by Tia Fielding
It sounded like Dev had an animal that was cold? What the hell?
“Dev found a kitten. Or well, Grace found a kitten,” Leaf explained while they waited. “Can you call Alex and ask her if she’s at work, and if not, where to go?”
“Sure,” Seth said, and made the call to their regular vet, who by some miracle was working that day. He told her the situation, and she said to just bring the kitten in whenever it was warmed up enough to transfer.
Seth relayed the information to Leaf, who told the good news to Dev and gave him directions to Alex’s practice.
“Yeah, when you feel it can make the trip—it’s only five minutes from the house—then you go for it, okay, sweetheart? Cats are resilient. It’ll be fine. Do you want me to stay on the phone with you until you have to drive? Sure? Okay.” Leaf listened for a moment, and then he looked straight into Seth’s eyes and said to Dev, “Hey, we’ll be home soon. We love you, okay? Bye.”
Seth smiled at him. He wasn’t sure how they could be as much on the same wavelength as they were, but he was grateful in any case.
They went back to the living room, where Seth’s parents looked worried.
“So apparently, it’s been raining all night and morning, and it’s cold at home,” Leaf said as they sat back down. “Dev took the dogs for a walk anyway, because that’s just who he is. They were a couple of blocks from the house when Grace suddenly went alert and pulled Dev really hard to some bushes. And because Grace never pulls, Dev let her lead them all, and they found a tiny kitten.”
Seth’s mom gasped dramatically, already invested in the cat’s life, if Seth knew her at all.
“I told him how to warm the kitten up, and he’s going to take it to our vet.”
“Did it sound very bad?” Mom asked, her large gray-blue eyes, which Seth knew he’d inherited, wide and brimming with tears.
“No, like I told him, cats are resilient. If it was strong enough to meow and Grace heard it, then I think it’ll be okay.”
“Should we just grab the bags and get going?” Seth asked, suddenly even more eager to get home.
Leaf looked at him and nodded. “Yeah, I’ll go get them.”
They said goodbyes to Seth’s parents, got a promise from them that they’d visit Colorado soon, and left for the airport in their rental.
Just before they boarded, Leaf sent Dev a message that they’d be home in in less than three hours and to hang in there.
“It’s obvious he’s freaking out about the kitten,” Leaf spoke quietly when they sat on the plane. “He’s trying to stay strong, but if the kitten doesn’t make it for some reason….”
“He’ll be devastated,” Seth completed the thought.
“Yeah.”
“We’ll be home soon. Either way, we can give him support and comfort.”
AS SOON as they parked the SUV in the driveway, they left their bags behind and walked to the door as quickly as possible. Seth’s car was parked at the curb, so Dev was at home and not at the vet’s.
The dogs went nuts as expected, and after quick greetings, they put them outside for now.
“Dev?” Leaf called out, because he hadn’t appeared yet.
“In the bedroom!”
They kicked off their shoes and went upstairs together. Seth couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so damn eager to see someone.
They found Dev in the middle of their bed, with bundle of towels. A small kitten was drinking formula from the bottle Dev was holding in his hand.
“Hi,” Seth said, instantly charmed by the orange-and-white little thing.
“Hey.” Dev beamed at them.
“What did Alex say?” Leaf asked as he rounded the bed and went to lie down behind Dev, embracing him carefully.
“Three, almost four weeks old most likely. Boy. Wouldn’t have made it outside for much longer.” Dev’s voice wobbled at the end, but Leaf kissing him gently on the neck seemed to calm him down.
Seth went to sit on the bed nearby and leaned over to kiss the top of Dev’s head. “So you’re a daddy now.”
Dev grinned. “I guess I am.”
“I assume you’re keeping him?”
“Yeah. Alex said she could take him, but I just couldn’t leave him there.”
“Do you want to stay at our place until he’s stronger? I can help you out with the feedings. It won’t be easy—they need a lot of attention at first,” Leaf spoke quietly.
“Yeah. Alex said we can start giving him kitten food next week. Technically he’s old enough already, she said, but it’s better for him if we don’t shock his system yet since it’s not an emergency, and I can—we can—bottle feed him.”
The kitten seemed to get his fill suddenly, and Dev pulled the bottle away from his reach. Then he carefully picked the little thing up and—burped it?
Leaf and Dev laughed at Seth’s expression. “Yeah, you really should burp them just in case,” Leaf told him.
“How do the dogs handle her?” Seth reached to pet the kitten now that he was fed and free of his little nest.
“Grace wants to mommy him. She was actually by the bed on the floor when she heard the SUV just now. Husky is a bit indifferent. Missy wants to lick him to death, I think. She’s a bit too enthusiastic, but not in a mean way. She’s just….”
“Missy?” Leaf grinned.
“Exactly.”
“I’m going to go play with the dogs for a while, if Leaf wants to go through the kitten care with you,” Seth said, and leaned in to give Dev a kiss now that the kitten wasn’t eating anymore.
Dev hummed into the kiss, and Seth could feel the smile on his lips. “Okay.”
Seth got off the bed and went downstairs. He grabbed the bags out of the car and left them by the stairs before going out to properly greet the dogs.
He grinned at the three expectant doggy faces behind the back door, and went out to sit on the porch stairs for them to be able to get as close as they wanted to.
Missy was, obviously, the wiggliest and most intrusive of them all. She climbed on top of him, basically bowling him over until he lay on his back, and happily settled on top of his torso to lick his chin.
“I missed you too, baby girl,” he cooed, even though oxygen deprivation was starting to creep in. She was lovable, a goof, but man, was she a compact ball of muscle and heavy as fuck for her size. “Okay, down, girl,” he wheezed, and she slid off him, just to lie against his side for maximum contact.
Husky sat on the stairs by his feet and leaned against his legs. Grace came from the side, now that Missy had calmed down a little, and sat on Seth’s other side.
“Hey, momma,” Seth cooed. “Did you find a kitty?” Immediately Grace’s attention snapped to the house, and Seth chuckled. “You’re such a good girl. You’ll get to see the kitty soon, I promise.”
For fifteen minutes or so, Seth just soaked in the warmth from the dogs and lay there on the porch floor. It was afternoon, and the sun had been shining for a couple of hours, just enough for the ground to dry some. The porch was covered, so even though the dogs weren’t completely dry, Seth was comfortable on the floor.
He did this sort of thing way too rarely. Even with Leaf home, he worked too much. He hadn’t taken a proper vacation in years. Seth supposed it might be a feature—and not a bug, like Dev would say—of his that he just didn’t know how to stop.
A sabbatical seemed like a weird, unknown concept for his work morale.
The door opened, and Dev chuckled behind him. The dogs wagged tails at him, but not even Missy wanted to move. “This is as far as you got?” Dev asked, sitting sat on Missy’s other side.
“Yep.” Seth looked at him, drinking in the sight of the honey-colored eyes and messy hair. “I love you,” he said without meaning to.
Dev’s eyes widened and he blinked a couple of times, and then a slow, radiant smile lit up his features. “I love you too. Leaf too.” His tone was almost reverent, like he didn’t quite believe he was saying it but knew it was th
e truth as soon as the words came out.
Seth nudged Missy out of the way and reached for Dev. They came together in a long, slow kiss that turned into lazy making out.
After a while, Missy deemed them done and licked their cheeks from above.
“Oh my God, Missy, this is not the kind of threesome I signed up for!” Dev laughed and shooed the dog away.
Seth burst out laughing, his heart swelling at the thought of this gorgeous, smart, funny young man being his and Leaf’s.
When he’d calmed down again, Seth kissed Dev once more and pulled away. “So how’s the kitten?”
“He’s good. Leaf oversaw me making the kitten go potty, which they need help with for a while, and then Leaf went to find a heating pad. I think they’ve both now zonked out in the bedroom.”
Seth liked that nothing about the kitten care seemed to be unpleasant for Dev. He just took everything at face value, because Grace had helped him save the tiny thing.
“Grace misses him already. I think she wants to play mommy,” Seth said, and Grace immediately looked up at them, then glanced at the door.
“Yeah, okay. Let’s go check up on your kitty.” Dev grinned and got up. He stopped by the door and grabbed a towel from the hook on the inside to make sure all twelve paws going inside were dry and clean. Because Husky was the last one, he carefully wiped his belly, where the longer hairs could attract an awful lot of mess.
“There you go, good boy,” Dev cooed at the dog, who gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Go on, inside.”
Seth got up and went in after them. Yeah, Dev seemed to fit right in.
ON MONDAY Seth went to work a bit dazed. With Leaf and Dev having to wake up in the night to feed the kitten, his sleep hadn’t been as restful as usual.
Seth stumbled into his office with a travel mug of coffee and thanked the universe for not having any classes to teach before midday. After lunch he might be awake enough to handle the masses, but right then, not really.
He put a sign on his door that said he was available if any of his students needed him, and went through some emails as he sipped his coffee.
He’d changed to grading papers when the first knock came. The student, a freshman girl who was still nervous around him, had questions about changing a class and attending one of his instead. She was already in one of his other ones and had decided she’d wanted to learn more from him instead of some throwaway course she’d picked before the school year started.
Once she was gone, Seth had about ten minutes of grading before another visitor came.
This time, Angel peeked in. “You have a minute, Professor?”
“Yeah, sure, come sit,” Seth answered automatically, trying to read Angel’s body language.
Angel, with his light brown skin and black hair, looked nothing like his brother. They didn’t share any DNA, but it still somehow got to Seth a little. The thing that connected Dev and Angel were striking eyes. Dev’s honey or whiskey was evenly matched with Angel’s light blue.
“So, you know the project we have, the triptych thing?” Angel started, going for a casually lazy pose in the chair while still staying respectfully upright, unlike some other students who looked like they’d melt off the damned thing.
“Yes, the group project.” Seth was pretty sure where this was going because he’d already gotten one other email about another group in the same class.
“Hannah isn’t pulling her weight. At all.” Angel grimaced, obviously uncomfortable with having to rat out a classmate.
“Okay. It’s pretty basic that someone or a couple of someones mess things up for group things. Happens each year, every group project class. Don’t worry. I’m glad you came to me with this,” Seth said, hoping his sincerity would be obvious to Angel.
“What do we do about it, though, Gerty and I?”
“Write down what each of you have done and will be doing. That way there’s proof of each step, and if Hannah’s name isn’t on much when it’s done, then that’s on her. If she hasn’t picked up her act in couple of weeks’ time—you have, what, a month to finish, right?”
“Yeah, just about.”
“So in two weeks, email me if she hasn’t done her part. I’ll have a word with her. I don’t like doing it, but she can’t think she’ll get graded the same as you and Gerty if she doesn’t do her job.”
“Okay, good to know.” Angel seemed to deflate, knowing Seth would handle it. Then he tensed a bit and looked at Seth through his long dark lashes.
“Do you want to talk about the elephant in the room?” Seth asked, smiling slightly at Angel.
Angel shifted in his chair, dropping his gaze to the things on the desk.
“We don’t have to, but I’d rather not have our personal lives mess with our professional relationship. I am your mentor, and….”
“And it would get awkward, fast,” Angel murmured. He seemed to think about it for a moment, then looked at Seth. “I don’t like it. Whatever it is you’re doing with Dev. It’s weird for me. You’re my professor. It’s not about gender or age—it’s about professionalism and the fact that you and your husband have been together for so long. I’m….” Angel dropped his gaze and sighed.
“You’re worried that your brother will get hurt and then you have to look at my face for another year anyway?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, so you’re an adult and you know nobody can guarantee anything,” Seth said, trying to not sound like he was dispensing life lessons for a youngster. “It’s not just physical. We’re all in love with one another. I know your brother wouldn’t say it out loud to you, so I will. It’s not up to me to make you believe, but it’s the truth.”
Angel frowned at his words, probably disturbed about the mention of anything physical happening between Dev and Seth.
After another thoughtful silence, Angel said, “I don’t want to see it. I don’t want it to affect the fact that you’re my mentor. And if you hurt him….”
“Yeah, I know. I’ll be waiting here with a baseball bat you can use on me, I promise.” Seth grinned, and one corner of Angel’s lips curled a little.
Angel got up from the chair and picked up his messenger bag. “I’ll let you know how it goes with Hannah.”
“Talk to you later,” Seth said and Angel left the office.
Seth felt… okay. It hadn’t gone awesome, but it could’ve certainly gone much, much worse. He wasn’t sure if Dev and Angel could just miraculously get over their fight, but he hoped so. For now, Dev had told Angel he’d be staying at Seth and Leaf’s for the time being. Leaf wasn’t sure if Dev had told Angel about the kitten or not.
Seth wanted to talk to Leaf about extending an invitation for Dev to move in permanently. Maybe they needed more time, but Seth wanted to be ready. Hell, his organized mind liked to be ahead of things anyway, so why should this be any different?
Chapter Twelve
LEAF WOKE up to a cold nose pressing to his arm. Grace kept waking them up to feed her kitty friend. They’d used alarms at first, but then Grace had picked up on what they were doing and organically woke them up when the kitten wanted food.
The kitten—Dev hadn’t come up with a name yet—slept in a cozy dog bed with a heating pad under it, curled up against Grace’s neck.
Leaf patted her and slid out of bed as quietly and carefully as he could. Dev and Seth were both asleep, and gratitude toward Grace and her intelligence rushed through Leaf.
The cat meowed as soon as Grace stepped back onto the dog bed, and Leaf smiled. He picked the tiny thing up and went to the kitchen for the formula and feeding.
The other dogs came to see what was going on, which meant it was going to be morning soon. They didn’t wake up for the middle-of-the-night feedings anymore; they’d gotten used to the routine by now.
Leaf let them out and fed, burped, and helped the kitten go potty. It was a pretty little thing and would no doubt grow into a handsome cat if it stayed healthy.
Because it was almost six
, Leaf went to the bathroom and picked up a soft hand towel. Then he put it into a large glass bowl and sat the kitten on top of the towel. “You’ll stay there while I make breakfast, okay?” He petted the fuzzy orange head with his index finger and placed the bowl enough to the side that the bacon grease wouldn’t land on the poor little one.
When Seth had work, he usually woke up at 6:00 a.m. sharp. They’d realized quickly that Dev woke up much later, but now with the kitten, he got up whenever he was needed.
Leaf had his first therapy session at eleven, so he needed to make sure Dev was up and on kitten duty before he left.
He put the coffee on and was scrambling eggs when Seth walked into the kitchen. He wasn’t fully awake yet—another side effect of the nightly feeding times was that Seth didn’t sleep as well as usual.
Leaf opened his arms, and Seth walked into them, murmuring something about mornings and work.
“There’s coffee in a bit. If you go take a shower, you might just wake up before breakfast is ready,” Leaf quietly said into Seth’s hair and held him close.
Seth grunted and sighed, then blearily looked around. “Where’s Dev’s baby?”
“In the bowl.” Leaf pointed to the counter by the fridge.
“In the… what?” Seth blinked, turned to look, and laughed. He went to the bowl and gently petted the now-sleeping kitten. “You poor thing. We need to get you one of those bags they carry Chihuahuas in or something….” He sighed and folded the extra bit of the towel over the kitten for extra warmth. “A bowl…. Well, at least it’s a nice one.”
“Go shower, sweetheart,” Leaf said, shooing him out of the kitchen.
TWENTY MINUTES later he had breakfast plated, and Grace slept next to the cat in the extra doggie bed they’d brought into the kitchen. The other dogs weren’t far either, both guarding Dev’s new baby.
Leaf had just poured coffee into two mugs when Seth reappeared, this time clothed and mostly put together. “Come, sit.” Leaf put a plate in front of Seth’s usual seat and poured him some juice.
