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"I don't eat pie."
Gen looks up (and up and up) at her new neighbor, who's nice-looking except for the way he's scowling at her, and then she looks back down at her famous caramel apple pie.
Well. Famous amongst her closest friends and family, at least.
"You don't eat pie," she repeats.
"No."
She looks back up into his sexy bedroom eyes. Back down to the pie.
"Everybody eats pie," she says finally.
"You'd think that."
His scowl deepens but Genevieve raises herself up to her full five and three-quarters height and meets his gaze head on.
Or, whatever. He's at least a foot taller but she is not intimidated.
"I know someone in your house eats pie, Mr. Padalecki, because the one I left cooling on my screened-in porch last night was demolished this morning."
At least her rude new neighbor has the sense to look abashed.
"That's, um, probably JT," he mumbles. "My cat."
"Your cat?" She kinda doesn't believe him at first, but then she remembers the stray she took in years before who gnawed his way through an entire loaf of cinnamon bread one night.
"I’m very sorry, Ms. Cortese," her neighbor says. "But, really, I'd prefer you take the pie home. And please, don't come back."
He closes the door in her face and she has to curb some very childish impulses. Like T-P'ing his house (or at least coaxing one of the neighborhood brats to do it). But then she thinks of the trees cut down to make toilet tissue, going all soggy and unused as the fall rains progress, and she can't go through with it. Then she imagines throwing a dozen eggs at his house, maybe even two dozen, but when she thinks of the hens, and all they went through to make those eggs, she just sighs and heads back home.
***
Over the next several weeks Mr. Padalecki keeps himself completely shut up all day, and rebuffs every attempt at friendliness from Gen and their surrounding neighbors. At night Genevieve sits on her back porch with a glass of wine and a sketchbook, watching thoughtfully as Padalecki's tomcat prowls up and down the shared backyards on their block.
***
There is a salmon quiche cooling on the table on her porch. Gen has been huddled in the corner for over three hours, wrapped in a thin quilt against the cool October night, dozing. She would read if the light wouldn't scare the kitty away but in the absence of any mental stimulation, she finds herself embroiled in the types of fantasies that are completely inappropriate for someone who illustrates children's picture books for a living.
Mr. Padalecki growling as he licks at the sensitive spot behind her ear, as he wraps her up in his long, strong arms, as he purrs into her mouth. As he slowly peels down her shirt, licking her everywhere with his spiny-rough cat's tongue...
In her twilight sleep she presses her thighs together, draws her body up, grinds back against the corner of the porch. Wonders if a quick tickle of her index finger and one or two more rolls of the hip would send her over, send her—
"MRAW!"
She sits up suddenly, shaking off the dozy lethargy produced by her sex dreams, and takes in the long-coated, chocolate-colored cat who has snuck into the barely torn corner of the screened porch.
"Hi, JT," Gen says quietly.
The cat gives her a narrow look and then begins attacking the salmon quiche as Gen slowly, slowly rises to her feet.
"Yes, JT, all that Vitamin D, ymm," she purrs. "And the omega-3's, so good for your lovely, shiny coat..."
She comes up behind him and cat-quick drags him into her arms, right hand corralling his front paws as her left hand takes care of his hind legs.
"Let's just get you inside, JT," she coos, and though the cat tries to hiss and shimmy and twist away, she holds it firm.
"Just for tonight, JT," she whispers as she deposits him into a large dog kennel, left over from another of her previous strays.
"Just for tonight, until I can get Jared to talk to me."
The cat hisses and spits and cries and yowls, an impressive display of caterwauling. But Gen works from home so she's not worried about the lack of sleep, and she sings strange mountain lullabies, and early Beatles songs; Nick Cave murder ballads, and side A of Master of Puppets. And finally, finally the cat goes to sleep, worn out and miserable.
***
She never really slept that night but she wasn't completely awake either, so she didn't see when the shift happened. One minute she was baking rosemary & spider-leg pies for the Queen at the top of an architecturally improbable building, and the next she was blearily looking at her new neighbor, naked and coiled unhappily in a kennel meant for a 50-lb dog.
"Good morning, Mr. Padalecki," she says.
He glares at her, starts to curse, and then slumps down again in defeat.
"It's Jared."
"If I invite you to breakfast, Jared, do you plan to be civil?"
He mumbles something she doesn't quite catch and she slides off the bed and kneels in front of the cage, unmindful of her own nudity.
"What was that?"
He takes in the swell of her breasts, the swell of her lips, and then shyly averts his eyes. "Thanks," he mumbles, "Sounds nice."
She smiles broadly as she unlatches the cage. "I have crab meat and fresh cream, Jared. I thought you and JT might both appreciate those for breakfast."
He stands and stretches before meeting her eyes.
"How did you know?"
And she could tell him about her Auntie Mimi, who sometimes can't be located at the same time the lovely Rhodesian Ridgeback turns up in Mimi's back yard, but she's not sure he deserves to be put out of his misery just yet.
He was very rude, after all.
But she rubs his shoulders and back, stiff from his long night in the kennel, and then they walk into the sunlit kitchen hand in hand.