Emil ducked and shook his head but came inside anyway.
“Through here.” Makai escorted their guests to Mouse. “Now, she’s a nice cat, but you can’t touch the kittens yet, okay? You can just touch her if she lets you, and you can look at the kittens. We don’t want to scare Mouse, right?”
“Okay,” Joey whispered, and Makai moved to sit on the bed so that Emil had enough space to go see the cats.
Emil seemed to understand what he was doing and quietly talked to Mouse and Joey, and kept the boy in check when he tried to get too loud, just because the kittens were “soooo cuuuuute.”
“I’ll go get that drink,” Makai said after a while, when he had reassured himself that Emil knew what he was doing. “You two want anything?”
“No thank you,” Joey said, and Emil shook his head too.
“Okay.”
Makai was about to stand but then realized if he walked around the bed, he’d probably startle Emil. Instead, he rolled his body across the bed smoothly and got up on the other side. Joey was still engrossed by the kittens, so he didn’t notice, but Makai made sure not to look at Emil for a reaction, either. Why, he wasn’t exactly sure. He also chose to ignore the light flush on his own cheeks as he went to search for that drink.
