“I’ll watch the cats,” Dawson volunteers as he climbs onto his cot in the loft.
“Really?” I look at him suspiciously.
“Don’t sound so surprised,” Dawson says. “Come on, you little fur balls. Mommy has to talk crap on me for a minute.”
I grin and approach the bed. Moonshine is first to jump out of my arms. Muffin follows. “Okay,” I say, “I’ll be right back.”
I hurry into the small room, expecting to do the daily deed, but the prompt has been replaced by something titled ‘Challenge’ at the top.
A line in small print asks me to read it aloud. I do.
“Brinley, because Dawson failed to complete an assigned challenge today, you must complete a different challenge before going to bed.”
“Dawson’s been doing challenges?” I say aloud. That’s news to me. I set my gaze back on the iPad and continue reading.
For an additional $10,000 to your charity, go upstairs, pin Dawson against the wall and say, “kiss me.”
Wait until his lips are almost touching yours, then turn your head and say, “actually, never mind.”The wordsgood luckfollow.
I set down the iPad. An extra ten thousand dollars to Opportunity Plus would be nice. Wonder what he gets for fulfilling his challenges. And I wonder why he failed today.
On another note, I’m relieved that I don’t have to come up with a number where our odds are concerned. I stand, reading over that final line once more. Good luck, huh? Great. I’m going to need it.
CHAPTER15
Dawson
I stare at the high-hanging chandelier from the loft as I lay on my cot. It’s my third night on the crappy excuse for a bed, but I don’t mind; Brinley and I finally made progress.
I wouldn’t say it came easy, but itdidcome naturally. I couldn’t have planned it out if I tried. But that’s what makes it real. They say when something’s out of place, it will manifest itself soon enough; you just need to have eyes to see it. I was watching for it, and boy, did it come.
A fluffy tail drifts across my face like feathers.
Did I offer to watch her cats secretly hoping Moonshine would do his business on the cot and make it impossible to sleep here? Maybe. But so far, the usually demonic cat is being a perfect angel. He’s purring like an old 70’s engine—strong and steady, but riddled with age.
The crusty cat burrows its face into the nook of my neck and the motor gets louder. Its whiskers are coarse and scratchy against my jaw, like wires. I spend a moment in awe over the fact that there’s a wild animal in my bed. Two actually, but only one is feral.
The gentle one, Muffin, is walking on me like I’m a jungle gym. She treks up the side of my leg, paws over my waist, then prances onto my upper arm. Though the movement is graceful and the fluffy thing weighs no more than eight pounds, it startles me.
I remember her doing a similar thing on the nights we hung out at Brinley’s. She perches tall, stretching her neck to get a lay of the land from this angle. At last, she yawns, kneads my bicep, then circles in place and plops onto her side.
I guess personal space doesn’t exist for cats. I barely even know these guys, and here they are—one curled into a napping ball on my shoulder, the other attempting to become a neck pillow as he nestles in deeper.
I give Moonshine an appreciative rub along the scruff of his neck. “You’re not too bad, Moonshine,” I tell him. “You’re all right too,” I tell Muffin who cracks open an eye at the sound of my voice.
My mind shoots back to the kiss Brinley and I shared in the studio. It’s a credit to the cats that my mind drifted from such an event at all, even if it was just for a minute or two.
And to think it all started with Brinley’s jab about my watch. To viewers at home, I’ll probably look crazy for reacting the way I did. If there weren’t any history between us, her comment wouldn’t have warranted an ounce of offense on my part.
But we do have history. And somewhere, woven with threads of conscious and unconscious thoughts alike, a suspicion formed. One that says Brinley lumped me into a category with her father, which caused—not only distrust—but a warped opinion of who I really am.
I can’t help but wonder what Brinley’s thinking about it. Right now, she’s no doubt answering the questions I do each day. I’m sure she’s not spinning the dumb wheel for challenges, since those prompts are specifically geared toward me, but I can’t help but think they’re having her dosomething.
I wonder if I’ll get penalized somehow for not fulfilling today’s challenge. Probably. I don’t see them letting it go unpunished.
“This is quite a sight,” Brinley says, breaking into my musings. A light chuckle falls from her lips as I lift my head to see over Muffin’s puffy body.
“I wish I had my phone right now. I want a picture of this.”
