“I’ve known veterinarians who’ve worked for several decades and still can’t get it right, so no guarantees. You can tell for sure in a few weeks, but for now….” He peeked under the tails of all the kittens and then hummed thoughtfully. “I’d say the orange ones are boys, tortie is a girl, and the gray one is probably a girl too.” Then he grinned. “But don’t quote me on that quite yet.”
“Anything special to keep an eye on?” Makai petted Mouse, who had gone to stand right at the edge of the mattress and tried to sniff him carefully. Emil wondered if it was the medicine on Makai’s back she was worried about.
“If it seems that they stop eating at any point, or one stays behind in any way. That’s about it, really. Cats are resilient, and with Mouse being in such a good condition when I first saw her, I think she’s done really well for a stray. Maybe someone was feeding her, or she stole food from somewhere. Who knows. In any case, she seems fine and so do the babies.”
At the word “babies,” Mouse’s attention shifted to the doc. She made a mew sound and padded to him.
“Yes, your babies are wonderful, and you’re such a clever girl.” He petted her gently with his large hand, and she seemed to preen. She purred at him and headbutted his hand, before retreating to Emil.
“I’m going to put them back now, Mouse,” Makai said and picked the kittens up, they still fit in his hands just fine, and carried them to the box.
Once Mouse, too, was in the box with the babies, the men went into the main part of the cottage.
Makai paid for the work Doc had done, although since he wasn’t a people doctor, he seemed to write the receipt as cat-related stuff only. Emil could understand.
“I’d put the antibiotic cream on your back once more after your next shower, but you should be fine,” Doc told Makai as he closed his bag firmly. Then he looked at Emil. “Since he can’t do it himself, I suppose I can trust you to do it.”
Emil blushed but nodded. “Sure.”
Doc’s phone rang, and he waved a quick bye to them, then walked out and answered the call as Makai closed the door behind him.
“Okay, well, that’s done. Want to finish Bo Burnham?”
“Sure.” They sat on the couch and continued watching.
IN THEnext couple of weeks, it became a routine for them to meet at least every other day. By then, Emil’s mom seemed enamored by Makai—Emil couldn’t fault her for that—and his dad was slowly thawing.
On the days when Emil watched Joie, they often spent time at Makai’s together.
Makai had finished the deck in the first week after having his stitches out, so it was safer for Emil and Joie to use it. They did some fishing twice and got a few small ones for Mouse to eat but only after they’d boiled them, just in case. Any parasites she got from raw fish might get to the babies, after all.
Emil learned a lot more about Makai and vice versa.
They took walks almost every day they were together and found out more about the surrounding forest and the paths most people had probably forgotten. Once, they got lost, and Makai calmly found a spot where they could get cell signal to use a GPS. He’d laughed, the bastard, when Emil had panicked a little bit.
“Hey, I got here without GPS, but I ain’t going to find my way out without it,” Makai had said and grinned at him.
ABOUT SIXweeks into Makai living in Acker, they decided to finally paint the house. Big fluffy clouds shaded them from the sun, and a warm breeze rustled the trees lining the yard. It was the perfect weather for painting.
“It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so I think I’ll build the dresser then,” Makai said as they lined up the paint cans by the same makeshift worktable that had been by the shore for the deck rebuild.
“Do you think the paint will have time to dry?” Emil asked absently. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to leave the silver splints on his fingers or not.
“Take them off. Put some latex gloves on so you don’t stain your hands so much,” Makai said thoughtfully. “I mean, you could leave them on under the gloves, but I think they’d cut the gloves to shreds, and then you’d get paint on them anyway. Also, yeah, this paint is supposed to be fine even if it rains. It’s dry and windy today at least, so we should be fine.”
They’d picked a brighter yellow than Makai had originally thought for the house. They’d even gone and changed the colors after seeing how dull the original paint color had looked once they’d opened a can. Even though there were no guarantees on how things might go with them, Makai had wanted to include Emil in a decision that would be right there for everyone to see for years and years to come. Emil had been flattered.
He took the splints off and went to stash them in the pretty purple bowl that now resided on the coffee table. They’d found it from a garage sale a few days ago, when they’d gone to Woodruff for groceries. Then, because Mouse was curious, he put a gaming magazine on top of the bowl to hopefully keep her out of it.
The kittens were starting to roam now, even though the little spurts of speed they got going while playing often left them sprawled on the floor after they lost their balance. They were also getting very, very vocal. There was a long strip of cardboard blocking the bedroom doorway just in case they climbed out of their box. Mouse and the humans could easily get over it, but the kittens would at least be confined into one room when there weren’t humans around.
“We should take the kittens out to the living area tonight, if we watch a movie after this or something,” he suggested when he got back to Makai and started to pull the latex gloves on.
Makai popped open the paint can and added a little bit of water to it, then stirred thoroughly. “Yeah, sounds like a good idea. Do you want to stay over?”
“We’ll see,” Emil replied, a code for “I want to see how I feel after spending the day with you first.” Sometimes it still became too much, even though on most days when he hadn’t seen Makai, he started to get antsy. Something about him settled Emil’s weirdness, and he liked being around him.
“Okay, so I made sure the old flaky paint is off. I went around the house yesterday.” Makai gestured at a spot nearby he’d clearly worked on. “So it should be fine, but if you find a spot I missed and think it needs to be cleaned, there’s the tool for it on the table by the extra brushes.”
