Theo tried his very best not to seem like a threat.
With none of the grace which Theo would usually expect from a cat, the kitten hopped down off of the bed, or rather, tumbled off of it, but it landed, as seemed very appropriate, on its feet. With a flick of its tail, it chirped at him, almost sounding to him like it was asking him a question.
“Yeah, that’s good. Here, kitty kitty,” Theo continued to click at it and offered his fingers for the little animal to sniff at. The wet touch of a cool, damp nose the exact color of a pink pearlerasertold him that he’d been successful.
A cool nose was supposed to be a good thing, right? Or was that for dogs? Theo had never had a pet, and he realized that he wasn’t even sure what he was trying to accomplish. Was the cat really going to be better off making friends with Theo, when Theo was planning to leave in under a month anyway?
Well, Theo was going to have to have this room exterminated and patched up if that was even possible. He had literally no idea. Regardless, this wasn’t going to be a safe place for a kitten pretty soon, and when the endearing, enchanting little animal butted its head against his hand and then started to give a low, rumbly purr that sounded about twice as big as its body could actually produce, he found himself utterly charmed.
This fierce predator would probably be fine if he just brought it outside, but as the kitten pushed its minuscule head into the palm of Theo’s hand, he knew that he wouldn’t be able to make himself do such a thing to something so small. There were coyotes. Big trucks that ran through the highway in the middle of town.
It was a scary world out there for a tiny cat.
For a moment, Theo just let himself pet the kitten, and it arched its back into his hand, that purr growing louder. Still just a baby. Born a feral cat, no doubt about that, but not yet old enough to be particularly freaked out by people.
“Okay, kitty,” Theo said, and the kitten froze when Theo scooped it up, the muscles tensing. Little needle claws dug into his arms when Theo supported the little body, cradling it.
The purring had stopped, and frightened of people or not, the cat was not used to being held. Theo hurried, bringing the cat out of the ruined room and shutting the door firmly. The moment he had, the cat started to squirm, and he gently placed it down on the floor where it was off like a shot.
He didn’t have any of the stuff he needed, he realized. Cat food. Litter box. Would a cat like that even be litter trained? Theo was in so far over his head, everything he knew about how to care for cats he knew from television and movies, and from friends having pets. Never his own.
It looked like he was going to need to take a trip to the grocery store, and he just hoped he got there before it closed.
A few hours later, Theo was back, and he’d claimed the master bedroom as his own. He had thought that he would sleep in his own former bedroom, but there was obviously no chance of that happening now.
A good solid effort over the course of about an hour had the room, if not sparkling, at least relatively free of dust and mold. Habitable, at least for now, even if Theo was shaking with exhaustion by the time it was done.
“What do you think, Jupiter?” Theo asked the kitten, who had come in to investigate just what it was that Theo was doing. The cat was wary of him, but seemed perfectly content just to sit there, tail wrapped around its legs, amber eyes watching what Theo did.
Why Jupiter? Theo honestly didn’t know. The name seemed to suit the fierce little creature, though it had probably been a mistake to name it. He was going to have to take it to a shelter or something, and he should probably do it soon before either of them got too attached to each other.
He wasn’t going to bring the kitten with him back to New York, obviously. That would be ridiculous. At the same time, he couldn’t just keep thinking of it asthe kitten.
But he had to admit it was nice to have the company. Jupiter didn’t demand much of him.He just provided companionship. The litter box and food had been set up in this room, as it was the only half decent place to live in at the moment, and Jupiter seemed to respect that.
Much to Theo’s relief, the cat had known how to use the litter box or had maybe instinctively seen it as the most logical place. It had wolfed down the food that Theo had put out for it, too, and Theo couldn’t even help himself. He was growing fond of the adorable little killing machine, even though that was exactly what he’d told himself he shouldn’t do.
With a sigh, he walked to the window, his nose still itching from all of the dust and mold spores he’d kicked up in his cleaning spree. Yeah, his estimate of how long this was going to take, maybe it hadn’t been quite accurate. He’d be lucky if he had the place cleaned up in three weeks, much less any of the stuff gone through. And that wasn’t considering the whole issue of what to do with the wall which had been bashed right in.
It was a chilly night, but Theo opened the window, anyway. It was good to smell uncontaminated air, and the whole house could use a very thorough airing out, he figured. With an exhausted sigh, he leaned out into the night outside and then froze when he heard the sound of a familiar motor once more.
Eric had left. Theo had noticed it when he’d returned from the grocery store to pick up things for Jupiter. Now, he was coming back, and Theo’s position was perfect to see him because the master bedroom looked out over the street.
The black truck appeared, and Theo frowned, leaning further out the window without fully realizing it, trying to get a better look. There were two people in the truck. Two people and one of them was a girl. Either that or a very small man with long hair, and he didn’t think that was highly likely.
That wasn’t so weird. The girls had always liked Eric, in a way that Theo had always felt faintly envious of, back when he’d been trying to convince himself that he was into girls more than guys. Not into guys at all, actually. He’d been so deep in the closet back then that he hadn’t even allowed himself to know the truth.
So Eric was bringing back a girl. So what. That had nothing to do with him. If anything, he should be happy for his former friend that he had moved on with his life, that he was happy. Maybe he was even seeing this girl …
And then he realized what was really bugging him, as the truck rolled smoothly along the black river of the asphalt. Eric wasn’t driving. The girl was in the driver’s seat.
Had Eric changed so much that he was actually allowing other people to drive his baby, now? He hadn’t been willing to before, and Theo had always felt greatly honored because, a few times, Eric had allowed him to. Was he just giving that honor out to anyone and everyone now?
Or, more likely, was this girl special?
As Theo watched, a gnawing feeling which he tried to tell himself wasn’t jealousy growing in the very pit of his stomach, chewing up his internal organs, so it felt, the girl, and it was definitely a girl, hopped out of the truck. She went around to open the other door, and with some effort, since Eric outweighed her by probably close to seventy pounds, if not more, she helped Eric out of the car.
Theo’s eyes narrowed. Was Eric hurt? But the truth became apparent to him pretty quickly. Eric was probably just drunk. The way he staggered, it seemed that way, and Theo sighed softly, sadness breaking through the envy.
