JOLAR
“Daddy?”came the soft timid voice.
“I’m here,” I replied softly, sitting up carefully so as to not disturb Mitch’s sleep.
“You cameded back,” Neal said, relief evident in his voice.
“Always,” I promised him.
“Cans I sleep with you and Papa?”
“Well, I think someone else might want to sleep with you.” I tapped my kunnarskyn to activate the low level night lighting. I knew the moment Neal saw who was camped out on our bed, and I was ready for him to take them to his room. For such small animals, they certainly took up a lot of bed space. It felt as if the two cats and the small dog owned most of the bed space, in fact.
“Shhh,” I told Neal, scooping up the small calico cat and getting out of bed. As I’d hoped, Molly followed her best friend as I carried her over to Neal. “Come on, let’s take them to your room.”
“There’s two kitties! And a dog!” He bent down to pet Morris who’d followed us out of the bedroom, curious to see what we were doing.
“Yes. The orange striped one is Morris, and he’s a present for your Papa, though he’s ours to love too. Just like Molly and this kitty are yours mostly but for all of us to love.”
Neal nodded, his face serious as I opened the door to his room.
“What’s the kitty’s name?”
“She needs a new name.”
“Oh! She’s very pretty. She’s got lots of colors.”
“She does. The lady at the shelter said her coat pattern is called calico.”
“That’s funny, Daddy. She’s not wearing a coat. Kitties have fur so they don’t need to wear clothes! And it’s not cold anyways.”
I chuckled, too tired by today’s events to explain what that actually meant right now.
“Can you think of a good name for her?”
“Uh huh. Pretty.”
“Yes, she is very pretty.”
Neal giggled. “No, we can name her Pretty. Pretty Kitty.”
“How about you think about it for a couple of days,” I suggested. “To make sure it’s the perfect one. Remember, you need to be able to call it out loud easily.”
“Okay, Daddy,” he said as Molly rested her paws on the edge of his mattress, begging to be allowed up. I picked her up, and she began to snuffle along the bottom of the bed.
“She can sleep on your bed tonight, and in the morning, Papa can put a bed for her in here.”
“Okay!” Neal agreed, getting back under the covers. I kissed his forehead, thinking how perfect he looked with his cat curled up on his pillow beside him and the dog at his feet. Maybe we could get the dog some steps so she could sleep with him if she wanted to. “Night, night, Daddy!”
“Night night.”
I smiled as I turned to trudge back to our bedroom, eager to slide back into bed and snuggle up against my mate. The day’s earlier events came to the front of my mind though. Linda Takahashi had buried a body in her yard, thinking to hide it under a flower bed, and while we had a pretty good idea that it belonged to her husband, the fact that despite how nearly instantaneous the DNA identification should have been, Dr. Quincy had not yet sent us the promised the results. I ran a hand down my face, suddenly too keyed up to sleep.
I decided to make myself a cup of lomarta the way my mother used to for me as a child when I needed help going to sleep. I’d done the same for Neal when he first came to me, his anxiety through the roof. The human mates likened it to having a cup of something called Ovaltine or Horlicks before bed, with the same gentle effects these milk based drinks had. Not surprising really, as lomarta’s main ingredient was milk from the julita, a domesticated animal on Mylos.
“Xeranos,” my voice rumbled softly once I was in the kitchen, “Lomarta please, one serving.”
“Having trouble sleeping?” came the response as a large mug appeared in the replicator filled with the requested beverage, the steam gently wafting from its top.
