She nodded. “You’d better. He’s the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“Yeah, no shit. Just like Macon is the best thing to ever happen to you.”
She rolled her eyes, effectively dismissing me, then pivoted like a supermodel and continued on her way.
I entered into our bedroom, the place of so many happy memories, and found Kitten straddling the window sill, similar to the way I often did, with Little Miss Purrfect in his lap. He appeared to be lost in his own thoughts and didn’t hear me come in. All I ever wanted was to put a smile on his face, to have his personal sunshine aimed in my direction from time to time. The fact that he was brooding, probably because of me, made me feel like a real piece of shit.
“Hey,” I said, loud enough for him to hear me. He turned toward me, so beautiful and so good that my heart hurt to look at him. The possibility that I might lose him due to my own assholery was too devastating to think about.
“Hi,” he said in an unusually guarded way and went back to petting his cat. “Are you coming to dinner?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Larry invited me over to his house to eat dinner with him and Jeremiah.”
“Oh,” Kitten said with a frown. The cat jumped off his lap and darted toward the door, probably sensing the tension in the room, a feline barometer for our moods.
“You want to come with me?” I asked because I knew he’d been feeling left out. I hadn’t been spending nearly enough time with him, which was only partly due to our different schedules.
“No, thanks,” he said softly and turned back toward the world outside our window, hands folded in his lap.
I was losing him. This job and my drug addiction and my inability to communicate were driving a wedge between us. Artemis was right. I needed to get my shit together and quickly. I climbed onto the windowsill so that I could sit across from him, our knees knocking against each other, which made me miss him even more. He was right there and I wanted to reach out and pull him into my arms, but I didn’t have the right, so instead, I grabbed one of his hands and held it in my own, hoping he might give me a clue as to where to start.
“What’s on your mind?” I asked. He looked at me with caution, probably afraid that I might growl or snap at him as I’d had a habit of doing lately. Damn, I hated this. “You can tell me, whatever it is,” I insisted.
“That guy, Jeremiah, he gave me the creeps.”
Not what I was expecting. Kitten got along witheveryone, so the fact that he didn’t get along with Jeremiah set off all my alarms. With my back suddenly tense and ready for battle, I asked, “What did he do?”
“When we were in the locker room of the bathhouse, he was, like, naked with everything just… hanging out. And he was hard.”
What the fuck?I clenched my fists, trying to keep my cool. “Did he ask you to–”
“No,” he said, drawing back his hand and crossing his arms in a protective gesture. “He didn’t ask me for anything.”
“Then what did he say to you?”
“He kept asking questions about us. Personal stuff. He said some weird things.”
“Like what?”
Kitten’s eyes flashed up to meet mine before glancing away again. “I can’t remember exactly. I just… I didn’t like it.”
“Was he hitting on you?” I’d witnessed people flirting with him without him even realizing it, including seemingly straight men.They were just being friendly, he’d always say to me. Bullshit.
“I don’t know if that was it exactly, but he made me uncomfortable.”
If Kitten thought this guy was a creep, then he must be, no doubt about it. “Larry said he’s leaving first thing in the morning so we won’t have to worry about him for much longer. In the meantime, you stay with the other Assholes and don’t go off on your own.”
“I never do,” he said with an aggrieved sigh.
“And I appreciate it very much.” I touched his knee with mine. “Hey, I want you to know, I believe you. If you say he’s a creep, then he’s a creep.”
“Thanks,” he said with a small smile, still subdued.
“Can I give you a hug?”
