by Elyse, Drew
Chapter Four
Park
Gwen led us back down a hallway, and I barely resisted the urge to watch her ass. The woman was a walking piece of art. She looked like a faerie, like if she’d sprouted wings any moment and fluttered away, I wouldn’t even be fucking shocked. Even the scar across the side of her face managed to throw her delicate features into sharp relief.
I didn’t draw or paint portraits often, but I wanted to do hers.
And so much more.
“She’s cute,” Jess said low so Gwen wouldn’t hear. She was always doing that, like she thought I couldn’t figure out if I was attracted to a woman without her helpful guidance.
At least she wasn’t trying to set us up yet, because Jess was a lot of things, but she was a pretty shit matchmaker. Her heavy-handed way of talking people up made everyone involved uncomfortable—everyone except for her anyway.
“You’re a pain in the ass,” I shot back.
“You sound like Braden.”
I was sure I did. He knew as well as anyone that Jess was a force of nature. If you tried to handle her, she’d blow right over you. Even as gone as he was for her, as much as she meant to me, she could drive you crazy without trying.
“I’ll remind you I had to load up on allergy meds to come here because you want a cat instead of some other animal I’m not allergic to,” Jess argued.
“I’ll remind you I didn’t ask you to come.”
Her lips tilted, not quite holding back her grin. Jess didn’t need to be asked. If she wanted to be somewhere, she went. If I was getting a cat—something she was taking as some kind of cry for help—she wanted to be there. Even if it meant cat dander.
Gwen came to a stop in front of a door. “Right in here is where all of our adoptable cats are housed.”
“Are there ones that aren’t adoptable here?” Jess asked.
“We are a fully functional animal hospital and rescue as well as having the actual shelter, so we have a number of animals on site in varying stages of recovery that aren’t ready to be rehomed yet. Whether that’s recovering from injuries or malnutrition or dealing with psychological wounds of abuse and neglect. We handle all stages from retrieving animals in need through finding them a good home either with a family, or with some of our sanctuary partners.”
I’d known it was a no-kill shelter, but I hadn’t read up to the point of knowing how much they did. It made me wonder why I hadn’t heard more about this place, why I hadn’t known it was right here in Hoffman before I searched for somewhere to adopt a cat.
“That’s amazing,” Jess voiced my own thoughts.
“Thank you. We’re all very dedicated to making a difference for these animals, and we have an amazing team of volunteers that help make it all possible.” Gwen took a look through the window in the door before reaching for the handle. “Shall we?”
Jess stepped through while I reached for the door to allow Gwen to go before me. She gave a little smile that made her cheeks pop out.
Inside, there was a pet gate to one side that delineated a play area. A few cats were out, supervised by an older woman that was wiggling a stick with a burst of feathers on the end to entice them.
“This is one of our volunteers, Janice,” Gwen introduced. “The three cats that are out now are all available to be adopted. All males between one and two years old.”
We watched for a moment while one orange cat lunged for the toy, barreling into a grey one that seemed more interested in cleaning himself. Meanwhile, a calico had knelt down off to the side, eyes intent on the toy and ready to pounce.
Jess looked down at the trio over the gate. “They’re all so cute. How do you not end up with a million pets at home?”
Gwen laughed, a light sound that reminded me of wind chimes. “I actually don’t have any pets at home right now. We all try to refrain from getting too attached, even though it’s really hard, because we know we’ll end up with too many. I’ve got a roommate at the moment who isn’t super keen on animals in the apartment.”
The way she said it was nonchalant, but there was no way to miss the adoring way she looked at the three cats before her. This woman wanted to have pets of her own, and if the way she dedicated her time to saving animals was any indication, she should have one or a few of her own.
Jess made a face. “Sounds like it might be time to ditch the roommate.”
Gwen kept her eyes on the cats, but muttered under her breath, “You might not be wrong.” Shaking her head a bit, she turned her attention to me. “We’ve got the rest of our feline friends over here.”
Along the walls through the rest of the room were well-appointed cages stacked two high. Some were single compartments housing one cat, some were opened up to hold two or three. On the front of each were little information cards with the cat’s picture and some basic details about their history and personality.
“Are you specifically looking for a particular age?” Gwen asked. “We have some kittens, though usually when we get litters in, they go quicker.”
I scanned over the cages, answering, “I was thinking an adult.”
She nodded. “Honestly, for first-time owners, I tend to think it’s a good way to go. Not that you can’t learn to care for a kitten right off, but it’s a lot to take on. Adults still need that care and attention, but not to the same degree as the little ones.”
Spotting that I was being watched, I moved down and squatted to get a little closer. Right at the bars, a black cat with a triangle of white fur under the chin and one white paw was seated, green eyes with rounded pupils stared right at me. Its tail swished slowly back and forth as I got close. I glanced over at the sign, seeing his name was Thaddeus.
I started to reach out to touch him but hesitated and looked to Gwen. “Is it okay if I…”
She nodded. “Yes, Thad isn’t aggressive. He can be a little wary sometimes, but he’ll typically react by shying away. The fact that he’s right up front is kind of surprising for him.”
I brought my hand up just to the bars, not reaching in. He didn’t move at first, though his nose worked in a way I knew he was scenting me. Then, with a graceful, slow movement, he lifted one paw and laid it on my fingers.
“I think you found a cat,” Jess said from behind me.
“We have some smaller rooms where we can take him out and see how you two do together,” Gwen offered.
I nodded, keeping my eyes on Thaddeus as I started to pet his chest with just the tips of my fingers. His eyes still hadn’t left me, and it was starting to feel like a claim.
After a minute of that, Gwen led us down the hall a little farther, setting us up in a small room a little bigger than a utility closet. It had a bench and a couple scattered toys. She left us there and returned a few moments later with Thaddeus. When she set him down, he did a sweep of the new environment, taking it all in. It was only after he was satisfied with what he saw that he took measured steps my way, stopping to sit right at my feet. Before I could reach down to see if he was comfortable with me petting him, he kept up into my lap in a graceful bound. He settled right in, lying down across my thighs. I began rubbing his head, a touch he nudged into just enough to tell me it was welcome.
“What’s his story?” I asked.
“We aren’t entirely sure,” Gwen admitted. “Our vets guess he’s between four and five years old. He was found foraging for scraps behind a local restaurant. Staff there called us after they’d seen him around several times. He’s been declawed, which is a practice we do not support, but that’s enough for us to know he belonged to someone at one point. No one’s going through the trouble of taking a feral cat in to have its claws cut off. We suspect he may have been abused before running away or being abandoned, though.”
“Why’s that?” Jess asked before I could.
“His tail,” Gwen answered, nodding toward it. “It should be longer by a few inches. The end was cropped off, and not surgically like might be done by a vet in the case of a bad injury.
It could have happened in an accident while he was a stray, but we doubt he was out on his own very long, and the scars on his tail are old enough to be fully healed. Without his claws, and with the way he seems to run and hide rather than turn to aggression, he wasn’t much equipped for success as a stray.”
I took that all in, tamping down the memories it stirred up. The chill that seeped down to the bone, the reek of dumpsters that stung the nose, the stabbing pain of a long empty stomach.
“How long has he been here?” I asked, trying to stay in the moment.
Gwen looked at him in my lap with sad eyes. “He’s been here almost a year now, up for adoption most of that time.”
Jess gasped. “That long? But he’s such a sweetheart.”
“Unfortunately, tuxedo cats seem to be statistically the least likely to be adopted. Some people believe it’s a thing about black cats and superstitions, but there doesn’t seem to be data to support that. It’s probably just because we get more of them. From my own experience, though, the more colorful cats seem to get more attention, particularly when families with kids come in. Add on that kittens are much more sought after than adults and that he has a tendency to shy away from strangers, and it just hasn’t been a winning combination for the little guy. We’ve all been waiting not so patiently for the right person to come along and claim. He’s not the most playful, but he’ll be a great companion, particularly in a calm, quiet home.”
She let that statement hang there. It was all over her face that she wanted that person to be me. There was a hope in her eyes she didn’t mask as well as she might have thought. It was hard not to get caught up in a beautiful woman looking at me that way, but I did my best.
“Oh god, it’s starting.” Jess’s voice broke through my clouded mind right before she sneezed five times in a row.
Thaddeus laid there the whole time, undisturbed by the noise, or Jess’s flailing movements. Content to just sit, silent, while craziness went on around him. When the episode passed, she looked down at him.
“I think he’s mocking me.”
“He’s not doing anything,” I pointed out.
“He does it silently. Like you.”
Shaking my head, I tried to block out both of the women in the room with me. Instead, I focused down at Thaddeus, happy to do nothing more than lie there in my lap getting slow strokes across his head, and I thought about how I’d never had a pet. I’d never had to take care of anything or anyone but me with the exception of the few weeks Jess was recovering from her attack and needed help. I hadn’t even been sure coming to the shelter that I was certain about this getting a pet idea.
Still, I knew. I was sure.
“I’ll take him.”
Chapter Five
Park
It took a while to get everything handled to officially adopt Thaddeus. There was a full application to fill out, as well as a call to my landlord to verify the building’s pet policy. Then, Gwen led us through the in-house supply store, going over all the basics of caring for him. While I had read up on it and everything she was saying was reiteration, it was good to know that her advice was in line with the information I had.
While Gwen expertly went through all the steps, Jess had gone quiet—outside the sneezing. It was unnerving. Jess didn’t do quiet. When we ran the supplies out to my car while Gwen got Thaddeus ready to go home, I called her on it.
“What’s going on?”
She looked at me like I was stupid. “You’re adopting a cat.”
“Talk.”
She leaned against the car, a hand on one hip. “About?”
“You’ve been quiet. Why?”
She smirked, and it was devious. “I was just letting you do the talking.”
Her tone and her expression had my eyes narrowing. Jess could tease, but she didn’t play games with people. Least of all me, since I wasn’t one to rise to that kind of bait.
With a put-out look, she asked, “Do you realize how much you spoke while we were in there?”
I thought back, remembered the series of questions Gwen threw at me for the application and answering them all. “Yes.”
“I’m not sure you do.” I didn’t have to say a word to make the point that she better keep talking. “I’ve known you a long time, and I can’t think of many times where you’ve fully answered a question when a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ would suffice. Except in there. With Gwen.”
I couldn’t say she was wrong, but it was an interview. If I’d just given the shortest answer, Gwen probably would have pushed for more information anyway.
“And I can see you spinning it in your own head,” Jess went on. “But you could just admit that you’re attracted to her and make this a whole lot easier for both of us.”
A reflexive desire to deny it hit me right away, if only to avoid talking about it or giving Jess an opening to insert herself into something that was not her business. The rational part of me that acknowledges we were high school kids gossiping about crushes won out.
“Yes, Gwen is attractive.”
That was putting it mildly, and I knew it. If it were another time, another place, and she wasn’t working, I’d have made an approach. It wasn’t something I did often, most of the women I’d been with were the outgoing types that would make that move themselves. For Gwen, though, I’d have made an exception. I wouldn’t pull that shit while she was here, and the same would hold when she came into Sailor’s Grave next week.
Besides, a woman like that who radiated the way she did wasn’t for a man like me.
“But you aren’t going to make a move,” Jess guessed.
“No.”
She sighed, a long, exaggerated one complete with a roll of her eyes, but she knew arguing about it would get her nowhere.
“Just let it go.”
“You can always call us here or one of the vets we included information for with your adoption papers if you have any questions,” Gwen assured.
Thaddeus was in the carrier they’d given me, completely calm even with being confined. It was like he understood that this was a means to an end, and he was up for whatever patience he had to have to get there. Even if it meant being shoved into what was little more than a cardboard box for a while. They’d also put a blanket that had been in his cage in with him, to help it feel more comfortable.
I nodded to Gwen, fishing my phone out of my pocket. “Do you want to see what I’ve got drawn out for you so far?”
Her eyes lit up, but there was trepidation there, too. It was pretty common, in particular when someone was getting their first tattoo. As far as I could see, Gwen didn’t have any others yet.
I scrolled through the files, pulling up hers. The concept she’d given me had been pretty open. Her email had mentioned a couple of pieces I’d already done that she liked the style of and described how she wanted a representation of the changing seasons. In the end, what I’d landed on was a watercolor style tattoo of a long, outlined branch, along which the life cycle of the full year from a dusting of snow, to budding leaves, through a bloom of flowers and into the colorful decay of fall were all displayed in unlined bursts of color.
I turned the picture her way, and Gwen sucked in an audible breath. She reached out, her hands shaking a touch, to take the phone from me and get a closer look.
“I worked with the picture you sent me” —one that showed the scarring that crossed from the back of her shoulder and down onto her side— “and designed the branch so that it will contour to that shape. The texture and darker color built into that should be fully covering, then the color you wanted can come in around it.”
She didn’t say anything right away, just stared at the drawn version of the design I’d thought up. For some reason, I felt compelled to keep speaking for what might have been the first time in my life.
“We can change anything there, any adjustments you want. We can also scrap it if you want to start over,” I assured. “There’s plenty of time to—”
“I l
ove it,” she said, her voice low. It was hard to make it out, but she almost sounded hoarse. “It’s perfect.”
“You’re sure?” I pressed, never wanting anyone to settle when it came to ink I’d put on them forever. “I can send it to you for you to think on, too.”
“No.” It was firm, certain. “This is exactly what I want.”
She looked up, hitting me with that big fucking smile again. I couldn’t help but fixate on the dimple in her right cheek. I didn’t know if it was natural, or it was a result of the scar tissue that ran right along it, but it was adorable. Devastating, even. Just like I knew she could be to me if I let her. Which meant it was time I got the hell out of there.
“Wednesday, then,” I said.
She blinked, like she was getting lost the same way I was, and I wouldn’t even let that thought settle into my mind. Handing back my phone, her smile smoothed into one that was cool and professional.
“Wednesday,” she agreed.
Cat proofing before setting Thaddeus loose was easier than I thought. I didn’t own a lot, and none of it was knick-knacks and shit that just hung out ready to be knocked over. The biggest concern would have been the art room, but it had already been converted into a proper bedroom for Jess, so all the supplies that had once filled it were in the back room of Sailor’s Grave where Thaddeus wouldn’t be an issue. Most of the process was figuring out a good spot for the litter box and cat bed I’d gotten him.
“I’ll have to get one of those trees,” I thought out loud.
“What?” Jess asked, her stuffed nose making her voice sound funny.
“The cat tree things, with the platforms they can climb on. He might want something like that.”
It could fit in the living room, along the wall next to the window. It would probably get some sun there, too.
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
I looked to Jess, who was sitting on the couch petting Thad, despite her repeated complaints about her allergies. Her brows were pinched together, lips pursed.
