Chapter Ten
EMIL WATCHEDMakai’s face as Doc Donovan carefully took out the stitches. He almost wanted to look at the process but thought better of it. Sometimes blood still made him queasy.
“It’s all healed well,” Doc said thoughtfully. “Do you have any antibiotic cream?”
“Yeah, in the bathroom cabinet,” Makai answered.
“I’ll go get it.” Emil got the tube and went back into the kitchen where Makai sat on the chair, straddling it so that his back was free to work with. “Here.”
Doc took the cream and wiped Makai’s back with some cleansing wipes from his bag and then put the cream on carefully. “There you go. Let it be for a few minutes, and then you can put a shirt on.”
“So it’s all healed up and nothing needs extra care?” Makai got up slowly, probably so as not to spook Emil.
Emil was getting to the point where the care Makai showed to his delicate sensibilities was starting to annoy him as much as he appreciated it.
He guessed it was a sign of him getting better with being close to Makai, which in itself was a welcome change to how the last five years had been. Especially when Makai was… well, a potential partner. He flushed at the thought of the conversation they’d had earlier and busied himself by cleaning out the little trash Doc had made.
Mouse came in from the bedroom and walked directly to the doc. She sat by his feet and looked at him as if she was expecting something.
“Doc Donovan, meet Mouse,” Makai said, making the vet chuckle.
“I’m glad she has a name, unorthodox as it is.”
“Actually, my grandma gave her the name when she was still a stray,” Emil said and explained the connection his grandma had to the cat, brief as it was.
“In any case, I’m glad for her for having a caring home,” Doc said and smiled. “Now, Mouse, I heard you have some pretty babies. Care to show them to me?”
Emil watched with fascination as Mouse got to her feet, meowed at Doc, and started back toward the bedroom.
“She’s showing you where they are,” Makai said and grinned. “She’s scary smart.”
“I can see that,” Doc murmured. He took his bag and looked at Makai. “Do you want me to take a look at them here or…?”
“The bedroom is fine. I made the bed, so you can sit on it if you want while you handle them.”
“Works for me,” Doc said brightly, even though it wasn’t the most usual location for a checkup, or so Emil would have thought.
He followed the others—Mouse leading the party—into the bedroom and sat on the far edge of the bed. Doc put his bag on the foot of the bed and sat next to it.
“If you’d lift them here,” he said to Makai, then moved enough that there was a neat space on the extra sheet Makai had put on top of the bed just for this.
Makai got the kittens, and Mouse helped herself. She tried to peek into the bag, but Doc patiently lifted her to the other side of her babies and gently scolded her.
“How old are they now?” Doc picked up the lighter orange one.
“Ten days, give or take,” Makai said thoughtfully and knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed to be close to the proceedings.
“Well, let’s say my sister has some explaining to do if she wants to deny these are her cat’s offspring….”
The kittens were adorable little nuggets, and Doc examined them all thoroughly, listened to their little hearts and lungs too.
“They’re too small for me to tell if there’s anything wrong with them in a more developmental way, but I don’t think there will be. They seem to have all the right responses, and all are in healthy weight, as per my super accurate scales.” Doc chuckled and demonstrated by lifting one of the kittens on his palm as if weighing it.
Emil and Makai smiled.
Then Doc looked at them. “Want me to try and sex them?”
“Sure,” Makai agreed.
