

"They are not."

"May I?"

"Please," Missy said, and watched a man who could fill a stadium rearrange her cups by height.

When he was done he looked embarrassed and relieved at the same time.

She made chamomile and pushed a mug at him.

He sat at her table, and the one-eared tom hopped onto the chair beside him and began to purr.

"I don't sleep," Chan said. "Not really. Three hours on a good night. Producing helps. When I'm not working, I count things."

"What do you count?"

"The tiles on the ceiling. Your window panes. Tonight, your cats." He turned the mug a quarter turn. "I know that's strange."

"I count ceiling cracks," Missy said. "I've got two hundred and eleven in my bedroom. I'm sort of proud of them."

He laughed, quietly, and it changed his whole face.

She leaned on the table. He leaned on it too.

Their hands lay six inches apart on the wood, and then four.

Then Missy moved hers over his, because she wanted to.

His skin was warm. A muscle in his forearm jumped under her thumb.

"Missy," he said.

"Yes, honey."

"I'm not supposed to want this."

"I'm not supposed to want it either. I'm forty-nine, and you're twenty years behind me and employed by a committee."

"Twenty," he said. "I didn't do the math."

"I did it for both of us."

He turned his hand over under hers and wound their fingers together.

His eyes dropped to her mouth.

His thumb pressed into the center of her palm, and her whole body leaned toward him.

His face was close enough that she could smell rain and cedar and his shampoo.

The tom jumped down off the chair with a thump.

Missy sat back, and the moment cracked.

"Come back," she said, a little hoarse, "when your label lets you say my name out loud."

Chan flinched, and then he smiled, and she watched him decide to take it as a dare.

"I'll hold you to that," he said.

He put his shoes on and left.

Missy stood in her own kitchen with her hand still warm.

Her phone buzzed on the counter at 3:40.

It was an email from an address at the STARZ legal department, and the subject line said Third-Party Residency Agreement.

She read it standing up.

Clause seven named her. Missy Larkin, "third-party resident," bound to silence about anything she saw or heard.

It listed a penalty for breach, and the number made her put one hand on the counter.

She read it twice.

Nobody had asked her if she wanted to be a clause.

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