Chapter 7
TATE
“You’re kidding – right?”
Tate stared at the glowing screen like it had personally insulted him.
Emil’s face filled the Zoom box, smug as ever, those wire-frame glasses catching the lamplight in his pristine office.
Tate, meanwhile, sat in his darkened living room, slouched on the couch, one knee bouncing furiously.
He had half a mind to shut the laptop and end this ridiculous session then and there.
“That is the dumbest, most asinine thing I’ve ever heard, Emil,” Tate snapped, leaning forward as though sheer force of glare could burn through pixels and smack the toupee off the man’s head.
“What exactly would getting a needy fleabag do for me that this discussion isn’t already supposed to be doing? ”
Emil didn’t flinch. Of course, he didn’t. He was annoyingly good at keeping his calm. That perpetual smirk tugged at his mouth as he folded his hands neatly on the desk. “Well, for starters, it tells me if you’re a psychopath with zero ability to connect with another living creature – or not.”
The smugness radiating from his screen was enough to make Tate grind his teeth.
He was already keyed up, frustration simmering in his veins.
Two weeks. Two entire weeks since he’d left the yarn on Nettie’s porch, and still not so much as a text or a thank-you.
Two days since he left that plate of food.
Nothing but silence. Silence and avoidance.
And it gnawed at him worse than Emil’s smirk.
“Cats,” Tate barked, throwing up his hands. “Cats are feral, ornery, hard-headed little things that don’t connect with anyone because they don’t need—” He stopped mid-rant, realization clicking into place. His eyes narrowed on Emil… who smiled.
“Oh – well, I see.”
Emil’s smile widened. “Precisely.”
“You’re saying I’m hard-headed?”
“I was leaning more toward ‘feral,’ but sure, let’s go with both.”
“You’re not funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be,” Emil replied, smooth as glass. “But I would like you to adopt a pet as soon as humanly possible—bond with it. Learn something from the process. Then we can use that as a discussion point since you still refuse to talk about the other ‘thing’ you are hiding from me.”
“There was no ‘thing,’” Tate shot back immediately.
“There was. You’re simply not ready to admit it yet.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Perhaps,” Emil allowed with a shrug. “But I expect to see an animal next session. Tuesday.”
“Nope. I have a game.”
“Mike said you don’t. Tuesday at five.”
Okay – that was going to be really frustrating if he was close enough to Coach C?te to know their scheduled games and practices.
“I have plans then,” Tate countered, almost with a hint of ‘so there’ to his voice.
“I doubt it.”
Zing! – that could have stung, if Tate cared – which he didn’t. The chance to tell the man what he thought of him was too good to pass up, though, so he launched with a slight dig at Emil.
“You’re not very nice for a therapist.”
“I think you’ve had enough people in your life lying to you. You pay me to give it to you straight, not to tell you what you want to hear or praise you.”
“Can’t it be both?”
“No. Now, go adopt an animal. That’s your homework.”
Tate’s eyebrows shot up. “Since when do I get homework? I’m not in—”
The line went dead. Just like that.
Tate slammed the laptop shut and shoved it off his lap with a scowl.
“An animal? I don’t even like animals. This is the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard…
and I have to do it or I’m ‘uncoachable’,” he mocked, remembering Coach C?te’s words.
He shoved himself upright, muttering curses at the empty room.
“Crap. I guess I’m going to the freakin’ pet store like some needy child. ”
Snatching his truck keys, he opted against the motorcycle.
Too much hassle if he ended up hauling a dog crate or, heaven forbid, a litter box.
Out here, the edges of the Metroplex sprawled into farmland, giving him some space from people, from questions, from judgment.
He liked it that way. Privacy. A forty-minute drive from his parents if traffic behaved, which meant nobody just dropped by.
This was his buffer zone.
The gravel crunched under his tires as he pulled to the end of the long driveway. His hand hovered on the turn signal when something caught his eye—a flicker of movement in the tall grass by the drainage ditch. He squinted.
“Oh, come on... you’ve gotta be kidding me?” he grumbled, muttering as he tipped his head back up to look at the clear, bright blue sky above. “Really? A sign from Above? I was gonna get a puppy just to tick Emil off.”
Two tiny triangles of ears popped up, followed by a twitching tail. The ears disappeared. Then came the faintest, most pathetic mewl he’d ever heard in his life.
“Probably a bobcat,” he grumbled, shoving the truck into park. “The mama’s probably waiting to jump me. This is how people get mauled and end up on the news doing stupid and moronic stuff like chasing Lassie to a well or something.”
Still, he shoved the truck door open and stepped out. Because of course he did, yelling loudly for anyone to hear him. He didn’t want to admit openly to anyone or anything that he wasn’t about to drive off, knowing some pathetic dumb animal was about to get flattened by the next truck.
“See? I’m empathetic! Empathetic people get out and rescue animals from the drain and keep them from turning into Hamburger Helper for any vultures or coyotes in the area…”
The grass was damp, mud sucking at his sneakers as he crouched near the drainage pipe. He muttered a quick prayer that no snakes slithered out, then leaned in. The mewl came again, thin and pitiful. And then—there. A flash of a muddy tail.
“If there’s a snake in there – you’re on your own, mongrel…”
Without thinking too hard, Tate lunged and grabbed. His hand closed around damp fur, and suddenly he was holding up the most bedraggled, pathetic gray tabby kitten he’d ever seen. Its blue eyes were huge in its tiny face, its whiskers clumped with mud, fur matted and filthy.
It hissed weakly, then let out another squeak.
Tate glared at it. “Well, crap.”
The kitten answered by sneezing on him, flinging bits of mud and kitty-snot into his face like he’d just been adopted or baptized by him.
“Great. Just great.” He cradled it against his chest with a long, irritated sigh. “Fine. Let’s get some kitten-garbage, manage to keep you alive for a few weeks until you’re big enough to fight off raccoons, and then Emil can get this asinine idea out of his head.”
Half an hour later, Tate pushed a cart out of Petco loaded with more supplies than any sane person needed for one tiny kitten—food, litter, scratching post shaped like the piranha plant from the video game Super Mario Brothers, crinkle toys, shampoo, and even a little cat bed shaped like a mouse.
How did normal people even afford to own animals, because even he flinched at the total on the register.
The cashier’s raised eyebrow had been almost as bad as the woman in line behind him who’d cooed, “Oh, he’s adorable and needs a wittle-bathy-wathy! ”…
Tate nearly bit his tongue in half trying not to rip her head off verbally. Instead, he stood there scowling, with a mongrel—still filthy—curled up in the crook of his arm, sound asleep like he hadn’t just upended Tate’s entire evening.
Driving home, Tate kept glancing down at the little gray ball nestled on his lap under the steering wheel. His truck was silent but for the hum of the engine.
“This is the worst idea Emil’s ever had,” he muttered. “I’m gone half the time. I’m not a cuddly guy. I don’t do the whole ‘petting cats’ thing.”
The kitten stirred, stretched, and blinked up at him, then yawned wide enough to show its tiny pink tongue.
“You look like a clod of dirt,” Tate said dryly.
In response, the kitten dug its claws into his thigh.
Tate snorted, half a laugh breaking free despite himself. “Yeah. Real charming and adorable, you wet piece of mulch infested with fleas.”
At home, Tate wrestled the haul inside in multiple trips, one-armed, the kitten tucked in against his chest. He finally dug out the sensitive-skin shampoo and filled the kitchen sink with three inches of warm water. Testing it with his hand, he grimaced. This was absurd.
It was a cat, not a baby.
A kitten, he hesitated and sighed, which was a baby cat.
“All right, dirtball. Let’s see if we both survive this. You shred me with those little daggers, and I’ll fling you into next week – got me?”
He lowered the kitten into the sink. And, unbelievably, it didn’t fight. Didn’t hiss. Didn’t so much as squeak. It just stood there shivering, blue eyes locked on his, trusting in a way that made Tate’s throat tighten.
“Don’t give me that look,” he muttered, his voice softer than he intended. “You’ll probably give us both parvo with all that grime.”
But those eyes—too big for its tiny head—kept staring at him like he was the safest thing in the world.
“You know I’m cleaning you—don’t you?” he said more gently this time, surprising himself.
His hand hovered over the sink for a beat, his fingers flexing as if reluctant to touch the scrawny creature.
“You know, when you spit, hiss, or claw me… it’s cute, but this?
” He shook his head, a reluctant grin tugging at one corner of his mouth.
“This is beyond devious. Using the whole cute-tactics aspect? I had no idea you’d be filthy and play dirty with my emotions… ”
The kitten answered with a squeaky mewl, like a rebuttal—and dang it, something inside Tate caved right then and there. His chest felt too tight, his throat too warm.