Ten

by Tia Fielding

  “Oh, okay,” Emil said and ducked his head again. “I guess that’s good. I mean, we don’t owe each other anything just because this stuff happens, but I think it’s nice to have it happen in a way.”

  “The potential is there?” Makai grinned.

  Emil huffed. “Yeah, I suppose so.” He turned back to Makai’s laptop and pushed Play. “You missed Bo Burnham. I know he’s not for everyone’s tastes, but I think he’s funny. So we might as well use this time and see if you like him too.”

  And that’s how Makai ended up watching the weirdest stand-up comedy show he’d ever seen. Some of it was slightly uncomfortable for some unnamed reason, but a lot he enjoyed and found himself laughing his ass off. He was literally crying with laughter when a car pulled up outside.

  “Oh my God, can you pause that,” he managed to say, and a very delighted-looking Emil did as asked.

  Time to get the stitches out.

  Chapter Ten

  EMIL WATCHED Makai’s face as Doc Donovan carefully took out the stitches. He almost wanted to look at the process but thought better of it. Sometimes blood still made him queasy.

  “It’s all healed well,” Doc said thoughtfully. “Do you have any antibiotic cream?”

  “Yeah, in the bathroom cabinet,” Makai answered.

  “I’ll go get it.” Emil got the tube and went back into the kitchen where Makai sat on the chair, straddling it so that his back was free to work with. “Here.”

  Doc took the cream and wiped Makai’s back with some cleansing wipes from his bag and then put the cream on carefully. “There you go. Let it be for a few minutes, and then you can put a shirt on.”

  “So it’s all healed up and nothing needs extra care?” Makai got up slowly, probably so as not to spook Emil.

  Emil was getting to the point where the care Makai showed to his delicate sensibilities was starting to annoy him as much as he appreciated it.

  He guessed it was a sign of him getting better with being close to Makai, which in itself was a welcome change to how the last five years had been. Especially when Makai was… well, a potential partner. He flushed at the thought of the conversation they’d had earlier and busied himself by cleaning out the little trash Doc had made.

  Mouse came in from the bedroom and walked directly to the doc. She sat by his feet and looked at him as if she was expecting something.

  “Doc Donovan, meet Mouse,” Makai said, making the vet chuckle.

  “I’m glad she has a name, unorthodox as it is.”

  “Actually, my grandma gave her the name when she was still a stray,” Emil said and explained the connection his grandma had to the cat, brief as it was.

  “In any case, I’m glad for her for having a caring home,” Doc said and smiled. “Now, Mouse, I heard you have some pretty babies. Care to show them to me?”

  Emil watched with fascination as Mouse got to her feet, meowed at Doc, and started back toward the bedroom.

  “She’s showing you where they are,” Makai said and grinned. “She’s scary smart.”

  “I can see that,” Doc murmured. He took his bag and looked at Makai. “Do you want me to take a look at them here or…?”

  “The bedroom is fine. I made the bed, so you can sit on it if you want while you handle them.”

  “Works for me,” Doc said brightly, even though it wasn’t the most usual location for a checkup, or so Emil would have thought.

  He followed the others—Mouse leading the party—into the bedroom and sat on the far edge of the bed. Doc put his bag on the foot of the bed and sat next to it.

  “If you’d lift them here,” he said to Makai, then moved enough that there was a neat space on the extra sheet Makai had put on top of the bed just for this.

  Makai got the kittens, and Mouse helped herself. She tried to peek into the bag, but Doc patiently lifted her to the other side of her babies and gently scolded her.

  “How old are they now?” Doc picked up the lighter orange one.

  “Ten days, give or take,” Makai said thoughtfully and knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed to be close to the proceedings.

  “Well, let’s say my sister has some explaining to do if she wants to deny these are her cat’s offspring….”

  The kittens were adorable little nuggets, and Doc examined them all thoroughly, listened to their little hearts and lungs too.

  “They’re too small for me to tell if there’s anything wrong with them in a more developmental way, but I don’t think there will be. They seem to have all the right responses, and all are in healthy weight, as per my super accurate scales.” Doc chuckled and demonstrated by lifting one of the kittens on his palm as if weighing it.

  Emil and Makai smiled.

  Then Doc looked at them. “Want me to try and sex them?”

  “Sure,” Makai agreed.

  “I’ve known veterinarians who’ve worked for several decades and still can’t get it right, so no guarantees. You can tell for sure in a few weeks, but for now….” He peeked under the tails of all the kittens and then hummed thoughtfully. “I’d say the orange ones are boys, tortie is a girl, and the gray one is probably a girl too.” Then he grinned. “But don’t quote me on that quite yet.”

  “Anything special to keep an eye on?” Makai petted Mouse, who had gone to stand right at the edge of the mattress and tried to sniff him carefully. Emil wondered if it was the medicine on Makai’s back she was worried about.

  “If it seems that they stop eating at any point, or one stays behind in any way. That’s about it, really. Cats are resilient, and with Mouse being in such a good condition when I first saw her, I think she’s done really well for a stray. Maybe someone was feeding her, or she stole food from somewhere. Who knows. In any case, she seems fine and so do the babies.”

  At the word “babies,” Mouse’s attention shifted to the doc. She made a mew sound and padded to him.

  “Yes, your babies are wonderful, and you’re such a clever girl.” He petted her gently with his large hand, and she seemed to preen. She purred at him and headbutted his hand, before retreating to Emil.

  “I’m going to put them back now, Mouse,” Makai said and picked the kittens up, they still fit in his hands just fine, and carried them to the box.

  Once Mouse, too, was in the box with the babies, the men went into the main part of the cottage.

  Makai paid for the work Doc had done, although since he wasn’t a people doctor, he seemed to write the receipt as cat-related stuff only. Emil could understand.

  “I’d put the antibiotic cream on your back once more after your next shower, but you should be fine,” Doc told Makai as he closed his bag firmly. Then he looked at Emil. “Since he can’t do it himself, I suppose I can trust you to do it.”

  Emil blushed but nodded. “Sure.”

  Doc’s phone rang, and he waved a quick bye to them, then walked out and answered the call as Makai closed the door behind him.

  “Okay, well, that’s done. Want to finish Bo Burnham?”

  “Sure.” They sat on the couch and continued watching.

  IN THE next couple of weeks, it became a routine for them to meet at least every other day. By then, Emil’s mom seemed enamored by Makai—Emil couldn’t fault her for that—and his dad was slowly thawing.

  On the days when Emil watched Joie, they often spent time at Makai’s together.

  Makai had finished the deck in the first week after having his stitches out, so it was safer for Emil and Joie to use it. They did some fishing twice and got a few small ones for Mouse to eat but only after they’d boiled them, just in case. Any parasites she got from raw fish might get to the babies, after all.

  Emil learned a lot more about Makai and vice versa.

  They took walks almost every day they were together and found out more about the surrounding forest and the paths most people had probably forgotten. Once, they got lost, and Makai calmly found a spot where they could get cell signal to use a GPS. He’d laughed, the bastard, when
Emil had panicked a little bit.

  “Hey, I got here without GPS, but I ain’t going to find my way out without it,” Makai had said and grinned at him.

  ABOUT SIX weeks into Makai living in Acker, they decided to finally paint the house. Big fluffy clouds shaded them from the sun, and a warm breeze rustled the trees lining the yard. It was the perfect weather for painting.

  “It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I think I’ll build the dresser then,” Makai said as they lined up the paint cans by the same makeshift worktable that had been by the shore for the deck rebuild.

  “Do you think the paint will have time to dry?” Emil asked absently. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to leave the silver splints on his fingers or not.

  “Take them off. Put some latex gloves on so you don’t stain your hands so much,” Makai said thoughtfully. “I mean, you could leave them on under the gloves, but I think they’d cut the gloves to shreds, and then you’d get paint on them anyway. Also, yeah, this paint is supposed to be fine even if it rains. It’s dry and windy today at least, so we should be fine.”

  They’d picked a brighter yellow than Makai had originally thought for the house. They’d even gone and changed the colors after seeing how dull the original paint color had looked once they’d opened a can. Even though there were no guarantees on how things might go with them, Makai had wanted to include Emil in a decision that would be right there for everyone to see for years and years to come. Emil had been flattered.

  He took the splints off and went to stash them in the pretty purple bowl that now resided on the coffee table. They’d found it from a garage sale a few days ago, when they’d gone to Woodruff for groceries. Then, because Mouse was curious, he put a gaming magazine on top of the bowl to hopefully keep her out of it.

  The kittens were starting to roam now, even though the little spurts of speed they got going while playing often left them sprawled on the floor after they lost their balance. They were also getting very, very vocal. There was a long strip of cardboard blocking the bedroom doorway just in case they climbed out of their box. Mouse and the humans could easily get over it, but the kittens would at least be confined into one room when there weren’t humans around.

  “We should take the kittens out to the living area tonight, if we watch a movie after this or something,” he suggested when he got back to Makai and started to pull the latex gloves on.

  Makai popped open the paint can and added a little bit of water to it, then stirred thoroughly. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Do you want to stay over?”

  “We’ll see,” Emil replied, a code for “I want to see how I feel after spending the day with you first.” Sometimes it still became too much, even though on most days when he hadn’t seen Makai, he started to get antsy. Something about him settled Emil’s weirdness, and he liked being around him.

  “Okay, so I made sure the old flaky paint is off. I went around the house yesterday.” Makai gestured at a spot nearby he’d clearly worked on. “So it should be fine, but if you find a spot I missed and think it needs to be cleaned, there’s the tool for it on the table by the extra brushes.”

  Makai poured some of the paint into a tray and gave it to Emil. Then he cranked up the radio and grinned. “We could try your playlist, but let’s see what the radio has to offer first.”

  “Works for me!” Emil smiled and went to the wall. “I’ll start here and work my way to the right.”

  “Sure. I’ll paint this wall first and then come after you for the bits you can’t reach.” Makai’s expression was fond.

  They started to paint, and Emil found himself having fun. He did get paint on his forearm pretty much instantly—a brush mishap: shut up—and by the time they broke for lunch, his ratty Disney T-shirt and old chopped-off sweats were patterned with random spots of various sizes.

  Since there was a whole box of gloves, he took the ones he’d worn off and tossed them into the trash.

  They’d made some sandwiches beforehand so that they wouldn’t have to stop to make anything to eat.

  “Oh, this is yours,” Makai said and handed him one with green bell pepper inside. The mildly disgusted expression on his face made Emil chuckle as he took the sandwich.

  “Thanks.” They sat on the low steps of the cottage, and Emil realized he was leaning to Makai’s side. “I like this,” he said quietly. “Being close to you.”

  Makai hummed but said nothing else. By now, Emil had come to understand that Makai didn’t speak if he didn’t have something to say. There weren’t platitudes and empty words with him, and Emil found it comforting.

  “It’s….” And because he couldn’t really find the correct words, he took a page from Makai’s book, acted instead of speaking, and pressed a kiss on Makai’s shoulder, where his tank top showed his skin. “Thank you.”

  “For what?” Makai’s voice sounded rough.

  “For being you, I guess.”

  They ate in silence and listened to the music drifting from the radio.

  “I like this one,” Makai said when the song changed.

  “Oh yeah, I love his voice.” Emil recognized “Skin” by Rag’n’Bone Man.

  “That other song is good too.”

  Emil nodded. His fingers twitched at the instinctual need to play the guitar that was somewhere in his parents’ garage.

  “I also seem to have a thing for Ed Sheeran’s stuff,” Makai said in a thoughtful tone. “He has such great songs.”

  Emil swallowed hard. If there was an artist he had wanted to be when he grew up…. “When his first album came out, I adored it. It was everything I wanted to be and do, musically,” he spoke quietly. “Then after….” He lifted a shaky hand, his gnarled, scarred fingers trembling. “I couldn’t. I’ve been too scared to try again.”

  Makai nodded, and his warmth became more intense when he pressed himself against Emil’s side for comfort. “You know that if you want to try again, I’ll be there, right?”

  Emil swallowed slowly, feeling a bit choked up. “I’d have to learn it all again.”

  “I think it’s like riding a bike. Sure your hands are different, and you are different, but….” Makai shrugged in the way that Emil knew meant “but what do I know.”

  Emil decided to shelf the conversation for now. He needed to figure out how he felt about all of it first.

  “All right, let’s get back to work,” he said after downing a bottle of water. “Remember to drink enough.”

  Makai gave him a beautiful smile and toasted with his own bottle. “Aye-aye, Captain.”

  BY THE end of the afternoon, the house had a fresh coat of yellow paint, and so did a lot of Emil. Makai laughed his gorgeous butt off at him, and Emil couldn’t do anything but laugh with him when he took a look in the mirror.

  He’d just cleaned his face and hands, mostly, when his mom called.

  “Hey, Mom,” Emil answered and leaned his tired body into the bathroom doorframe. Makai was scrubbing his arms in the sink, and the way he used the nail brush on his skin made Emil wince.

  “Hello, sweetheart. How’s the painting?” Mom’s voice belied her smile.

  “We just got done. Everything is cleared out, and I’m watching Makai butcher his arms to get the paint off them.”

  Mom laughed. “All right. I wanted to ask if you had dinner plans? I made a huge batch of potato salad for your dad’s lunches, so if I put together something else, would you like me to drop some off for you?”

  Emil smiled, then startled at the realization the food wasn’t making him anxious. “Yeah, any decent protein, and we’ll be good. You don’t have to, of course, we have food here….”

  “Nonsense. I’ll have to make something anyway for Dad and me, so might as well cook for you too. You’ve already worked enough today.” She hummed thoughtfully. “I have some chicken breast, if that’s good? Would be done quickly so you don’t have to wait.”

  “Yeah, sounds good to me. I’ll make a regular salad here, and if you bring th
e chicken and the potato salad, then we’re all set!”

  “Great! I can’t wait to see the kittens!” Mom enthused. “I’ll take my allergy medicine right now, then start cooking. I’ll be there in about an hour.”

  “All right, Mom, see you then. Bye!” Emil put the phone away and looked at Makai. “She said an hour.”

  “Okay, well if you want to take a shower and change, you have time for that. Also, there’s yellow in your hair.” He grinned and pointed at a splash of paint on the side of Emil’s head.

  “Great. You’ll have to get it out for me. I can’t really see it.”

  “Sure. Once you’ve showered, I’ll comb your hair, get it all out.”

  For some reason, Emil blushed at the idea. “Thanks.”

  Makai rinsed his arms and patted them dry with the hand towel that was already damp from Emil’s attempts at drying himself. He tossed the towel into the laundry basket and looked at Emil. “You can put your clothes into the hamper and I’ll wash them with my own.”

  Emil nodded, and Makai stepped out of the bathroom and closed the door. Emil took his shirt off and threw it on top of the dirty towel, then shimmied out of the rest of his clothes.

  “I’ll put your bag on the bed, take the kittens to the front room, and close the bedroom door so you can change in peace,” Makai said through the door.

  “Okay, thanks!” Emil called back, before turning on the shower.

  He knew he needed to be quick, so he took Makai’s coarse sponge thing to his legs to get most of the paint off. At least it did come off with just water and scrubbing. He could envision a bath in something nasty otherwise.

  He washed his hair thoroughly, knowing that it would help just a little. The conditioner Makai had made his hair feel nice, but it also made his curls more bouncy than usual. His mom would find it hilarious, no doubt. He could take the teasing, because he was sure the conditioner would make it easier for Makai to get the paint off his hair.

  Once he was done, he got out of the shower, dried off—carefully squeezing his hair with the towel instead of rubbing it dry, he knew better—and then got dressed in underwear, sweats, and a T-shirt. The bedroom door was closed as promised, and Emil opened it, leaving the cardboard cat-fence in place.