Chapter 16 It’s a Cat-astrophe
It’s a Cat-astrophe
“Well, shit,” Nix mutters, handing off the food. He trails after Tsuki, back into the living room, where Ross is still shrieking about being on a break.
Stomach in his toes, he goes for Luca’s phone to try to call Tommy back through the app, but when he checks, the driver has logged out and marked the delivery as complete.
“Luc.”
“What?” Luca looks at him and the door, then Tsuki and Domino sitting innocently in the living room, putting the pieces together in an instant.
“Shit, where is she? Did Doodle get out again?” Luca asks, taking the stairs two at a time to Gideon’s room, where she likes to hide under the bed and scare the dust bunnies.
“Luc! Stop. She’s gone.”
Slipping back into the room, Luca flinches.
“How did she get by us? I do not want to have to climb a tree after her like Jay did last week.” Luca moves to go out the side doors toward Doodle’s favorite escape location, the big trees along the back of the property.
Nix has often thought she has dreams of scaling the wall and escaping into the world at large, unlike her brother, who prefers Tsuki’s company and hates the “big sky.”
“Worse. She’s in Tommy’s car.”
Luca glitches with that information, mouth opening and closing in shock, brain engaged in replaying their interaction with Nix’s not-so-secret admirer.
“You’re saying Gideon’s baby is in the car of your stalker, who was inside the gates while they weren’t home, when we ordered food we weren’t supposed to be ordering?”
“Yup.” This had suddenly become less of a technicality and more of a disaster.
“We are so fucked. I am not going to get to come for a month—a year.” Luca puts his hands in his hair, pulling at the fluff strands.”Baby, we have to get that cat back yesterday.”
“I know, but how? Tommy is logged out. I suppose we could send a there’s-a-problem-with-our-order help request to Uber Eats.”
Pale, with a sheen of anxious sweat on his face, Luca starts pacing.
“No, that takes forever. We do not have twenty-four hours! Okay, we have to think about this logically. He drove here. What was his license plate? He invited you somewhere tonight…do you remember any of it?”
“A cleansing of my colon…er…aura…wait…his license plate! It was…” Nix closes his eyes, pictures the hot pink Civic again, and Doodle’s sweet face in the back window.
Under it is a bumper sticker that says Fruit of the Moon: Where we cleanse your karma and your colon.
But below that is the license number H1C 0LN with a frame that says EnergyBoy.
“It’s H1C 0LN,” Nix mutters and heads into the kitchen for the tablet and Gideon’s illegal access to the Department of Motor Vehicles. “Cross your fingers we can get an address before he locks the car with her in it.”
“Shit, stop! We can’t access that stuff without tipping Sentinel off. They’ll call Gideon.” Luca hops up on the counter and pulls his rapidly cooling calzone out of its box. He bites into it with a moan, offering Nix a bite right after.
“Fuck, that’s good.” It’s not a meatball sub with extra onions and pepper jack cheese, but it is delicious, and the bean is momentarily satisfied. “What are we going to do?”
Luca has his phone in his hand, cheeks still full of food. “Look. EnergyBoy isn’t at home.” He shows Nix the screen. “He’s livestreaming.”
“What? How do you know that? You follow Tommy?”
“Fuck no, but EnergyBoy has to be a handle, you know? Figured I’d check to see if there was anything we could use on socials. The algorithm uses proximity to geo-tag, plus there are micro-interactions and app-crossovers and shit. Margot was explaining it last week…”
Nix’s baby is so smart. “You’re amazing!” Nix grins and kisses him hard on his lips; the taste of pizza sauce and pure Luca is addictive. Never let it be said that Nix didn’t have a competency kink a mile wide.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, and if you’re allowed to come after this, I am so going to blow your mind.”
“Consider me motivated…if I weren’t already. Okay, where is he?” Luca holds the phone so they can both watch Tommy.
“Hey Energy-Thems, Theys, and Gays, I’m beaming good vibes from Fruit of the Moon, Smoothie Bar and Crystal Palace. We’ve been blessed. Fate has sent us the emissary of the most perfect being on the planet.”
The camera pans away from the wide shots of several people in a restaurant to the regal Doodle sitting on the counter, drinking a smoothie from a tall glass.
She’s been adorned with a bright rainbow collar of crystals, content to be in a strange place with strangers.
Beside her on the bar is a blurring eight-by-ten photo of Nix dressed in Rowan’s Y’all Means All sweatshirt in front of Edgar Allen Eats two weeks ago.
“She came to me unexpectedly as I worshiped at the altar of my one true love, Ni—”
Tommy’s words are cut off by Luca’s loud growl. “That little fucking—fucking—” he pauses, at a loss for words.
This is serious if Luca Wilde can’t get a decent expletive out or call an idiot an idiot.
“He’s a bloody purr-loiner! A cat burglar! This is a feline-ony!”
“There we go…” Nix whispers under his breath with relief that his pun-tastic mate hasn’t been broken by the sheer bad luck of an ill-timed calzone and an open door. And that he hadn’t noticed the photo.
“Let’s go. We have a cat-knapping to foil and an ass to kick.
” Luca pockets his phone, exiting the kitchen, only to return in his purple Uggs.
“Shit, we can’t take our phones. They’ll track us.
And if I turn the security app off, they’ll freak.
” He drops his phone back on the counter again.
“Why are you just standing there? Let’s go! ”
He might have laughed at how easily Luca has slipped into a tiny, round-cheeked creature bent on mayhem (again), if he wasn’t struck by the biggest obstacle they’re facing yet.
“Baby, how are we getting across town? If we call an Uber, it’ll show up on the app and card. They’ll know, and then what?”
Not that Gideon or Jamie or Rowan will be looking—probably.
“Shit, how are you keeping them from calling right now?”
“I’ve got the bonds dialed down, but if they didn’t call before when I noticed she was gone, nothing should trigger a call.
I don’t want to lie to them, Luc. I’m an adult, and if I want to go to a smoothie bar at 8:13 PM on a Tuesday, I’m going to go.
” Nix wishes it didn’t sound so much like he’s trying to convince himself and Luca.
He’d rather ask for forgiveness than for permission, because he was never doing that again.
“It’s not your ass I’m worried about,” Luca adds with a sigh, “but you’re right, let’s not give up yet. Maybe the bicycles have air in the tires? Jaybird said he was going to do it for his date with Finn at Lupine Park this weekend.”
A late evening bicycle ride—twenty miles across town—did not sound like fun, but beggars can’t be choosers.
“Yeah, let’s check it out.”
As expected, the garage is empty of cars.
Jamie and Leo are out for their date (axe-throwing and beer or something) in the Genesis, Rowan has dragged Grayson out with friends in the Lexus after dropping Finn off at the hospital, and Gideon is out, Goddess knows where, in his car, his access to the family security app off and silent since before the others left.
Of course, as their luck would have it, the bikes in question did not have air in the tires; they didn’t even have tires. Jamie must have put them up for repairs, because they didn’t even have chains.
“Well, shit. Now what? I have a bit of cash we could use to get a cab?” Luca offers, but Nix isn’t listening.
There under the lights is Jamie’s candy apple red Ducati. Brand new from Leo’s moms and dad for a belated birthday gift. It calls to Nix like a siren’s song of freedom, speed, and more than a little danger.
Following his gaze, Luca begins to adamantly shake his head. “No, absolutely not. You don’t even know how to drive it…”
Nix has tuned him out, visions of flying across Nashville, his baby on the back, flashing through his mind.
He’d hated riding it as a passenger, Jamie’s broad back blocking the view, with no control over the bike’s motion or where they were headed. But he’d loved the speed. The thrill of every curve. The vibration of the engine between his thighs.
He’s watched Jamie start it a hundred times, listened while his beloved’s husky voice told him how it worked, and Nix is nothing if not a fast learner.
He can do this. He needs to.
“I’m taking the Ducati. If you want to stay here, I’m okay with that. I won’t be long.”
“You won’t be long!?” Luca shrieks, the loud noise in the cavernous garage too loud for their sensitive ears. “How are you even getting her home on a motorcycle by yourself, huh? And I am not leaving you alone with that stalker. I’m going.”
The statement is a surprise for sure. Luca is not intrepid. His adventurous spirit is limited to movies, new music, and crazy sexcapades.
“I’m going. Now give me that blue hat thingy.” He knows it’s a helmet, and his joke makes Nix chuckle.
Nix pulls down both Jamie’s and Gideon’s helmets from the shelf. Placing them on the bike seat, he pulls both alphas’ leather jackets off the hangers.
Zipping first Luca and then himself into a too-large leather jacket, Nix revels in the scent of leather and happy pine. It helps that Jamie is almost always entirely happy when he wears it, and it lends Nix a sense of confidence he’d been sure was just bravado before.
Popping the kickstand, Luca helps him back the bike up and point it toward the gate before he swings a leg over.
Eyes on Luca, who is still standing beside the bike, he presses the on button and the light goes green, just like it had when Jamie had shown him a few weeks ago. Flipping the kill switch to run, the dashboard lights up, and the fuel pump primes.
With a wicked grin, it takes no time at all to press the start button, and the powerful engine comes to life.
“Holy shit, you’re so fucking hot right now,” Luca says, even though Nix can barely hear him above the purr of the engine. He does see him clench his bare thighs together and palm his hard dick through his T-shirt.
Nix winks as sparks of pleasure shoot up his legs and vibrate under his palms. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“Are you kidding? We are ride-or-die.” He climbs on the back of the bike, squeaking as the cold leather hits his butt. “Let’s hope not literally!”
With Luca’s arms tight around his waist, Nix can feel his hard dick wiggling against his butt.
Nix wonders if he shouldn’t make him go put on some pants, but decides it’ll take too long, and they have a felin-ious catnapping to foil.