“I’m not sure whether this beauty could.”
Torin just smiles and keeps flipping.
I page through five books before Kit’s eyes become half lidded.
“Kit, wake up,” I urge as I ruffle her fur. Her eyes snap open and she pays attention for about one more book before they start to close again, meaning that everything I’m seeing is through half-closed eyes. “Kit.” I shake her awake but that barely lasts half a book before she falls asleep.
“Dammit!”
Switching to English, Torin asks, “What’s wrong?” Then he sees Kit draped across my shoulder like a pelt. “Didn’t she sleep all night… and half the car ride?”
“And half the time you were gone,” I say as I attempt to rouse her again. “It’s not her fault. She’s still an animal at heart and she does her best for me. I just…”
I drop my hand down on the book I’d been combing through since I can’t see it now. “If we find this… do you think it could reverse what’s already happened to me?”
Torin is quiet for a minute, but I can still hear him flipping through the pages even though I can’t see him. “I don’t think so, Riley. But it could stop it from worsening.”
“Right. Kit, please. Come on, you can nap when we’re done. I’ll even let you stare at the neighbor’s chickens tomorrow.”
Kit perks up and returns to gazing at the book.
“I don’t blame her. It’s not like she can comprehend what the books say… or what the movie is about or whatever boring thing I’m doing that day. It’d be like me staring at a book in a language I don’t know for hours.” I pull Kit’s head closer and give the side of her head a kiss. She licks me in return and dutifully watches me flip through another book before I pull her off my shoulder and set her down.
“Go explore. Just stay in this room. I don’t want someone finding you and thinking you’re some strange snack.”
“She’s free to explore,” Torin says.
“Nope.”
“You think we’re so uncultured that we see some peculiar vermin and go ‘snack!’ and scoop them up?” he asks as he picks Kit up and pretends to bite her.
Kit loves it and squirms in his hands before attacking his nose. I get a very close-up view of his face while all of this goes on.
“You are happy to consume anything I put on a plate, so yes.”
“If you put this on my plate, I would be less than happy,” Torin says as he holds up the genet and looks her in the eyes, which is very much like him looking me in the eyes. I don’t know why it makes me feel a bit weird.
I sigh while the two of them play and I’m left holding a book I can’t read. “We’re going to be here for years at this rate.”
“Maybe,” he says, plopping Kit in my lap. She attacks my sleeve, whipping it this way and that before she gallops off to zoom around the room.
I’m left awkwardly and uncomfortably sitting on the floor, having no way to help.
“Are you jealous?” Torin asks as he grabs me in his arms. “Because I will snack on you too.” And then he proceeds to bite my arm.
“Stop! You’re ridiculous! You’re as horrible at staying focused as Kit is!” I accuse, catching him in a headlock while he laughs.
By the time I scrape myself free of him, Kit has returned and promises to behave for at least one more book.
We make it a grand total of one more book before Torin sighs so loudly that it disrupts Kit’s focus. He dramatically just oozes onto the floor.
“Do I even ask what you’re doing?” I ask as Kit flies off my shoulder and lands on the god’s face.
He chuckles when Kit springs off him, and I’m subjected to another close-up view of the god as Kit bites his ear while she brawls him.
“Save me,” Torin whines, crawling toward me.
“We haven’t even made it through half of one bookshelf.”
