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“And my offer still stands,” a third voice spoke. Harriet gave me a meaningful smile. “I’m sure together we’ll make you a singer yet, Max.”

We walked on in silence for a few beats, then I said,“Am I really as bad as all that?”

When they didn’t reply, but instead exchanged knowing glances, I had my answer. Yup. That was the night I learned what a terrible singer I really am!

Hopefully, though, with a little help from my friends, I’d overcome this affliction.

Chapter 2

Chase woke up and blinked. He lay there, eyes wide open, wondering if it was time to get up. Judging from the fact that it was still dark out, it wasn’t. And a glance at his bedside clock told him it was two o’clock. At night.

And then he heard it. Cats mewling and yowling and producing the kinds of sounds only cats can make.

His lips twitched in amusement.

He’d recently learned that his girlfriend, Odelia Poole, possessed the rare and wonderful ability of being able to talk to cats. And those same cats could actually hear her and understand what she was saying!

It all seemed fantastical to him, and he’d never have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes and heard it with his own two ears.

The only unfortunate aspect of the whole thing was that he wasn’t able to learn how to do it himself. He’d asked Odelia to teach him the language but she’d told him it wasn’t really a language but more of a mystical connection she and her mother and grandmother seemed to have with the feline species.

Fair enough, but he still wished he possessed the same mystical connection, only maybe with dogs not cats. He loved dogs. Had always loved dogs. And just the idea that he would be a proud dog owner—or the dog the proud owner of him!—and that he could talk to the adorable mutt would be so great.

He rubbed his face as he listened to the protracted wails and screeches.

Odelia, of course, would know exactly what they were talking about, but one look at her tousled blond head told him she was still sound asleep.

His curiosity getting the better of him, he padded over to the window and looked out into the night. A full moon lit up the backyard of the house he now shared with Odelia, and sure enough, four cats sat gathered in the postage stamp of a lawn, screeching and screaming their hearts out. As far as he could tell they were just making noise, but who was he kidding? For all he knew they were discussing quantum mechanics or the latest social media scandal.

“They’re singing,” suddenly a voice sounded from the bed.

He turned around with an amused expression on his face.

Odelia’s tousled head had lifted and she was staring at him sleepily, her eyes half-lidded. “Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high… Or at least that’s what they’re trying to sing. They’re not great singers, those cats of mine.”

He laughed.“Are you seriously telling me they’re singing a song?”

“Yup. They go to cat choir every night, which is more of an excuse to get together and socialize than to perform in Madison Square Garden one day.”

“Hey, I like to sing,” he said. “Maybe I can join them?”

“Be my guest,” she said, and lay back down. “But leave me out of it, will you? I have to work tomorrow and I need my eight hours.”

He needed his eight hours, too, but one night of reduced slumber wouldn’t hurt, so he slipped his feet into his slippers and went downstairs to join the fearsome foursome as they traded notes and massacredOver The Rainbow.

“Hey, guys,” he said as he walked out into the night, and cinched the sash of his bathrobe around his muscular form. “Would you mind if I joined you?”

The cats meowed something he didn’t understand, but it didn’t sound hostile, so he dragged out a lawn chair and sat down. Then Max seemed to hold up a paw as if to count to three, and he bobbed his head in sync with his motions, then the cop and the four cats all broke into song.

“Somewhere over the rainbow, way up high…”

Suddenly a window was thrown open from the next house and a head poked out.

“Will you cut it out with all the noise!”

It was Odelia’s grandmother, and she did not look pleased.

“It’s not noise!” he shouted back. “The cats and I are singing!”

“Go ‘sing’ someplace else,” she said. “You’re waking up the whole neighborhood with your horrible caterwauling.”

He shook his head, and saw that Max was shaking his head, too.

“True talent is never appreciated, is it?” he said.

And he could have sworn that Max answered in the affirmative.

In defiance of his future grandmother-in-law, he opened his mouth to belt out a few more bars, and this time a window opened on the other side of the house, and a boot swished through the air and hit him on the back of the head.

“Hey!” he said.

“Oh, be quiet!” a voice yelled. He couldn’t see who it was, but assumed it was Odelia’s next-door neighbor Kurt Mayfield. A retired music teacher, apparently the singing didn’t appeal to his finely honed musical sensibilities.