“See? They treat me like that cat over there just treated you. With pure disdain.”
“It’s because of the look on your face. They can tell you’re a grump,” Gabriel says.
“I’m not grumpy, I’m loving watching you. I’m just not a cat whisperer like you are. I’m more of a human whisperer.”
He laughs far too hard at that. “I love how you can possibly pretend you’re good at dealing with humans. It’s cute.”
“Thank you,” I say. “It’s my gift to the human race.”
“Your ability to interact with them?” Gabriel asks, chuckling. I set the wand down and watch him. One of the kittens climbs his shirt and he laughs as he cradles it so it doesn’t roll down. I’m starting to wonder if an hour isn’t enough because I could sit here all day and enjoy this.
“What?” he asks, noticing me staring at him.
“Just loving you.”
He grins. “You’re so sappy, Mr. Tough Guy.”
“Only when you’re around.”
The grumpy cat that refused to let Gabriel pet it jumps down, and all the other cats startle and look over at it as it struts over to us. They return to begging Gabriel for attention as my man beams at the smooshed-face thing.
“Aww, were you feeling lonely? I knew you just needed to warm up to us a bit,” he coos as he reaches for the cat that bypasses his outstretched arm, climbs onto my lap, and lies like an ugly loaf.
“Get it off me,” I say.
“Oh my god, that is the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“It’s like acid soaking into my skin, Gabriel. Take it. Get it off.”
Instead of caring, Gabriel is instead taking pictures of my misery. The cat’s half-shaved tail whips back and forth. There’s only a tuft of hair on the end that somehow makes it look even more miserable.
“Gabriel, I took abulletfor you, and you won’t take this thing off my lap for me?”
“Oh my goodness!” the woman running the place says as she hurries in. “Heneversits with customers. He never even lets me pet him! This is so darling! Oh, my heart. This just makes me so happy.”
Gabriel takes another picture of me and the atrocity on my lap, as though either of us look like we’re enjoying any part of this.
“Neither of us seem to be happy about this arrangement,” I complain as I realize the cat’s look of disgust likely mirrors my own.
“I don’t know, it’s really cute,” Gabriel says, looking more delighted about this than anything that’s happened so far today. I feel like I could have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars and just sat here in misery with this monster on my lap.
“He’s looking for his furrever home,” the woman says. “I was afraid he’d never get adopted because he just doesn’t like anyone who comes in. It’s fate.”
They’re acting like I’m the chosen one when all I’ve been chosen for is getting litter and fur on my lap. This benefits no one. If the cat wants to sit in a box all day and glower at the worms we call humans, then let him glower!
“My boss makes me rotate out the ones who don’t get adopted after a month, and his time is coming up soon. He’ll be sent back to the shelter where he’ll be looked over because of his cattitude.”
Gabriel is immediately suckered in by this. “Aww, that’s so sad. I’m sure it’s hard to home cats like him,” he says, and now suddenly my sweet darling has a sad look on his face. How could he go from being so happy to such distress? “That breaks my heart. Liam, did you hear how sad that is?”
How can my sweet Gabriel not tell that this is a business tactic? She’s playing with his heartstrings. There’s no way this cat has been here a month. His hair looks recently clipped, so my guess is a week at the most. He’s only endured one week of glowering and Gabriel is ready to ship him his life savings because the con man here has seen a sucker.
“You poor baby. That’s so sad. I can’t imagine how scary that is, going from a home where you were neglected to a shelter. I just think about how sad Lucille is being away from me during the workday, and then can you imagine something like this happening to her? No one would have any idea how wonderful she is because she’s so shy around new people.”
Is drawing blood, biting, and looks of hatred “shy”? If so, I should just claim to be shy the next time Gabriel catches me killing someone.
The loaf of hatred starts purring for some reason. But it’s not a cute purr. It sounds like a chainsaw that hasn’t been run in twenty-five years.
“He’spurring,” Gabriel gasps out. “Oh, Liam. My heart.” He looks absolutely dejected thinking about the “tragedy” that will fall on this cat.
