The bathroom door opened. Steam billowed out, and Maya appeared in my shirt—one of my black t-shirts that hung to her mid-thigh, the fabric soft from years of washing. Her hair was wet, dripping onto the cotton, leaving dark spots across her shoulders.
She'd colonized my entire wardrobe. The shirts, the hoodies, even the tactical pants she claimed were "comfortable for reading." I'd stopped complaining about it approximately two weeks in, when I'd realized seeing her in my clothes did something to me that had nothing to do with fashion and everything to do with possession.
"Your demon spawn ate my hair tie," she announced, pointing at Zmeya with the intensity of a prosecutor delivering closing arguments. "The purple one. My favorite one. She hunted it down and destroyed it while I was showering."
Zmeya sat on the bed looking innocent. Butter wouldn't melt.
"She's a cat," I said. "Cats eat things."
"She's a menace. A fluffy, adorable menace that you enable." Maya crossed to the dresser, rummaging through the drawer I'd designated for her things. Which had started as one drawer and was now three. "You give her treats when she does evil."
"I give her treats when she catches bugs."
"She brought me a dead moth yesterday. On my pillow. While I was sleeping."
"Gift," I said. "Sign of affection."
"It was still twitching."
I couldn't help it. I laughed—the low rumble that still surprised me sometimes, that I hadn't heard from my own throat for years before Maya. She shot me a look over her shoulder, but her mouth was twitching too. Fighting a smile.
"You're a cat enabler," she said. "I'm telling Nikolai."
"Nikolai has no authority over my cat parenting."
"Sophie then. She'll judge you."
I laughed. “Sophie loves the cats more than I do.”
Maya finally found a hair tie—yellow, not purple, but apparently acceptable—and started twisting her wet hair into a messy bun. Her hands moved with the efficiency I'd noticed in everything she did. Quick, precise, no wasted motion. Surgeon's hands, even when she wasn't operating anymore.
"You cried at the Sleepytime episode," she said casually.
I sat up. "I did not cry."
"Your eyes were wet."
"Allergies."
"In a climate-controlled room?" She turned, grinning now, all her accusations about the cats forgotten in favor of this far more devastating ammunition. "You cried because the moon was nice to the little blue dog."
"Bingo," I corrected, because apparently I'd retained the character's name. "Her name is Bingo."
"Oh my God." Maya pressed her hand to her chest in mock surprise. "You know her name. You've been paying attention."
"Hard not to when you watch it every night."
"We could watch something else." She crossed to the bed, climbing onto the mattress, crawling toward me with the particular grace of someone who knew exactly what she was doing. "Something more sophisticated. Documentary about serial killers. True crime podcast."
"You'd fall asleep in ten minutes."
"I would not."
"You fell asleep during the documentary about the mafia. The one about my actual profession."
She settled against my chest, her wet hair immediately soaking through my shirt. Cold. I didn't move her.
"That's because I live with someone more interesting than any documentary could be," she said. "You've ruined true crime for me. Too authentic."
