Sighing in defeat, I walked back to the table with a cat on my shoulder to pick up my phone.
Me:[selfie of Jamison with Minnie hanging on his shoulder]
Me:See what I put up with?
Hen:Oh. You poor soul. How do you survive. Etc etc.
Hen:[photo of Curie curled into a perfect ball on Hen’s lap]
Hen:Welp, guess I’m not moving for the foreseeable future.
Moving carefully so as not to dislodge the kitten on my shoulder, I lowered myself to my couch and picked up the remote.
Me:Wanna watch something together?
Hen:[wide smile emoji] There’s a new Korean cop drama I’ve been wanting to start on Prime. The main character is gay and there’s apparently lots of gore and forensics.
Me:Sold.
I flipped my tv to Amazon Prime and searched the name of the series he sent me, then initiated a video call to Hen.
“Hey.” His sleepy face appeared on my phone screen and he smiled. “You ready for this?”
I grinned. “Bring on the blood.” I reached up to scratch Minnie’s butt, which wiggled in pleasure under my hand. “So, how long have you been trapped under Curie?”
“Only like ten minutes.” The view on my phone dipped until I could see the cat with Hen’s hand resting on her back. “She’ll probably get bored of me before too long and wander off.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” I teased, rolling my eyes. “I hope you didn’t want any viewing snacks. I’d get them for you if I were there, but…”
“Hmph,” he grumped at me. “Iwishyou were here. TV is always better with someone to snuggle.”
“What about -”
“Someonehuman. I mean, the cat is nice, but it’s notquitethe same thing, you know?”
My mind drifted to what we could be doing if we were together, and I sighed before I could stop myself. “I know. Two more days.” This whole living-apart thing was for the birds.
Wait, what? What, did I suddenly want to move in with my boyfriend of two weeks? That was moving just asmidgefast, I reminded myself.Let’s not terrify the poor boy.
We hitPlaysimultaneously on our televisions and settled back in relative silence to watch the first episode of the new show. Minnie settled down hanging half-over my shoulder, purring loudly in my ear, while Kellogg made herself a nest out of my afghan on the couch cushion next to me, also purring. I flipped the kickstand out on the back of my phone and set it on the coffee table so Hen could see my face without me having to hold the phone the whole time.
“Damn,” he said about twenty minutes in when the first body appeared, covered in blood spatter. “This makes me reconsider that lasagna.”
I chuckled. “There are no cow lips in this scene, I think you’re safe.”
“I mean hey,” he protested, “there might be. What do you think they make on-screen gore out of, anyway?”
“Not cow lips!” I insisted. “Pretty sure it’s, like, putty sculptures and fake blood.”
“Ok, you’re probably right.” He sighed and shifted his weight slightly. I heard a peeved littlemrrpfrom the direction ofhis lap, and he looked down. “Sorry, sweetie. My butt’s going numb.”
Mmm, butts. “I can help with that,” I said, licking my lips lasciviously.
He looked back up at me. “Friday, you can help all you want. All night long. Oh!” We jumped in unison as a shot rang out on the screen. “Damn, wasn’t expecting that. Sorry, Curie.”
A furry cat head popped up between Hen and the phone camera; apparently Hen’s jump had disturbed Her Majesty, who was now standing. “Hey baby,” I couldn’t help but coo to her. “How you doing?”
Curie turned her head to regard the phone curiously, then nosed at it as if she was trying to get to me. I squeed quietly. “She misses me!”
