Like Cats and Dogs by Kate McMurray (interesting novels in english .TXT) 📕

Paige reached over and took the box. She took some pamphlets out of it and slid them into an empty slot in her plastic display, then put the box with the remaining pamphlets under the table.

Lauren looked Caleb over. It would have been nice if they could walk around the fair together like a couple instead of playing at being adversaries. Neither seemed that offended by the mocking. It would have been nice if they didn’t feel the need to be so performative in their dislike of each other, though. Or else Caleb had reverted to his bratty self, back to the man Lauren hadn’t seen in a week or two as they’d had good sex and pleasant conversation a few times. Maybe he was…overcompensating now. Or Lauren was wrong in thinking he’d turned some new leaf and this was just who he always was.

Lauren saw in her peripheral vision a blond standard poodle and a harried-looking woman going into the vet clinic. Caleb must have seen it, too, because he said, “That’s my next appointment.” He looked around. “This is quite an operation.”

“It is,” said Lauren. “If you have a spare few minutes and can bear spending time among the hoi polloi later, I’ll give you a tour.”

“All right. Well. Uh. Break a leg?”

“Later, Caleb,” said Paige, waving in a way that looked a little patronizing. He mirrored her movement and went inside. “So he’s still a dick.”

“Yep,” said Lauren. But he was hers, wasn’t he? At least for now. Something had definitely changed between them recently, at least in private.

Evan came by the table then, a plastic bag from the bookstore hooked around his wrist. “Don’t look,” he said, “but Pablo has a table with a mix of weird used books and new releases, and there is absolutely no more shelf space anywhere in my apartment, but he had, like, eight things I want to read.”

Lauren turned to look despite Evan’s warnings. Pablo was indeed a few tables down, chatting with a woman who was pointing at books in the new release display.

“These excuses for talking to Pablo are costing you quite a bit of money. You pay full cover price for those books in your bag?”

“There’s a ten percent off street fair special.”

“Right.”

Evan frowned and looked at his bag. “He must think I’m way smarter than I am. I’ve only read a tiny fraction of the books I’ve bought from him since he started working at Stories.”

“Or you could ask him out.”

Evan shook his head. “When I was a teenager, I worked at a clothes store in the mall. There was this girl I worked with sometimes who thought my name was Jason. I corrected her a few times, but it never sank in, and she kept calling me Jason. Eventually, it had gone on too long, and I didn’t want to embarrass her by telling her she’d been getting my name wrong for months, so I just…responded when she called me Jason. I feel like this thing with Pablo is like that. I missed the window. I should have asked him out when he left Star Café, but now so much time has gone by that it’s embarrassing if I ask him out now.”

“That’s insane,” said Lauren. “Why not just walk up to him and say, ‘Hey, I really like you, let’s get a drink sometime. There’s a great bar just up the block that has amazing martinis.’ Done and done.”

Evan guffawed. “As if.” He looked around. “Hey, can I stash this bag with you. It’s heavy. That truck with the guy who makes the arepa sandwiches is just on the other side of Henry Street, and I’ve had dreams about his steak sandwich since the last one of these street fairs.”

“I’ll put your books under the table if you get me that chicken and avocado thing he sells.”

“You got it.”

***

Caleb got a break midafternoon. Rachel informed him two of his appointments had rescheduled, probably because of the street fair—a ten-block stretch of Whitman Street was closed to car traffic, and several patients had complained about the ripple effect that had on the rest of the area—so he had about an hour to kill.

He’d brought Hank with him to work that day since he knew he’d probably end up working late. He grabbed Hank’s leash from the coat hooks near the desk.

“You want to walk down to the grocery store that used to be a bank at the intersection with Court Street,” Rachel said as Caleb snapped Hank’s leash into place. “For some reason, the best food trucks park down there. The two best ones are the one with bison burgers and the one with empanadas. The empanadas are small, though, so order one of each kind to get the full experience.”

Caleb laughed. “Thanks for the tip. Is this whole street fair just an excuse to overeat?”

“Pretty much, yeah. And if you end up with any leftovers, your friendly neighborhood vet tech would be appreciative.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

When Caleb walked outside, Lauren was standing near the Cat Café table, looking at her phone. “You got a few minutes?” he asked her. “You promised to show me around. Hope you don’t mind if Hank comes along.”

“Oh. Yeah, sure.” She reached down and pet Hank’s head. He licked her hand as a reward. She looked up at Caleb. “Is it Take Your Dog to Work Day?”

“That’s every day at the clinic. Olivia gave me permission to bring Hank to work, so I have been when I work overnights. I did today, too, because my dogwalker wasn’t feeling well.”

“All right. Well, come on.”

As they walked through the center of the street, she said, “Have you ever been to a street fair in New York?”

“No, I can’t say I have.”

“They’re all kind of the same. This one is a little fancier because they get a bunch of really good food trucks and those have become kind of the draw,