The scents of cooking were everywhere, rich and spicy and different than what he was accustomed to, and Noah took an appreciative sniff. May appeared at his greeting, and it had been long enough since he'd seen her that he'd forgotten how small she was, how finely-made, how pretty, even in plain clothes meant for working around the house.
"Yes, I won't turn down help," he said, and offered her the duffle and the armload of papers. The duffle wasn't particularly heavy, just awkward; it had Spatula's clean, taken-apart litterbox and half a bag of cat litter, along with a few other odds and ends. The backpack and the cat carrier with Spatula were the heavy things. "Thank you. It smells great in here, though I'll admit some of the scents I don't recognize."
Noah set down the cat carrier and shrugged out of the backpack. "This is Spatula. Or Spats or Spazz or Hey You, Stupid Cat. He doesn't answer to any of them," he said with a smile reserved for owners of not-particularly-bright-but-well-loved-anyway pets. He unfastened the door, opened it, and leaned down to see Spatula giving him the Glare of Death. "He's a little shy and might take a while to come out in spite of hating the carrier."