I squealed undignifiedly, but I didn’t care, suddenly feeling like a kid again. I pulled the little nugget to my chest, who squirmed in protest as I leaned over and hugged Mom. “Thank you.”
Her arms came around me for a long squeeze before we both pulled away to glance at the new addition to our family. “She needs a name.”
I looked down at the tiny gray fluff in my arms, studying her while she studied me back with those unblinking eyes. “What about Shadow?” I offered, thinking of how I found her in the nearly dark corner of the alley.
Mom made a face, her nose wrinkling. “Too predictable.”
“Storm?” I tried again.
“Too dramatic.”
“Okay, rude.” I shifted the kitten, adjusting my grip as she squirmed. The kitten pawed at my shirt, her tiny claws catching in the fabric with soft scratching sounds.
“Jade,” Mom said after a second of contemplation, her head tilting slightly as she studied the small creature.
I paused, looking down at her again and really considering it.
Jade.
Beautiful but not fragile—like the stone jade. Strong enough to survive the alley, the cold, the hunger…and still keep going.
“I like that,” I said, the name settling right in my chest. “It fits her.”
Mom nodded, smiling. “It does.”
“Welcome to the family, Jade,” I whispered, leaning down to press a soft kiss to the top of her fuzzy head.
Mom pushed up from the couch, wisps of her hair falling to frame her face. “Don’t forget about dinner this weekend,” she reminded me.
“I haven’t.” How could I? The mysterious boyfriend and his family. I was both excited and terrified at the changes happening in our lives. It was what I always wanted, but now that it was happening, it wasn’t as easy a transition as I imagined.
“Tomorrow we’ll go shopping,” she added. “Make it a girls’ day. Get this nugget a few essentials. Litter box, food bowls, and actual kitten food instead of cow’s milk.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She smiled again. “Wait until she’s running around at three in the morning on a school day. She’s sleeping in your room.”
I rolled my eyes.
I wassure most of my classmates were out having fun, drinking, making bad decisions, or partying, Maddox included, whereas I was spending my Friday night at home with my kitten, chatting with Keegan online.
Mom was out with the mystery boyfriend again. The amount of time they spent together was starting to become a little alarming. She must really like him, but until I met this guy who occupied so much of her time, I was reserving judgment. To date my mom, you had to be a special guy. She had a past that she couldn’t share, and he had to be okay with that.
Or okay with dating a murderer, which was a label I didn’t like, because to me, she wasn’t a killer, not in the sense that she took lives for shits and giggles. All of the men she eliminated were bad guys. They deserved to die, but I wasn’t sure the world would see them as justified killings, regardless of her motives, and that was what always scared me.
I couldn’t lose her.
She was all I had.
Jade curled beside me on the bed as I sat cross-legged with my laptop open. Keegan’s messages lit up the screen, rapid-fire notifications pulling me from darker thoughts.
ToxicCharm:So you’re telling me you just casually adopted a kittenANDhooking up with a hot, morally questionable guy??
I huffed a quiet laugh, glancing down at Jade as she stretched. Her tiny claws caught in the blanket, pulling threads, her pink toe beans flexing.
Me:Not casually. The kitten chose me. Maddox…is complicated.
We hadn’t done much more than fool around, and despite it being the hottest and farthest I’d ever gone with a guy, I wasn’t under the delusion that we were anything. But I had hoped it meant Maddox liked me and maybe things would progress into boyfriend material. I learned quickly that wasn’t the case when we went back to school this week.
