“I’ll take him,” I say.
Gabriel’s head snaps to me as I realize with absolutehorrorwhat just came out of my mouth.
“Oh, howdelightful. How furrtastic!” the woman says, and off she runs before I can take it all back. What the fuck have I done? I don’t want this thing! The very last thing I’ve ever wanted is acat. Lucy Fur is enough, and I only put up with her because she delights Gabriel.
Gabriel is beaming, he’s so happy. “Liam… is there a heart in there?”
“It was a mistake. I’ve made a mistake,” I hiss.
“Listen to thosepurrs.”
“It sounds like it’s dying. Those purrs are the purrs of a cat that’s used all nine of its nine lives.”
“I just… I don’t know if I’ve ever seen anything so cute in my life. Look! There’s a little bio about him!” Gabriel says as he grabs the card the woman gave us when we came in. “He’s two years old.”
“Oh my god, he’s in the prime of his life and already this ugly?” I ask. “I thought for sure he was at least eighteen and had three paws in the grave. What have I done?”
“You’re going to be such a wonderful cat dad,” Gabriel says.
I stare at Gabriel who is all smiles. He’s delighted.Beyonddelighted. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him so happy. He starts laughing and doubles over as he looks at me.
“Your face, Liam. Your face. Oh my god, this is the best day ever.”
“As long as you’re happy, I’m happy.”
“And so is your new cat.”
“Oh joy,” I say dryly.
SIX
Liam
When I wake up to find the ugly cat smothering me, I realize that this is his plan to suffocate me. We’d brought him home from the cat café yesterday and decided that since I’d be moving things from my old house into the new house shortly, he’d stay at Gabriel’s until I was moved in.
My hope is that when the cat moves in, so will Gabriel. I had this grand plan that Lucy Fur would become so attached to the cat that she would mourn his loss when he moved in with me, Gabriel would rush right over the second he realized, and we would live happily ever after.
Instead, she pranced right over, screamed in the cat’s face and then whapped him over the side of the head while the cat sat like a loaf, not a care in the world. I think she could have whapped him for five minutes and I’m not sure he’d have even noticed.
He is now trying his paw at the art of suffocation, like I wanted to be breathing in cat hair as I slept and had any intention of sharing my pillow with this monstrosity.
“You disgust me,” I decide as the cat gives off his rattly purrs that the vet said were normal for him before giving him the cleanest bill of health and assuring me that I would have alonglife with him.
“Don’t look at me like that. It’s like one of my sleep demons has come to life.”
He doesn’t care.
I pat around for Gabriel, but my sleepy mind kind of remembers that he’d gotten up about fifteen minutes ago.
Pushing out of bed, I pull on some underwear and grab a shirt before wandering out of the bedroom. It’s cool in the house, but I want to get some coffee going before I get ready for a day packed full of harassing my coworkers. On my way to the kitchen, I see that Gabriel’s outside on the driveway, talking to the teenager from his neighbor’s house. I crack open the door so I can listen.
“You’re walking to school?” Gabriel asks.
The teenager nods. “Yeah, because we live within two miles of the school, the bus doesn’t come out here.”
“But it’s misty and freezing out. Let me drive you,” Gabriel says.
Cole waves him off. “Oh… no, I’m fine.”
