"Who are you talking to?" Ethan's groggy voice sounds through the space, and I lift my head to look at him and laugh at his crumpled face.
"The cat."
"What cat?" he asks, confused, and I get up. I wrap the cat in the towel and come closer to him.
"This one. I found it out there," I say, and the synapses in his brain finally seem to work, because he sits up in bed and his eyes go wide.
"What do you mean you found a cat, Logan Hayes? Let me see it." He holds out his hands and I hand over the little bundle of fur, which now, with only its head poking out of the towel, has fallen asleep.
"I went out to buy coffee and heard its meows in the middle of the street. It was alone in front of a shop, almost freezing, so I brought it inside," I explain while he studies the little thing and strokes its head.
"You think it doesn't have an owner?"
"I doubt it. Nobody would forget a kitten in the middle of a commercial street like that," I say, and he nods.
"Well, even if it did, if the person let it go missing it's because they didn't take good care of it," he remarks, lifting the cat up close to his face. The genuine, almost childlike smile he lets out catches me off guard.
I knew Tan hadn't had pets in childhood, because his older brother was very allergic, but apparently, it was something he really wanted.
"Yeah. Either way, now we're going to have to go looking for a home for it," I test, and he frowns.
"No, it... could stay with us," he throws out the idea, the excitement hidden in his voice. I smile at confirming that yes, the big running back of the Royals was quickly falling in love with a tiny cat.
I gesture with my hand for him to make room for me beside him on the mattress and I sit, resting my back against the rustic wooden headboard.
"I didn't even know you liked cats," I remark, and Ethan makes a shy little shrug of the shoulders.
"My neighbor had one when I was little, Tater. When Nathan went to summer camp, I'd sometimes let it into my room and sleep on top of me. I'd go hours without moving just so Tater wouldn't leave. When it died, I was already about thirteen, but I was devastated," he says, and I love having this extra little piece of knowledge about him. We'd been friends for so long, but ithadn't been very long since I'd started paying more attention to these moments together.
I nudge his shoulder lightly with mine.
"And you'd already lost the skating girl to our brother up north, right? Those were hard times for little Tan." My comment pulls a soft laugh out of him.
Unable to resist, I lean in and steal a kiss. This one starts soft and calm, like a caress, but it's no less good. Ethan always kisses with intensity, and makes the world disappear in those moments. His untrimmed stubble grazes mine and I really like the feeling.
I grab his nape and thread my fingers into the thick black hair and deepen the kiss. I genuinely consider pulling him under me, but when I press my chest against his, a meow of protest sounds through the room and we separate laughing.
I look at the cat with a tiny bit of judgment.
"You barely got here and you already want to be a cockblock?" I joke, scratching its ears and sitting up straight on the bed again.
Ethan unwraps the little thing from the towel, the ball of fur comes straight to my lap and has the nerve to try to bite my hand, like it heard what I said before. The action makes us laugh a little too loud and our girl wakes up.
Charlie sits up in bed next to us, taming the pink hair by putting it into a loose bun. She'd touched up the color recently and it was brighter than ever. It suited her a lot.
The girl yawns and lets her head fall against Ethan's shoulder before reaching an arm out to the kitten, which still meows and tries to wrap itself back up in the towel.
"Where did this little face come from?"
"I found it out there all alone," I answer her, and she uses a finger to stroke the cat's chin, and it stops complaining.
"Poor thing. Is it a boy or a girl?"
"I don't know, to be honest. I didn't look," I say, and she takes it in her hands, lifting the fluffy little tail to investigate. After a few moments of analysis, she hands it back to Ethan's lap.
"It's a girl."
"How do you know? I always see people online saying it's hard." It's Ethan who asks, also looking at the animal's private parts.
