Gedeon ran one end of a towel under the tap. “Then why did you stay in bed last night?” he asked, wringing out the fabric.
“I was afraid Shadow would feel lonely.” Yup, the person who’d scolded him for lying to me was now lying her ass off herself.
“Shadow?” He quirked a black eyebrow—a sign he hadn’t missed how I’d breached the deal we’d forged. The bargain stipulated we would speak the truth and only the truth.
I picked at my cuticles. “Our kitten.”
He dabbed the damp cloth along my hairline, wiping away the sheet of sweat. “You mean Darkness.”
“What?” I frowned. “No. His name is Shadow.”
“First of all,he’sa girl. Second…” Gedeon paused. “Her name can be Shadow. I will concede to that. It has a nice ring to it.”
“Heis not a girl,” I puffed out. A month had passed since we’d brought back the most adorable creature in the universe. Zion would have pointed out its…genital situation by now if he’d been wrong to assume our cat was a boy.
Rinsing the towel, Gedeon pushed, “Have you checked?”
Reluctantly, I confessed, “Shadow won’t let me.” The kitten had freaked out the first time I tried, and I hadn’t dared to attempt it again.
Gedeon glanced over his shoulder. “He didn’t tell you?”
Leaning against the door frame, Zion grinned. “Was I supposed to?”
“It’s a boy,” I pressed, hoping it would set the fact in stone. “If you need another girl that badly, I can turn you into one,” I proposed to Gedeon.
“Can I go first? I can’t say no to multiple orgasms,” Zion piped up. He tugged his white t-shirt down to cover the sliver of sandy skin above his jeans. The rips in the pair were one of the things I hesitated about inquiring.
Their origins had to be disturbing. Other kinds didn’t exist with Zion.
Gedeon gestured to the small plastic crate sitting in the corner. “What is that monstrosity?”
“It’s a litter box.” I leaped off the counter. “Zion said we needed one.”
We’d filled the box with special, bean-sized grains that absorbed whatever Shadow excreted. Although it did stink up the bathroom sometimes. Apparently, our kitten’s butt produced poop of the mightiest strength.
Gedeon pinched the bridge of his nose. “I should not have gotten you that cat.”
I froze in the middle of the bathroom. “What did you just say?”
“How do you think the kitten ended up in your car? It could barely jump a foot, yet you found it in the back seat.”
Pushing the dawning realization away, I stood my ground. “I don’t know. It’s a cat? It did its”—I waved my arms—“thing.”
“Its thing?” Gedeon echoed.
“Yes,” I went on. “I’ve never had any pets. How should I know what it’s called?” My forehead creased at Zion snickering, and I whipped my head to face him. “Did you know?”
He scratched his chest. “Gedeon might have told me earlier today.”
I zeroed in on the culprit. “Where did Shadow come from?”
“I found her on the fringes of our compound. She was trembling on the side of the road, and my conscience wouldn’t let me leave her to fend for herself. We followed you to that mountain. She spent half the way sleeping on my lap,” Gedeon said with a soft smile.
My frown deepened. “Then why did you give her up to us?”
“Because I couldn’t take care of her myself and thought you two would give her a home she deserved. Though it seems nobody has told you what cats actually require.” He smirked. “And you just said Shadow is aheryourself.”
“Shadow is aboy.” I rubbed my temples, exhausted of his insistence otherwise.
