How to Tell Your Boyfriend You Adopted Two Pets

She's about to ruin that sweater.

Lyra has forty-five seconds between Finn's car pulling into the driveway and his key hitting the lock.

She spends them adjusting her cashmere sweater.

Two one-eyed rescue animals are asleep in the bedroom. A forty-pound bag of dog food is hidden behind the kitchen island. A litter box is assembled in the guest bathroom—behind a door she forgot to close. Finn is going to walk through that door, take one look at her face, and know that something is up, because Finn always knows.

So Lyra does what any reasonable woman would do in five hundred dollars worth of clothing she's fully prepared to sacrifice. She has a plan, an outfit, and a speech rehearsed down to the mock outrage.

She just hasn't figured out how to explain the litter box.