This makes Alexei laugh as Claude slowly looks over his shoulder at him. “You don’t need to laughsohard.”
Alexei shrugs. “What? It was funny. The girl’s got some jokes… although is it a joke if it’s true?”
“I assumed he didn’t have any mirrors, which is why he dresses that way,” Marcus says.
Claude shifts his glower to his brother, who is looking quite proud of himself. “Ha. Ha. Funny. I only look at myself to make sure my outfit is perfect—which it always is.Anyway. When I’m feeling down, I like to dress up! So I went to the store and I bought you the cutest outfits!”
He dumps enough bags on the ground to fill up the room as I question how long he was shopping for and… what this poor child is going to be put through.
“I’ve always wanted a kid to dress,” Claude announces. “Alexei, can we have a baby?”
“You realize that you have to do more than just dress them, right? You have to feed them, and then they cry, and then when you’re removing their diaper they wait until a clean one is on to dirty that one. And they wait until you’re ready to go somewhere to spit up on you so you have to rush around to get changed. Imagine your clothes. Imagine that on your clothes.”
Claude contemplates this for about ten seconds before turning to me. “Why don’t you two have a child? I would absolutely love a little niece or nephew, and I would dress them and they’d be so cute.”
“Why don’t you try it out on Rylee here first and we’ll see how that goes,” I say.
“And then you’ll think about it? Aw. Make sure they’re cute.”
“Why have a child when Claude already acts like one?” Marcus asks.
“Ha. Ha. Marcus, I’ve been meaning to tell you that I’d love to put little light-up booties on your horse too. I braided flowers into Alexei’s horse’s tail, and they looked so darling, and then your horse came over and ate them.”
“Sounds like he did a good job, then,” Marcus says.
“Funny.” He pulls out the first dress and Rylee cocks her head.
“Did you murder an innocent peacock?” she asks.
“No! Peacocks shed their feathers, which were then made into this dress. Isn’t it lovely? It’s lovely,” he says, which means we no longer get an opinion as he comes at her with the dress. He just plops it over her head and melts the moment he sees it, even though it looks ridiculous with her sweats and unicorn shirt on under it.
“Oh my goodness. You are precious.”
Rylee doesn’t seem certain about this. “Finn… Finn, save me.”
Ignoring this, Claude coos, “I just can’t. You’re just the cutest! I have another. It’s even better.”
Rylee looks concerned. “Finn, I’ve turned into a bird.”
I grin at her. “You have. You’re a very pretty bird.”
Claude comes at her with another bag. “I got this to match,” he says as he slides a hat with feathers on it onto the cat’s head. The cat doesn’t care. He’s pleased to be touched, but boy does that make Rylee happy.
I can see all of her worries evaporate. And when I look at Marcus, I can see the disbelief on his face over the fact that he didn’t even have to read a damn word. All he had to do was put a hat on the cat.
“THIS IS SO CUTE. I love it so much! We match! Finn! We match!”
“I thought you didn’t like the dress?” I tease.
“Wemaaaatch,” she says as she scoops her cat up.
I felt like inviting Claude’s help was a bit questionable, but clearly he did a good job. I give him a thumbs-up and he’s all smiles.
“I told you to just buy the cat clothes,” Alexei says.
“But they’re cuter if they match,” Claude decides.
Rylee rushes for me. “I need your phone. I bet if we send En cat pictures he’ll come home. He’s going to love them so much.”
