6. Cat

My head feelslike it's going to explode. I don't know when the headache came on. One minute I was helping little Kylie Carmichael scoop cookie dough balls onto a cookie sheet, and the next thing I know my head is throbbing and the Carmichaels have taken their babies away, leaving me with Noah and a mess.

How did we get from there to sitting in the golf cart? Why didn't I just take his money when he offered after I cleaned up? Stupid conscience.

"You okay, Cat?" Noah asks, his low voice climbing over my skin.

I want to let it wrap around me like a blanket. Maybe if I make him fall in love with me, he'll give me access to the Belacourt vault in the basement of Disney World. That's where all the best things are kept, right? The thought leaves as quickly as it arrives because it's awful and I'm not that type of person. I have too much pride to be a gold digger, unfortunately. Maybe a little integrity, too.

Concern pulsates from Noah in waves. I just want a hug, and it's so tempting to weasel one out of him. I'll lean into his confidence instead. The more I've thought about it tonight, the more I feel like I can't share this with anyone. Not Holland or Ivy or any of my friends. Otto deserves more privacy and respect than that, and I've already broken it by sorting through his mail. It would be disrespectful to spread this around, especially without confronting Otto first.

But Noah? He doesn't run in my circles. He doesn't really know Otto, even if he knows of him. He's a safe sounding board for the overwhelming things I'm feeling right now. Plus, he's only here for the summer and then he'll be gone again.

Or maybe I'm drunk on the darkness and the waves crashing in the distance and the gentle, humid warmth of a June evening.

Yeah, probably that.

I rub my temples. Here goes nothing. "I found a medical bill today that Otto never told me about for a ridiculous amount of money I could never dream of paying back in this lifetime."

It slips out like a melted popsicle at the beach. Why did I just confide in him? Him of all people?

But he doesn't know my friends. He doesn't know Otto. He's quiet and he's listening and now that I've started, I can't seem to stop.

"I don't get it. Otto had no choice. He would have died without chemo. We found him a good team of doctors, they save his life, and now he's stuck with bills he can't afford. And the worst part?" I sit up, turning to face Noah. "He didn't tell me." I scoff, lifting my hands in the air like a crazed lunatic and hitting the top of the golf cart. My hand throbs, but I power through. "Why? I'm trustworthy. I'm family. Not even just family, but his only family. He has no one left here but me, and he's facing this huge thing, but he won't even tell me? Seriously? I have a right to know if he has a debt so big we could lose our house."

I'm seeing stars. The words are all out and there's no taking them back. I'm not even sure a man who allowed his life into five seasons of a reality TV show is the type of person you should spill huge secrets to, but it's too late now. Silence wraps around my admission, cloaking us in an awkward heavy cocoon.

"How's your hand?" Noah asks.

"It hurts." I shake it out, but I can feel the bruise already forming.

Noah pivots to face me better. I can't help but be grateful that the first words out of his mouth weren't I'm sorry. "Do you need ice?" he asks.

"No." Something about him letting me sit in the pain makes me want to talk more, and I can't seem to stop myself anyway. I can feel my ire dying and the relief from unburdening changing that awkward cocoon into a comfortable one.

Deceptively comfortable?

Probably. I don't care right now.

"It all hurts, Belacourt. The stupid part is I can't do anything about it." I laugh, the sharp sound cutting through the dark. "I took that babysitting job tonight for the money. Well, good thing I did. I'm fifty bucks closer to reaching my goal. Fifty bucks," I repeat, because it's pennies compared to what we need to come up with. Pennies.

"I'm sorry you're going through this," Noah says. His voice is soft but firm, and I suddenly feel ridiculous for complaining about money to a billionaire.

A billionaire.

He probably wipes his nose with fifty-dollar bills.

"Cat?" he whispers, his deep voice climbing over my skin.

"Sorry. Just have a headache."

"I have ibuprofen back at the house."

Why does he keep offering things? Paying me for cleaning, a ride, ice, meds. We aren't friends. It gives me flashbacks to eighth grade and Olive asking if I wanted a piece of gum, then putting it in her own mouth after I said yes.

That was the moment I knew things had changed.

I face forward. "Can you just take me home?"

Noah starts driving immediately. We proceed in silence, and the shame that follows confessions like this washes over my skin.

"You know," he says, pulling onto my road. "If you need a job?—"

"I have a job. Actually, I have two jobs. Three? I don't know if you can count being a personal assistant to my uncle, but I do that too."

"You're his personal assistant?"

"Not in an official capacity, but yeah. I've been doing it since he was first diagnosed."

Noah's quiet for a minute, the golf cart slowing a block before we reach my house, a gorgeous two-story bed and breakfast close to the center of town.

Has he forgotten where I live? He was literally there hours ago. Maybe he's as awkward as I am and wants to end our conversation now. I start to climb out when his hand on my arm stops me, the warmth taking me by surprise. "I need an island PA."

Huh?

"I have an assistant already," he continues. "Mateo. He's amazing. But he's on the mainland, and he can't make it over here often and it's been?.?.?. I need help locally. Don't answer me now."

My head is still pounding. I'm trying to make sense of his erratic speech.

"Take time to think about it," Noah presses. "But it will pay better than babysitting."

Think about what? Running all over the island managing his dry cleaning and doing his grocery shopping and being his yes girl? Disturbing. Mom is probably standing over my shoulder now, shaking her head. And Dad is probably trying to drag her away and reminding her not to meddle.

I was only nine when they were pulled into the ocean by a rip current and didn't make it back out alive, but I remember them clearly. Mom with her ideals and Dad with his calming, leveling presence. They were a good balance. My heart reaches out for them, and I hope they're nearby, even if I'm making a mess of myself in front of a Belacourt. I like to think I walk the world with two guardian angels and one earthly one. Otto still counts, even if I'm bugged with him right now.

Noah's hand is still on my arm, keeping me frozen in the cushioned seat, one leg out of the cart with my foot dangling above the blacktop.

"That seems?.?.?. weird."

Noah's fingers tighten. "Just promise you'll consider it." He releases me to pull a phone from his pocket and unlocks it. After fiddling for a second, he hands me the phone open to a new contact form. "You can text me when you've thought it over."

Don't look, Mom. I type my number in and write Catalina under the name. I don't know why I do that, except that I like hearing him say it. No one calls me that. No one. Except for nurses, dental assistants, or substitute teachers reading rolls, the only person who consistently used my full given name was my dad.

He met my mom on Catalina Island, so it's kind of special to him.

I complete the entry and notice I'm one of three phone numbers in his contacts. "A little sparse," I say, before I can tell my mouth to shut it.

Noah takes his phone back. "It's a new phone."

Of course it is. Because people like Noah need to have the latest technology. I bet his old phone is sitting in a drawer somewhere, barely a year old. I could sell it and be one step closer to saving my uncle and my home.

Or I could run him coffee and fold his laundry.

Ack, Cat. No.

There's no way I could work for this guy. Even if he offers me ninety-two thousand dollars.

Well, maybe I would then, but that would also make him certifiable.

Noah drives me to the front of my house and pulls the cart to a stop. I hop out. "Thanks for the ride."

"I'll text you so you have my number," he says.

This is weird. I feel buzzy and uncertain. What I really need, more than anything, is for Otto to come clean. Maybe it's all a misunderstanding anyway and the medical bills are wrong or Otto has been paying them but the payments haven't gone through yet.

But he wanted to talk today.

Either way, there are other ways of coming up with the money. I just made a ton of jam. If I stick labels on the jars, I bet I could hike up the price and sell them at the farmer's market. After I take some out for the BB and deliver jars to my favorite islanders, obviously.

I'd only need to sell roughly?.?.?. ten thousand jars of jam. No biggie.

Noah watches me, waiting quietly for a response, and I can't decide how to feel about the way he doesn't rush me. I would have thought a guy like him would be all business, impatient to get to the point, but he lets me think before he requires responses. It's refreshing.

I start toward my house. "Thanks for the lift."

"Anytime," he says quietly. He waits until I'm up the steps and inside before he pulls away.

That was oddly chivalrous.

The first thing I do when I walk inside is check out the study. The pile of mail is gone, so Otto must have found it. Good. Maybe now he'll talk.

I find him in the unattached garage on the side of the house, his surfboard upside down on a padded sawhorse while he rubs wax along the bottom.

When he lifts his gaze, his face lights up. "Cattywampus! You're home. Did you hit up any cool hip places?"

I can tell he's making fun of himself. I love him for being such a goofball.

"Meet any guys?" he continues, waggling his white brows.

"My dates were tiny, cried a bit, and at one point I had to change a diaper."

Otto's mouth hangs open.

"I was babysitting."

"Who?" he asks.

"The Carmichael girls. I guess Connor knows Noah Belacourt from college, so they all went out to eat at his restaurant."

Otto pulls a face. "A little too highbrow for me."

Says the man who spent the day golfing.

"Did they enjoy it?" he asks.

"Probably." I open the stepladder and sit on the top with my feet up on a rung, resting my chin on my palms. My phone buzzes in my pocket, but I ignore it.

Otto keeps waxing his board.

"I feel like a Victorian spinster and you're the matron pushing me toward eligible men."

Otto looks up. "I can't be the handsome, studious guardian?" His shirt is off a button and his stringy hair falls over his face.

"Sure. Wanna explain why you feel a sudden desire to marry me off? This house isn't big enough for both of us or something? This isn't Bridgerton."

"What's Bridgerton?"

"Otto."

He puts his hands up. "Okay, yeah, maybe I was thinking it might be nice if you fell madly in love and brought home a nice guy one of these days. It's not because I want you out of the house. The guy can live here with us if you want."

I take a page from Noah's playbook and sit in the silence, giving Otto a chance to come clean.

"I just want you to be happy, Cat. I'm not going to be here forever."

"Do you have something to tell me?" I ask, doing some mad sea fishing for information right now. "Is the cancer back?"

He shakes his head, scoffing. "No, of course not. I wouldn't keep that from you."

Currently, that's not an easy thing to swallow. It rocks me because I've trusted Otto implicitly for my entire life. Yeah, he's not my father, but he raised me. He got to be both my mom and my dad. He brought me flowers at high school graduation, took me to the shop for pads when I started my period, let me cry on his shoulder in college when Jake ghosted me for Yale sorority girls. I have other aunts and uncles and even a set of grandparents in Georgia and a grandma out in San Diego, but I don't see any of them often. Otto is my family.

And, as far as I know, he's never lied to me before. He's never kept anything from me.

"You would tell me, right?" I press. "If you were in trouble, would you tell me?"

"Come on, Kit Kat. You know I would."

Okay. So. Either he's lying to my face, or he's not really in trouble.

Otto returns his attention to the surfboard. "Hey, I've been thinking of selling the old Beetle. What do you think? I don't really use it, and I can get a good amount from someone who might want to restore it or something."

My heart stops. "You want to sell your car."

"We have the golf carts, and I don't really leave the island, Cat. Why do I need to keep it? It just sits at the ferry lot, rusting away."

He does leave the island, though. He uses it to meet up with buddies and surf along the Florida coast. He used it a few months ago for a road trip out to a music festival in North Carolina. I used it a few months ago with a day pass at Costco to see if a membership was worth it.

It wasn't. Not unless we got a different vehicle. The Beetle doesn't hold enough, and I drove home with toilet paper getting in the way of the gear shift.

No, he shouldn't sell his car. But telling me he wants to? That gives him away. Otto loves his yellow Beetle. He adores it almost as much as he adores me. Which means he owes a lot of money, and he's in trouble.

He's been lying.

"It's your car, your choice," I say lightly. I need to buy some time. "I'd wait until the summer is over at least. Aren't you meeting up with Phil and Hank next month down south?"

His face screws up. "You're right. I'll sell it after that." He gives me a broad smile. "What would I do without you, Cat?"

Lose your house, I think. But he won't, because I won't let him. He's not going to lose his car either.

I might not make ninety-two thousand dollars selling jam, but I'm smart, and I will find a way to get that money.

I hop off the stepladder and head for the house. "Good night, Otto."

"Night, Cattywampus. Love you, kiddo."

"Love you too."

My phone buzzes again, so I slip it from my pocket while I cross the dark yard toward the house. Willow is crying from the Carmichael room upstairs, so I climb the porch steps and sit on the wicker chair in the dark, pulling out my phone.

Unknown Number

This is Noah Belacourt

I'm not offering you charity, Cat. I really do need an island PA. If you don't want the job, I'll look elsewhere.

That was not intended to rush you into a decision. Take your time.

And now I've texted you too many times.

Chronic overthinker.

Please don't feel like you need to respond to me tonight. But letting me know I have the right number and I'm not overtexting a random would be nice.

I consider letting him stew all night, but he said he's a chronic overthinker, and I should put him out of his misery.

Cat

You have the right number. I'll call you tomorrow.

Noah gives my text a thumbs up, and I put my phone away.