A Love Catastrophe

New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Helena Hunting lives outside of Toronto with her amazing family and her two awesome cats, who think the best place to sleep is her keyboard. She writes all things romance—contemporary, romantic comedy, sports, and angsty new adult. Helena loves to bake cupcakes, has been known to listen to a song on repeat 1,512 times while writing a book, and if she has to be away from her family, she prefers to be in warm weather with her friends. ALSO BY HELENA HUNTING The Good Luck Charm Meet Cute Kiss My Cupcake PIATKUS First published in the US in 2023 by Forever, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Piatkus Copyright © 2023 by Helena Hunting The moral right of the author has been asserted. All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-349-43881-8 An imprint of Little, Brown Book Group Carmelite House 50 Victoria Embankment London EC4Y 0DZ An Hachette UK Company www.hachette.co.uk www.littlebrown.co.uk Contents Chapter One: The Kitty Whisperer Chapter Two: Royally Hissed Chapter Three: Don’t Attack the Kitty Whisperer Chapter Four: The Routines We Love Chapter Five: Kitty Magic Chapter Six: A Little Bit Fascinated Chapter Seven: That Escalated Quickly Chapter Eight: I Kind of Like You Chapter Nine: All the Embarrassing Moments Chapter Ten: A Little Haunted? Chapter Eleven: The Pieces of Who We are Chapter Twelve: Comfort in Connection Chapter Thirteen: Such a Boob Chapter Fourteen: The Unstuck Chapter Fifteen: Well, That Was Unexpected Chapter Sixteen: Little Pieces Chapter Seventeen: Kitty Comfort Chapter Eighteen: Sexy Times Chapter Nineteen: One Paw at a Time Chapter Twenty: Right Meow Chapter Twenty-One: Little Steps Chapter Twenty-Two: Cat-Tastic Party Chapter Twenty-Three: Paws-Itively Purrfect Chapter Twenty-Four: An Absolute Cat-Astrophe Chapter Twenty-Five: The Cat’S Out of the Bag Chapter Twenty-Six: Purrfectly Pawsitive People Chapter Twenty-Seven: Moving Forward Chapter Twenty-Eight: Hart to Hart Chapter Twenty-Nine: Pawsitive Changes Epilogue: Hold the A-Claws Acknowledgments For kidlet. You inspire me every day with yourwonderful creative brain and your endless empathy. chapter one THE KITTY WHISPERER Miles Ican’t believe this is real.” I stare in mild disbelief at the top trending advertisement on my computer screen for several seconds before I move my cursor to hover over the website name. I’m afraid that what’s being advertised and what will pop up when I click the link are two very different things. I squeeze one eye shut and narrow the other, already expecting the worst. A knock on my office door has me accidentally clicking the link instead of closing the window. “The Kitty Whisperer?” Thankfully it’s not my boss. It’s my best friend and colleague, Josh Halpern. I spin around, eyes wide. “Wanna say that a little louder? I don’t think Tom at the end of the hall heard you.” He steps into my office and closes the door, one eyebrow raised as he surveys the space. It’s a small office, but it has a window. The view is of the side of the building next door, but it opens, so that’s nice. And it’s better than my last job, where I worked in what we affectionately called the dungeon. Three other guys and I had cubicles in the basement. It was next to the laundry room, and noisy, and sometimes it smelled a bit funky, unless the laundry was on the dryer cycle. Then it was hot, but at least it smelled like dryer sheets. “Uh, dude, unless you’re actively looking to get your ass fired during your first month, you probably shouldn’t be checking those sites at work.” “It’s a cat-sitting service, not one of those sites. And to be clear, I would not willfully use the company server for that kind of browsing.” Josh is the reason I have this job, and I don’t want to do anything to make him look bad. Or get myself fired before I even have a chance to prove I’m an asset to the team. We’re heading into the regular NHL season, and my role as a data analyst is to run player stats and help inform management when to use players to maximize performance. “You just gotta be careful, man,” he warns. “You’re new, and any non-work-related browsing should be limited to nonwork hours. Management is pretty strict about that.” I motion toward the cup of ramen noodles in front of me. “It’s my lunch break, so I figured it would be okay.” “Oh. Well, you don’t have to eat lunch at your desk.” “I know. I just needed to get this situation managed, so I was killing two birds with one stone.” “What situation is that?” He steps up beside me and leans in closer to get a better look at my screen, his face scrunching in confusion. “Is this for real?” “It certainly seems that way, yes.” The website has an overwhelming number of cat videos. And there’s a meowing soundtrack in the background that takes all of five seconds to become grating. I turn down the volume. “Why are you on this site?” He raises a hand in front of his face as a space cat gif cycles every five seconds. It’s a lot. “Dude, can you do something, like click to another screen? I’m getting a headache from all the flashing.” I click on one of the social media