I laughed with him, surprised by his sense of humor. I got up. “Come on then, I wanna show you my room.”
I almost tripped over Bright as he attacked me in the hall. I scooped him up and Merry squeaked as he ran-hopped behind us, trying to catch up. Deacon picked him up, and we went inside.
Thank goodness I’d made my bed and hadn’t left clothes hanging over the hamper.
“It’s a work in progress,” I said. “I have plans. I want bookshelves all along this wall and a reading chair in front of the window. This room is bigger than my old room, so...”
“I can help you build the bookshelves,” he said, holding Merry to his chest and petting him.
“Uh, build? I’m um, not really the building type. I’m more of a buy-it kind of guy.”
“Flat packs are easy,” he said. “If you buy them and have them delivered, I can come over one day and we can do them together. It could be fun.”
“Or,” I suggested, “one day we could go to some thrift shops and check out some secondhand ones. Ooh, and we could go looking at some antiques. Might find a Rembrandt or Ming Dynasty vases or something, like they do onAntiques Roadshow.”
His eyes met mine and he grinned. “I would like that.”
“Me too! It could be so much fun.” The more I thought about it, the more I liked it. “Oooh, secondhand books! I love secondhand books.”
He chuckled. “Do you not have enough?” he said, gesturing to my one very lonely bookcase. “This does not include your bookstore.”
“But those aren’t technically mine,” I countered. “I’m like their foster parent waiting for someone to come in and adopt them.”
He laughed just as Bright fought to escape my hold. I gently threw him onto my bed, the way he loved, which apparently activated his gremlin mode. He did little kitten zoomies, attacking the bed covers, then trying to attack me.
It made us laugh. “He’s in a mood,” I said. “And did you say I had another year of this?” I gave Merry a gentle pat in Deacon’s arms. “Not like this sweet little angel.”
“They are cute,” he said. “Playful and funny. It doesn’t last too long. You’ll have a good ten or twelve years or more where they’re much more chill.”
Hmm. Even that didn’t seem long enough. It made methink though... “Do you think Mrs. Stevens might like to go to the pet-adoption day in the new year? I can drive her down if she needs. It’s a month or two away. I don’t mean to just replace her dog, but she might like some company by then.”
Deacon sat down on the end of my bed. “Maybe. That’s a very nice offer.” He put Merry down on the bed, which Bright understood as fair game. He tackled Merry and they wrestled for a moment before Deacon saved the day. He extracted Bright, who decided Deacon’s hand was also fair game and chomped his little milk-vampire teeth into the skin.
Deacon barely winced—clearly used to handling tiny feral gremlins—and he put Bright on the bed. Bright then decided to launch into attack number two on Deacon’s arm, but I caught him just in time.
“Excuse me, little mister,” I said, holding him up near my face so I could speak sternly to him. “No attacking the guests. We have manners in this house.”
Deacon chuckled. “He’s fine. I’ve had worse.”
When he turned his palm up, I could see puncture marks and a scratch. “Oh my goodness,” I said, turning Bright around so he could see his handiwork. “Look at what you did. Say sorry to Deacon.”
Bright was, in fact, not sorry.
He was ready for attack launch number three.
“Nope. Bedtime for you, mister. Solitary confinement until you calm down,” I said. “I’ll put him in the crate, then please let me take a look at your hand.”
I put Bright in the crate, which displeased him greatly. If we had a cat-translator, I was sure his tiny angry yips were a string of four-letter curse words.
Deacon was holding Merry up to his chest and I went to him, looking at his palm. “It’s fine,” he said again.
“Please let me have a look. I’ll feel terrible if it gets infected or something.”
He showed me the punctures and there were two tiny spots of blood. I sighed. “We can add Dracula to his résumé. I’m so sorry.” I gestured to the table. “Come take a seat.”
He sat, still holding Merry, and I retrieved the antiseptic spray and swabs. “It’s not that serious,” Deacon said, amused.
“Yet. It’s not seriousyet. God only knows where his mouth has been.”
