This is probably just me ovethinking, as I'm prone to. But anyway - my two boys have free access to go outside after breakfast time and then I keep them in at night. In practice that tends to be from about 10pm. They both love going outside and dart off as soon as they can, which I'm fine with, but lately some days it does seem like I barely see Rolo after that until curfew time. I work during the week so understand I'm not around to give them attention during the day very often, but as an example on Saturday when I was home working on an essay all day Rolo went out at 7:30am and didn't set a paw in the house again until 10:30pm. I'm routinely home and give them their evening meal by 6pm so I'm surprised he's not drawn back at least to scoff some food and go out again - which is what Monty tends to do, he's usually in and out a few times of an evening. Rolo used to do similar and sometimes have a nap in with me for an hour or two, but of late it's all about being off outside - as evenings have got lighter I've been seeing him less and less.
I don't know where Rolo goes, but as they're both so skittish with other people I can't imagine he has a 'second home', and he does seem hungry when he comes back. I do give him attention whenever I see him too so it's not like he doesn't have a food + cuddles incentive to come back. Is it just outside still being so thrilling with birds to stalk and moths to chase and other cats to frolic with? He's still pretty young, not two years old yet. If he's within earshot and I call he usually comes running - but quite often I'll call several times over the course of a few hours and nothing happens, I think he's off further afield somewhere. It just kind of worries me a bit that even when I've finally got them both in after curfew I still get meows of protest and hanging around the cat flap with them both hoping I'll let them back out again, even when Rolo has been out for 12-14 hours straight. After 5-10 minutes of protest they usually accept it's bedtime now and settle down, but if he could be out 24/7 with just popping in for the odd meal and a stroke I think Rolo would totally choose that.
I'm hoping it's just a bit of late spring/early summer, young cat over-excitement. But I'm moving house in three weeks time and they're both going to have to be on house arrest for a good few weeks, just when we hit the longest day of the year, which I'm rather dreading. I've invested in more flying frenzy attachments ready for lots of playtime to try to wear them out... Attached is the wild roaming beast curled up on my bed last night, when he reluctantly accepted he wasn't allowed back out again. Cute and cuddly when he wants to be!