Maya was already fifteen minutes late, though "late" felt generous for someone who'd spent the last twenty minutes hoping the whole evening would just cancel itself. The blind date — some guy named Rob, a structural engineer, divorced, "genuinely nice, I swear" — was her coworker Priyanka's doing. Priyanka had matchmaking energy like a woman on commission. "He's forty-one, no drama, owns his own place in Astoria. Just have coffee with him, Maya, that's it."
Maya could've had coffee at home. Cheaper, and nobody would ask her three follow-up questions about her job. But arguing with Priyanka was like arguing with her cat about the countertop — a fight you'd already lost before it started. Speaking of which, the cat in question, a orange tabby named Biscuit, sat on top of the bookshelf watching her get dressed with an expression that suggested profound disappointment.
She'd pulled out the green wrap dress she hadn't worn since her cousin's wedding two summers ago. Turned in front of the mirror. Biscuit blinked at her, unimpressed.
"Be honest. Too much?"
Biscuit hopped down and padded toward the hallway without answering, which Maya took as a verdict.
She swiped on lip gloss, grabbed her bag, stepped into her flats by the door, and reached for the deadbolt.
The second the door opened, something orange shot between her ankles.
Biscuit. Out into the hallway, pausing for exactly one second to assess his exit route, then tearing down the stairs of their Queens walk-up like he had somewhere urgent to be.
"Biscuit! No! Get back here!"
Biscuit did not get back there.
Maya dropped her purse, kicked off her flats, and ran after him barefoot on the cold linoleum. Fourth floor. Third. She grabbed the railing on the landing turn and nearly went down, one sock skidding across the tile.
"I swear to God, cat—"
Down on the ground floor, the building's ancient elevator groaned open — it always sounded like it was filing a complaint — and a man stepped out. Tall, broad-shouldered, holding a stack of mail.
Biscuit launched.
Straight up onto the man's chest, claws hooked into his flannel, nose pressed into his neck, meowing like he'd been waiting his whole life for this exact stranger.
The man froze. Looked down at the cat. Then looked up at Maya, who had just half-fallen into the lobby, hair everywhere, dressed for a date, wearing one sock and one bare foot.
Nobody said anything for a second. Somewhere upstairs a radiator clanked.
"Yours?" he asked.
"Mine," Maya panted, hands on her knees. "My cat. He bolted. I'm so sorry."
The man nodded slowly. Biscuit kept meowing, making it very clear he had no intention of getting down.
"Does he do this often?"
"No. Honestly he barely comes to me on the first try. This is a whole personality shift."
The man laughed — a real one, low and surprised — and Biscuit purred harder at the sound.
"I'm Sam," he said. "Just moved into 4B."
"Maya. 6A."
"Neighbor, then."
"Neighbor."
She reached for Biscuit. The cat glanced at her, unbothered, then turned and burrowed further into Sam's collar.
"Wow. Okay. Traitor," Maya told him.
Sam scratched behind Biscuit's ear like it was second nature. "Maybe he just needs a minute."
"He needs a diet, is what he needs. Long story."
They stood there in the lobby, Biscuit purring like a small engine, Sam holding him the way someone holds an animal they've held a hundred times before — one hand under the belly, one along the spine.
"You had cats before?" Maya asked.
"One. Orange, actually, like this guy. Had him seven years, then I moved for work and he stayed with my mom in Jersey. Miss him more than I probably should admit."
Maya looked at Biscuit, eyes half-shut in bliss on a stranger's shoulder. Then at Sam. Then at her phone, which buzzed against her palm.
The date. Rob. The coffee place on Steinway.
She typed: *Priyanka, I'm not coming. Emergency. Cat escaped.*
The reply came back in under ten seconds: *ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW*
*Dead serious. Explain later.*
She put the phone away.
"Okay, Sam, this is going to sound strange, but — do you want to come up for coffee? Consider it damages for the assault."
Sam looked at Biscuit. Biscuit looked at Sam. Something had clearly been decided between them in the last four minutes that neither human had voted on.
"Coffee sounds good," he said.
—
The coffee turned into two hours. Maya only had decaf, which she apologized for twice, and then remembered a bag of cinnamon rolls from Zabar's sitting untouched on top of the fridge since Sunday. They weren't fresh, but microwaved for eleven seconds they were passable, and Sam ate two without complaint while Biscuit sat in his lap like he'd signed a lease there.
Somewhere around the second cup, Sam mentioned he did structural retrofits on old brownstones — earthquake bracing, mostly, work he'd picked up out west before coming back east for his mother, whose hip replacement had gone sideways and needed someone nearby. Maya told him about her job doing accounts for a dental office in Long Island City, and how her ex-husband, Derek, had taken the good couch and left her the cat, and how for the first eight months she'd resented Biscuit for reminding her of Derek and had only recently started to think the cat got the better end of that deal.
"He's a good judge of character, then," Sam said, nodding at Biscuit.
"Apparently better than me. I dated Derek for six years."
Sam didn't laugh at that one. Just said, "For what it's worth, the cat likes me and I've known you two hours," which made Maya actually laugh, first real laugh she'd had in weeks that wasn't performed for someone else's benefit.
They started small. Coffee became a Thursday thing, which became grabbing takeout from the Thai place on the corner, which became Sam knocking on her door with a spare bag of the cat food he'd started buying because Biscuit had apparently decided 4B was a second residence. Three months in, Priyanka met Sam at Maya's birthday dinner and pulled Maya into the bathroom to hiss, "You ditched Rob for THIS? Rob who does triathlons?" and Maya just said, "Rob who does triathlons never once got approved by my cat," and that, apparently, settled it.
By November, Sam's lease on 4B was up, and instead of renewing, he asked Maya, half-joking, half not, if two apartments' worth of rent for one relationship still made financial sense. Maya said no, obviously, months ago it had stopped making sense, and that was the actual conversation where they decided he'd move up to 6A instead of finding somewhere new.
That was fourteen months ago now.
They didn't get married — not yet, not urgently — but Sam kept the framed photo of his old cat from Jersey on the bookshelf next to a new one: Biscuit, asleep on Sam's chest, taken the first week they met, the same collar-nuzzle pose that started the whole thing. Priyanka still brings up Rob the triathlete at every dinner party like it's a personal grievance she's entitled to.
Biscuit, for his part, has never once tried to escape the apartment again. He doesn't need to. Everyone he wanted is already inside.
