Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Bexley
T wo days later…
Don’t be a pussy and grow a set of lady balls, Bexley Anne.
When I’d woken up early and decided to come and see Logan, I’d thought it would be much easier than this.
Now that I was standing in front of P.V.P.D., though, all the confidence I’d felt was gone. I was also aware that if I stood here any longer staring at the place, everyone inside—heck, even the ones outside—who saw me would know I was a freaking pathetic pussy.
Taking a deep breath, I started walking to the door, kicking myself in the ass for coming here the whole time.
What was I thinking ?
“You thought you’d be an adult and see your friend, dip shit,” I muttered as I got to the door.
Shaking off my stupidity, I plastered a smile on my face and raised a hand at the girl behind the desk. Naomi, wasn’t it ? Did that sound right ?
“Hey, Bexley,” she called, waving back at me. “It’s great to see you back. ”
“Thanks, Naomi.”— please let it be Naomi, please let it be Naomi —“It’s great to be back.
“Bex,” a deeper voice said, and I turned to see DB as he joined us. “How was your trip home?”
Was it my imagination, or were his lips twitching ?
“Uh, it was okay?” Until Sakegate, that was.
He definitely bit down on his lip this time, like he was fighting back laughter.
“Well,” he cleared his throat. “You’re here to see Logan, right? Or did you come to hand yourself in?”
“I came…” I trailed off when three of the guys behind him started shaking bananas at me like they were waving. That could be a coincidence, though. “Uh, yeah, I came to see him. Is he around?”
“Yup, he’s working in the room over here. Come on, I’ll take you to him.”
Following behind him, I did my best to smile and not grimace as all three of them bit into the fruit as we passed by, but then DB picked up a banana from a large bunch on one of the desks and started peeling it as we walked.
“You guys on a diet here or something?”
Instead of answering me, he shot me a grin and started eating it. Just watching it was making my shitty gag reflex go to hell.
Thankfully we reached the room Logan was in before I had to watch him eat more of it. Opening the door, DB sighed loudly.
“Guy’s working himself into a coma trying to get this shit sorted out. Give me one second.” Not telling me why or explaining any of it, he walked away, leaving me staring at a fast asleep Logan, his head on the desk in front of him with paperwork spread around it.
“Here we go,” DB said from right behind me, making me jump. Then, moving around me, he walked over to where Logan’s head was, raised a bullhorn, and yelled next to his ear, “ Party’s over, princess. Get your boyfriend, your panties, and move out !”
It was like watching someone get electrocuted as he jumped up out of his chair, smacking the back of his head off the shelves that were at a stupidly low height above it.
Holding the injured area, Logan glared at his boss. “You’re an absolute fucking asshole, Bell.”
Not moving the bullhorn away from his mouth, Dave replied loudly, “That’s Sheriff Asshole Bell to you.”
With the muscle in his jaw ticking, he glanced over at where I was standing and froze. “You’re back!”
“Got back last night, remember?”
Groaning, he lifted his free hand and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I’ve been trying to figure this shit out,” he waved at the paperwork.
This time, Dave turned the bullhorn in my direction. “ He hasn’t been home in thirty-six hours, and he smells. Take him away .”
Logan’s head snapped back in his boss’s direction. “I haven’t—"
“ Away !” DB yelled, still using it. “Go before I get the guys to carry you out.”
“I need to put this stuff—”
“ Away ! I’ll deal with it, just leave.”
Growling, he started moving slowly toward me, stretching out his back as he did. “I think I’ve trapped a nerve sitting there.”
“And killed a few brain cells hitting your head on those shelves,” I pointed out.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “They’re at a fucking stupid height.”
“Not for me, they’re not,” Naomi snickered as she breezed past us into the room.
The guys were still eating their bananas as we passed them, and it was then that it all started to make sense.
“You saw the video, didn’t you?”
Not one of them could look me in the eye as they laughed around their mouthfuls of fruit.
“Ignore them,” Logan said, tugging my arm toward the door.
“Don’t you have to get anything out of your desk? If I just got up and walked out of work, I’d have no keys, no phone, no Chapstick. All my essentials would be stuck in my desk.”
Logan patted his pockets. “Got it all right here, and I don’t wear Chapstick.”
Just as we got to the door, DB used the bullhorn one last time. “ Sorry about your gag reflex, Bex. Bananas aren’t your enemy !”
And, for the second time, I walked out of the building feeling like the world’s biggest dickhead in history.
Garrett, who was walking toward us from where he’d just parked up, pulled a banana out of his pocket and pointed it at me. “Kapow, kapow!”
I ground my teeth together so hard it was a miracle I didn’t need an expensive visit to the dentist.
“You work with a mean bunch of fuckers.”
Logan stopped and looked at me in disbelief. “You just saw what my boss did to me, didn’t you?”
I wouldn’t have stopped walking away from them all if you’d paid me a thousand dollars, so I continued to where I’d parked Pops’ car. “Yeah, but you’ll have done something to deserve it. All I did was get drunk and accidentally do it on camera.”
There was a pause, and then he sighed. “Yeah, I probably do deserve it.” I’d parked next to his truck, so we were getting into our vehicles when he added, “And we need to talk about that damn video. Your dad’s making me do it.”
As I drove behind him toward Papa’s house, I gave serious consideration to taking a detour to Canada.
I also thought about calling up my dad to kick his ass for making Logan do it, but then I looked at the clock and thought about how he had a meeting today with a big supply chain in France and couldn’t do it. If he got an offer to ship to them, he’d be celebrating, and I couldn’t ruin it. If he didn’t, he’d be disappointed, and I didn’t want to add to his shitty day.
So, I stayed fuming and stewing over it all. I also resigned myself to the fact that the middle of the night humiliation parties were going to involve the whole of the P.V.P.D. now, too.
Again.
Fucking joy!
“Thank you for plastic wrapping the rest of the house while I was away,” I teased as I waved him through the front door, having run in ahead of him first to let Doyle out into the backyard. “You should’ve seen Ava’s face last night when we walked in and she saw a psycho’s dream house.”
He was quiet as I talked, only smiling or giving me one of those irritating chin jerks men sometimes did. Okay, it was also a hot mountain man type of gesture, too, but right now, I wished he’d just say something instead.
“Do you want a beer?”
Still no words, just a shake of the head as he followed me into the living room. Granted, he could be exhausted from work, but this seemed more than that.
I could feel the pressure building inside me, wanting to explode out. This was even more awkward and strained than it’d been when I’d first come back here, but as far as I was aware, nothing had happened to warrant it.
Well, aside from the kiss.
Was he that upset over it? I refused to let my old crush dictate how crushed I was at the possibility that’s what this was, but I’d be lying if I wasn’t hurt at the thought.
Unfortunately, that all added to the nuclear explosion boiling under the surface inside of me, and just as I was opening my mouth to let it all out, I took a breath in and smelled something that’d been confusing me since I’d gotten back last night.
It wasn’t anything I’d describe as sinister—not that I knew what a decomposing body smelled like or anything—but it wasn’t pleasant, either.
“Do you smell that?”
A faint blush spread across his cheeks under the scruff on them. “Uh… we all do it. I thought maybe you’d had to use the bathroom before you left today, and that’s normal. I sometimes go in the en suite, and if I don’t close the door, the smell goes into my—”
I felt my head jerk at the implication of what he was saying. “That wasn’t me, you dolt. I smelled it last night and wondered if one of you had been in the house before we got back, but it isn’t going away.”
The smell was kind of shitty, but the most powerful thing to hit me was ammonia.
“Did y’all use any kind of chemicals while you were shrink wrapping the place?”
He looked to the side as he thought about it, but then he shook his head. “No, we used those dusting and polishing wipes you left out to get the dust off the furniture before we took it out, and then we vacuumed the floors because there was a shit ton of crap under it. That’s all.”
“Where’s it coming from?”
Together we sniffed the air, walking out the room and to the bottom of the stairs where it was stronger.
Looking up them, Logan pointed at the top. “I think it’s coming from up there. Did you leave anything out when you left?”
“Like food or a drink?” When he nodded, I pointed out the obvious. “If I had, y’all would’ve seen it when you were removing the furniture out my room. There wasn’t anything in there when I got back.”
“What about Pops’ room?”
Dread filled me at the prospect of having to go in there and look around, making my voice sound small when I answered his question. “I don’t know. I still can’t bring myself to go in there. ”
Reaching down, he gently took my hand and tugged me up the stairs, not letting go of it once.
When we got to the top, he took a deep breath in and made a choking noise. “Damn, that doesn’t smell right. Has it gotten worse since you went out earlier?”
“Yeah, but I opened the windows a bit last night to get rid of any dust in the air. It was making my eyes feel gritty and like I wanted to scratch them out. I didn’t close them fully until before I left.”
This didn’t get the response I was expecting. “You left the windows downstairs open all night?”
“Well, yeah, but they were only open a little bit. There was a lot of dust in the air. Even Ava was sneezing because of it.”
What did he expect me to do, die of dust asphyxiation? Slightly dramatic, but I’m sure it could happen.
Heck, most people didn’t think they’d get caught on national television drinking Sake with their friend, talking about their gag reflex, and demonstrating to the other patrons how bad it was with a banana. Yet, here I was, proof that bad luck existed.
“That’s not safe, Bex. All someone would have to do is push them open a bit more, and they could get in and attack you. Hell, the house is already prepared for someone with a knife to do what they want and then just roll up the mess and leave again.”
Groaning, I rubbed my forehead with the palm of my free hand. “Can we get back to why my house smells like a rest stop bathroom?”
The look he gave me told me the conversation wasn’t over, but he went back to sniffing the air. “Could it be coming from the attic?”
Both of us moved until we were under the door leading to it and sniffed deeply at the same time.
“Ew, what the hell is that?”
Turning the torch on his phone on and passing it to me before taking the small Maglite out of his belt and turning it on, he pulled on the chain hanging down, only just dodging the over WD-40’d ladder at the last moment.
“I hate that he used to WD-40 this every month,” Logan muttered, pulling the last bit down. “You could tell when it was that time of the month for him because he’d go into the store and buy a new can of the shit so he could attack everything in the place.”
It was true, Pops totally had a time of the month, except his involved hinges and stepladders. It came from working on furniture and with tools his whole life, he said, plus the fact that this was an old house, and he’d grown up with things that needed to be lubed so they still worked.
Yeah, as I got older, him saying that sounded dirty, but I remember how the doors used to seize up when I was little before he changed them, so the house was more energy efficient in the winter.
All it’d taken was a knock on the door from the old sheriff, asking if Pops was growing weed in the attic because the new Police helicopter camera had picked up a crazy amount of heat coming through the roof one winter.
They’d gone up so he could prove he wasn’t, and then one of the guys had told him to change out his insulation up there and check the fit of the windows and doors.
After some research, he’d found out he was paying out a lot more money each year on wasted heating than he would if he invested some in the place, so he’d gotten straight onto it and had changed all the doors, window, and the insulation in the attic.
He stuck to servicing the new ones each month because he said it didn’t matter if they were old or new, all hinges and machinery seized up if they weren’t maintained properly.
That meant this particular stepladder was like something out of Final Destination , though. I had a scar somewhere under my hair from where it’d clipped me when I was little, resulting in six stitches. Ironically, it’d happened when Logan and I had stood on a chair to pull the chain, thinking we’d play up here for a while .
Touching the area it’d hit, I snickered, “Good times!”
“You stay down here, and I’ll have a look up there. It might be bats.”
Just the thought had me screwing my face up. “Ew, I don’t want guano in my attic.”
Ever see the movie Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls ? Joke all you want about guano bowls, but that ‘shit’ was disgusting. I’d been shat on by a bat when I was eight, and it was something else that I was scarred with for life, along with spiders.
It sounded like the ladder was going to break as Logan climbed up it, but it held firm for him until all I could see was his boots as he looked around the space above us.
“Damn, it smells a bit stronger up here, Bex. I don’t see any bats or shit on the ground, but that doesn’t— Wait, what’s that?” he went silent, leaving me hanging.
“What’s what?”
“Something’s glowing in the corner. Looks like a pair of— Oh, fucking hell. Jesus Christ! ” he yelled, the steps jerking under him as he moved suddenly.
A deep growling noise joined his shouting.
“Is it an evil spirit?” I shrieked, lifting my hands to catch him in case he came tumbling down.
In my defense, the noises sounded like something was possessed, so my assumption wasn’t that irrational at that moment.
“Get off me, you furry bastard. What the fuck?”
“Is it a werewolf? I don’t know who to call for that. I don’t think Animal Control will know how to catch it.” I’ll give myself credit for the fact I genuinely did think hard about who would be the people to call about one.
“Call fucking Twilight , Bex,” he snapped, still thrashing around. “Tell them one of their cast members escaped.”
It took all of ten seconds for me to realize he was being sarcastic.
“There’s no need to be an asshole, Richards,” I yelled. “I’m trying to save your sorry ass here, and you’re—” I stopped, waving my hand at his feet. “You’re— What are you doing?”
“Trying to stop this cat from taking my head off. What does it look like?”
“Like your feet are tap-dancing on an old stepladder,” I mumbled to myself. Then I realized what he’d said. “Oh my God, there’s a kitty? Is it cute?”
The sound of something scratching the floorboards up there in the direction away from us sounded as he came quickly back down the steps.
His face and arms matched my house. I shit you not. He was covered in bleeding scratches and tufts of fur, meaning that a Saran wrapped house fit for a slasher totally suited him.
“What the hell?” I breathed, reaching out to carefully pick a chunk of hair off his shoulder. “What did you do to it?”
He’d been examining his arm, but when I asked that, he glared at me. “I didn’t offer it pot roast, Bex. Apparently, that’s a feline offense.”
I was tempted to stuff the hair that was still in my hand in his mouth for his sarcasm, but I held back. Just.
Pretending like I didn’t hear it instead, I pursued possible lines of insult for the cat. “Did you scare it or touch its stuff?”
“It’s stuff ?” he asked incredulously. “You’ve got a feral cat living in your attic who lost its shit when I went up there, and you want to know if I pissed it off by touching ‘its stuff?’”
Throwing my arms up in the air and losing the hair in my hand, I snapped, “I don’t fucking know, Logan. I wasn’t up there to witness the exchange between you both. All I’m doing is trying to see if there’s a way to prevent it from happening again. The poor thing must be scared out of its mind.”
Way the wrong thing to say, apparently.
“ Scared out of its mind ?” he yelled. “It’s a fucking psycho! Why don’t you look at my arms and compare how many wounds I have to how many it doesn’t and tell me who’s scared out their mind. ”
I didn’t want to add insult to injury, but I felt it pertinent to point his face out to him.
“You’ve also got some of them on your face. A couple on both cheeks, two on your chin, one on your forehead, and what looks like a puncture on your nose.” He raised his head to glare at the ceiling as I cataloged his injuries, enabling me to see three that I’d missed. “Oh, and there’s some on your neck, too.”
Lowering it back down, he glared at me like he was trying to melt ice with laser beams. “You done?”
I could neither confirm nor deny because a good friend would point out things like that to another, wouldn’t they?
Growling, he caught my hand and started pulling me toward the main bathroom. There were four bedrooms up here and three bathrooms, but the largest one was between mine and Pops’ room.
Once we got there, he pulled open the medicine cabinet and looked at its contents before plucking out the hydrogen peroxide, Neosporin, and a box of BandAids, putting all of them on the counter.
Nudging him out of the way with my hip, I leaned into the cupboard under the sink and pulled out the cotton balls that I’d need for the adventure ahead.
“Are you still a big pussy when it comes to pain?”
The sound of the toilet lid closing and the creaking of wood as he sat on top of it followed my question. “Given that it’s been like fifteen years since then, no.”
The ‘then’ he was talking about was when we were climbing around his parents' garden, and he’d skidded down a muddy hill onto the gravel of their driveway. His parents had pulled out a lot of small pieces of the stuff, and you could hear his screams where the rest of us were seated in their backyard as they cleaned the wounds out.
Washing my hands, I prepared myself mentally for the job. I hated causing people pain, so I was dreading what I was about to do. Picking up the bag of cotton balls, I pulled a couple out and then opened the bottle of peroxide.
With a sigh, he held his arm out, signaling that he wanted me to get it out of the way. So, with my teeth clamped firmly into my lower lip, I tipped it slightly and let some pour out onto the first cut.
His scream wasn’t the same as it’d been fifteen years ago, but the muted adult version had the same impact all these years later. After the first four, we realized that it would be better for me to just saturate the balls with it and then wipe in long sweeps down his arm, so that’s how I did it, biting my lip each time he made a noise.
After that came the Neosporin drama. I thought it felt soothing when I had to use the stuff, but Logan had always said it felt just as bad as the peroxide, except it didn’t dry off and stayed stinging for longer.
Halfway through the first arm, I threw the cotton ball I’d been using on the floor and glared at him. “If you keep flinching and wincing, I’m going to knock you out. Take it like a man.”
He had the audacity to look hurt by this. “It fucking stings, Bex. Not just a small sting, but like you’re putting acid on them. Multiply that feeling by however many cuts I’ve got, and I think I’ve got a right to make a noise.”
Biting my tongue, I went back to the job and managed to switch off to his noises until I got to his face and neck. It was one thing to deal with his arms, but another altogether to do his face.
Reading me correctly, he picked up the tube of cream and a cotton ball and looked in the mirror. “I can do these.”
I didn’t argue with him because I was emotionally drained. Yeah, hearing the noises had been hard, but a big chunk of it was also guilt because I was the one hurting him. It wasn’t just a couple of cuts, I’d counted seventeen on his forearm alone. That was a lot of pain to inflict on someone you cared about, so not having to do it to his face was a relief .
At least, that’s what I thought until he didn’t even blink as he applied the shit by himself.
“You’re a freaking fraud, Richards,” I hissed, throwing the balls that’d missed the trash can earlier into it.
“I don’t know if it’s because I’m doing it or if I’m just immune to the sting after years of shaving,” he shrugged, screwing the lid back onto the tube. “It just didn’t hurt like my arms and hands did.”
I was about to turn around and call bullshit when I saw a couple of small rips in his shirt. “Did you go to work in a torn shirt today?”
“No, why?” he asked, looking down at it and trying to see what I was talking about.
Because he was looking down, the small rips weren’t immediately visible, so I pulled it away from his body and stuck my finger through one—admittedly making it worse than it’d been initially.
Lifting it, he stared at his torso in the mirror, inspecting it to see if any of the damage on the item of clothing had made its way onto him. I probably would’ve done the same thing, but the area of his body that I’d seen as a kid wasn’t the same as it was now.
Back then, he’d been slim but had some definition on his stomach. Now, he had a nice level of definition that was more than before but didn’t border on ‘harshly cut.’
I’d never caught onto the trend of super-defined six-packs and fitness like that, it just seemed like a lot of work to be hidden under clothing all day. By all means, work out and be fit and muscular if it’s your choice, but many of the guys who did it that I’d met had done it to get the attention of women.
Logan obviously did workouts and kept fit. With a job like his, I assumed that was a given so he was more able to deal with the bad guys. He hadn’t taken it to extremes, though, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was almost hypnotized by what I saw in the mirror.
“Shit, there’s more,” he muttered, and I nodded, thinking he was talking about the muscles that moved on his back when he lifted his arm to point at some more scratches .
To be fair, he hadn’t been specific about what ‘more’ actually was.
“Are there any on the back?”
Figuring this went hand in hand with my thoughts at that moment, I nodded happily. “A lot.”
“Damn it. Are they bad?”
“No, they’re good. Oh, so very good.”
“What?” he spun around and looked over his shoulder in the mirror, putting his chest only inches away from my face.
His skin looked like he moisturized it hourly it was that smooth, and the movement of his muscles was completely different in this position to how they’d been before.
I swear I’d just found my happy place.
“Did you get something in your eye? Why are you blinking like that?”
Mental snapshots, those things were real, and in a couple of hours when I went to bed, I wanted these at the front of my mind.
When he drew in a loud breath to sigh loudly, I almost started begging him to do it again so that I could watch what his chest and stomach had done all over again.
“I don’t see any cuts on my back. I’ll clean these if you want to wash up?” When I didn’t answer, he clicked his fingers an inch away from my nose, snapping me out of it. “You okay?”
I could lay my thoughts out to him, I’d already been embarrassed more with Logan than anyone should be throughout their whole life, so I lied.
I, Bexley Anne Heath, set my own panties on fire with what I came out with.
“I think the fumes from the peroxide are affecting me. I’ve got an allergy to it, you know, and it just makes me hazy. I’ll go, and…” I trailed off as I tried to think of something. “Do something out there, and maybe order some takeout for us.”
Judging by the amount of twitching his lips were doing, he knew I was lying my ass off. Then he had to go and make it worse. “What about ordering Chinese? Check and see if they do banana fritters, too, but not Sake for me.”
So, with my face burning, I shot him the bird and stumbled out of the bathroom.
I was desperately trying to take my mind off it as I went and started thinking about how I was going to help the poor feral cat in the attic—which sounded a bit like a sinister Dr. Seuss book title.
I’d seen programs on television where they set traps with cans of food in them, but I didn’t want to risk having my arm taken off when I tried to pick it up. Potholders probably wouldn’t be enough protection judging by what it’d done to Logan.
Did I buy it toys and spend months doing some sort of African wilderness move, where I befriended a lion until I could ride its back?
When I got downstairs, the solution was made for me and found the animal curled up on the hoodie I’d worn on the plane yesterday. I’d been so tired when I’d gotten home that I didn’t care where it had landed after I took it off.
Actually, that was another lie. I’d taken it off and dropped it on where I’d assumed the couch was, forgetting that they’d moved it when they’d shrink-wrapped the place. I’d also seen it this morning as I drank my coffee, but I was too lazy to pick it back up again.
And the cat had benefitted from all of that because it looked like it’d claimed it.
It wasn’t until I was squatted down beside it, with my hand only inches away from its gray fur, that I realized how stupid I was trying to touch it, but I was desperate to let it know that I didn’t mean any harm. I had no idea how it had gotten into the attic, but obviously, it liked living in Pops’ house, and he would have done the same thing I was, so…
It didn’t lift its head as my hand got closer, but its eyes were focused on what I was doing. After the third gentle sweep of my thumb over the top of its head, it finally raised it and started purring .
“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s nice to meet you. I don’t mind you staying so long as you don’t try to fillet me like you did to Logan. I don’t know what Doyle’s going to think about you, though.”
The cat looked behind me like it was looking for either of them. I was about to declare it a feline genius, when I got the answer why it’d done it.
“You’re insane,” Logan murmured, keeping his voice low, so he didn’t scare it. “No way are you keeping a feral cat.”
“He’s not feral, he was just scared, weren’t you?” I cooed at it, giving it scratches under the chin.
“Babe, he’s feral. He’s just waiting for you to blink so he can take your arm off.” He held his arms out to back up his words. Because of the number of cuts he had, we hadn’t put Band-Aids on all of them, just the worst ones.
“Come and say hi, and apologize for scaring him.”
Logan eyed it and shook his head. “No fucking way.”
Apparently, kittykins felt the same way because he lifted his head and hissed at him.
Pointing at the animal, Logan raised his eyebrows at me. “See? Move your damn hand away.”
Ignoring him, I continued stroking the placid animal, even going so far as to scratch its belly when it rolled onto its back.
Then something occurred to me. “I’m going to have to go to the store.”
“Yeah,” he agreed distractedly. “I’m looking up what you need to get rid of the smell of ammonia from the attic. Baking soda seems to be a popular one, but there are sprays with enzyme things in them that do the job as well. If not, you’re probably going to have to—”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I interrupted, frowning at how much work it was going to be on top of what I already had to do. “Okay, I’ll add the sprays and some of those bad smell-absorbing things to the list of stuff I need to get. ”
Looking confused, he asked, “What do you need to get at the store?”
“Well, cat stuff. I can’t have a cat without food, a bed, toys, and whatever else they need. Hey, can you look up what cats need online, please? And Doyle’s as grumpy as Pops was, so see if they know what I can get for him. He’s only two and a half, but he acts like he’s ninety.”
“You need to go to the store to get cat shit?” he drawled. “For a feral cat?”
“Stuff,” I corrected, “and he’s hardly feral.”
At that moment, he was purring and rubbing his face on the hoodie as I scratched his stomach.
“Check under his nails, and you’ll find my flesh and blood from where he tried to kill me.”
Rolling my eyes, I made a point of holding a paw and pressing, so the nails came out. Seeing the length of them, though, I winced and let go again.
Probably best not to draw attention to the tiger length talons .
“I need a name for you,” I said, watching him watching me. Were those song lyrics ?
“Diablo?” Logan suggested, glaring down at us.
“Bunny?”
“Fuck no. That thing kills those poor animals, you’ll give it blood lust or something. Lucifer?”
“Tinky-wink?”
“Mephistopheles?”
Raising my head, I looked over my shoulder to see him looking at his phone. “What’s that? A flower?”
“Another name for Satan,” he muttered. “Beelzebub?”
“Be serious, will you,” I snapped. “I don’t even know if it’s a him. How do I find that out?”
“I’m being very serious,” he assured me. “Look between its legs. If it has a dick, it’s a boy.”
“Oh, well, I never thought of that,” I said sarcastically but got up onto my knees to look at the area the cat was proudly displaying to the world. “Wow, you’re not bashful, are you? Look at you letting it all sway in the breeze.”
Squinting, I turned my head to the side, then back again. The only one I had as a point of reference was Doyle, and I couldn’t say I’d ever looked closely at his crotch. There were laws against that type of thing, weren’t there?
“Can you look up what a cat penis looks like?”
“Hell no.”
Turning my head to the other side, I made a choice. “I think it’s a boy that’s been neutered. Aw, baby, did somebody do mean things to your poor body?”
The cat meowed and purred even louder, apparently loving the sympathy.
“In that case, I’m going with Prince of Darkness for him,” Logan mumbled. “I’ve got a list of cat shit you need here. You getting a litter tray for it?”
Okay, as a kid, I’d had bunnies, a cockatiel, and I’d babysat a dog for two months for my friend while her parents had to go away on business, and she was staying with her grandma. I’d seen cats, played with cats, even thrown them bits of ham from my sandwich, but I genuinely had no idea what they did or needed.
“What’s that for?”
“For it to shit and piss in.”
Standing up, I turned to look at him, checking to see if his nostrils were flared. I knew his tell—when Logan was lying, his nostrils gave him away. At that moment, they weren’t doing it, though, and that confused me.
“What’s litter? Do I have to go to Home Depot or something?” Wasn’t that the stuff you put down when the roads were icy ? Why would a cat need it ?
“It’s a thing you put in a tray for a cat so it can go to the bathroom without going outside. You get it from grocery and pet stores. ”
Chewing my lip, I thought about it. Could I put up with the smell from the attic in my house?
What Logan said next kind of sealed the deal for me. “If you don’t, you’ll have it pissing on the furniture and curtains while you’re out, or you’ll have to cut a hole in the door to put a cat flap in.”
“I’ll get a litter tray and anything it needs so I don’t have to do any of that.”
I could deal with poop in whatever litter was.
I was so caught up in my thoughts, that I didn’t think about what was going to happen when Doyle met the cat, and just let him in the back door before we left.
The good news was that they obviously knew each other or recognized each other’s scents, because neither of them attacked each other.
The bad news was that they both still hated Logan, so he got corresponding growls and hisses as he walked past them.
What the hell had Pops done to them to make them hate him so much?