For someone who hadn’t been playing music for years, it seemed like Emil had a knack for absorbing what he listened to and playing it by ear. He played something by Ed Sheeran, and then an older P!nk song Makai guessed was something Emil had played before back in the day, because it sounded much more effortless.
After a while longer, Makai got off the couch and went outside. He sat on the stairs and laughed at the sight of Buffy sitting in front of Emil, intently listening to him play.
“How does it feel?” Makai asked when Emil’s song ended.
“Good. I can play if I don’t look at my hands. It’s weird, but the muscle memory is kicking in,” Emil said, smiling a bit sadly.
“You’ll get to a point where your hands don’t bother you so much. Maybe not soon, but eventually.”
Emil’s smile looked more fond and grateful then. “I hope so.”
“Okay, I think these ones are getting tired,” Makai said when Willow came to him, climbed onto his lap, and curled up.
“Yeah, let’s go inside. Did you send the email?” Emil put his guitar inside and came to collect Spike, who wasn’t following Mouse and Makai into the house on his own.
“Yeah, I don’t know. It still feels weird to think about all of it, but from the stuff your dad forwarded, it seems like she wants me to have a say about what people write about me. If I choose to do this, I’d rather have it be about a regular guy with shitty fucking luck who ends up doing a good thing or two, you know. I don’t want it to be some sort of sob story or act like the world was always against me, but even then I became this hero.” He made a disgusted face. “I’ve just tried to be a good person.”
Emil came to him and took his hand, then pulled him toward the bedroom. “Come on, hero mine, let’s go nap.”
ALICE KANEseemed like a great person. She asked if she could come do the interview face-to-face while she was visiting family in Minneapolis in a couple of weeks’ time. Makai said sure, and by the time she made it to Acker, his lung and gunshot wound were healed, although he still had to keep an eye on his body for a while more. His arm was in a lighter cast; they had changed it during a checkup when Makai had complained about it being a bit too much.
He didn’t have to keep the arm in a sling anymore, either, unless it started to ache or he got tired enough that he forgot to watch how he twisted it, just in case. He’d stopped taking painkillers for now, just to remind himself that he really did need to keep an eye on every movement he made.
They met Alice Kane at the diner while they took the photos of the kittens to Leah.
Kane wasn’t there yet, so they chatted with Leah, who cooed over the large framed photos and propped them in the corner of the counter so everyone could see.
“So Joie picked which one?” she asked, looking at the group photo.
“They wanted Xander, the darker orange boy,” Emil said, pointing at the kitten. “His fur will be a bit longer, so they’ll have to brush him and so on.”
“I know Doc would take one, but he works a lot, so he says he’s not at home enough.” Leah sighed, then perked up again. “But they’re all so very cute that I’ve no doubt someone will want them.”
“Yeah, and Doc said that if we don’t find good homes in a reasonable time, he’ll have his sister do some legwork for us, because she’s the cat person and responsible for the kittens being around anyway,” Makai recounted the deal with Doc.
“Oh, right, one of hers wasn’t neutered when it was supposed to be?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Hey, I think that’s her,” Emil said, tugging at Makai’s sleeve.
He turned to look and saw a no-nonsense-looking woman in jeans, button-down shirt, and sensible sneakers walk in. She immediately noticed them—but then there weren’t many others around, and Makai wasn’t easy to miss.
“Hi, I’m Alice Kane, please call me Alice.” She came to them and held out a hand. “Nice to meet you.”
“Makai Stone, this is my partner, Emil Newman.” He shook her hand and waited for Emil to do the same. “This is Leah. She and her husband own the building and all the businesses in it. We can tell her our orders and go find a booth.”
“Okay, that works for me,” Kane said and gave her order of coffee and BLT with avocado, then followed Emil to the corner booth they preferred.
“The usual for Emil, and I’ll have large fries instead of the usual stuff. Make me a blueberry shake and maybe a bit smaller one for Emil, since we’re not sharing?” He added a latte to his list, then walked to his doom.
Except that Alice turned out to be really nice and friendly.
“Oh,” she said when Leah had brought them their late lunches. “Did you see those kittens on the photos?”
Emil threw his head back and laughed. “They’re ours, actually. We just finished putting the photos up before you arrived.”
“Oh wow, well I gotta say, it’s a great idea to do that.” She gestured at the photos and took a bite of her sandwich.
