Chapter 7 #2
I’m going to the rescue.
She might be there.
Blair, my scent match, might be there.
Anxiety squeezes my chest, and I continue petting the kittens, running my fingers over their soft fur.
Get it together, Rowan.
These kittens need help.
Holding the box, I push open the door to the rescue with my shoulder, the electronic chime beeping as I walk in.
There are two Omegas at the front counter, and neither are Blair. The purple haired one sees me first, and her eyebrows furrow, until she sees what I’m holding.
“Hi,” the purple-haired Omega says, her face breaking into a grin. “Who do you have there?” She stands closer and peers into the box in my hands. “Piper, look at them! They’re adorable.”
“I found them outside a dumpster,” I say, my voice low. “I think they were abandoned. Pets Express told me to talk to you and gave me a can of milk.”
“A dumpster? Assholes,” the other Omega, Piper, hisses. “You can put the box on the counter. Let’s see who you found.”
“Oh,” the purple-haired girl coos, “they’re gorgeous. And so clean, too. They must not have been there long.”
Both women fuss over the kittens while I stand and watch, unsure what to do.
I can’t exactly ask about Blair. There’s the faintest hint of violets emanating from the desk, but she’s definitively not in the building anymore.
Fuck.
“So, do I just drop them off with you, or…” I trail off awkwardly as Piper opens the can of kitten formula that was in the box.
“We need you to sign a form before you leave,” she says, not turning her attention away from the kitten. She lifts one up, then the other two.
“Girls,” she says. “You found a box of girl kittens.”
The purple-haired Omega hands Piper a tiny bottle, and soon, Piper is feeding the kitten.
I watch, surprised at the contentment on the kitten’s face. Little paws flex and knead in the air as the cat drinks, tiny gulps filling the air.
Piper catches me staring at the kitten. “You want to try? We can always use more fosters. Maeve, you want to grab him a bottle?”
“Yeah, these guys look healthy,” Maeve confirms. “You should try feeding them! Do you want to foster?”
I stare dumbly at both of them. “Foster?”
“Do you have cats already?” Piper continues, pulling the bottle out of the kitten’s mouth and gently massaging its throat. “Do you have any experience?”
“We just adopted a cat from here,” I mutter, wondering how awkward this conversation is going to turn.
Piper’s eyes widen. “I’m such an idiot,” she sighs. “I knew you looked familiar. You don’t happen to have a brother, do you?”
I nod. “Ryland? Yeah. I’m Rowan.”
Maeve opens and closes her mouth. “I’m not crazy, then,” she says.
Ryland and I aren’t identical. We each wear our hair different: mine is messier, his is cropped shorter. My eyes are light blue, whereas his are a deep, dark brown. He’s clean shaven while I prefer to have more scruff.
“The jury’s still out on that, Maeve,” Piper deadpans, then her eyes turn back to me.
She places the kitten gently into the box and plucks another one out, angling the nipple of the bottle into its mouth.
It latches immediately, happily drinking the formula.
“She’s not here, by the way,” she says. “She left a few hours ago.”
I nod, trying not to let disappointment cloud my features. “That’s fine,” I lie. “I haven’t met her anyway. I’m here to see if I can get these kittens some help.”
Maeve continues to stare at me, her eyes wide. “Wow. Wow. This is so weird.”
“Maeve,” Piper warns, but I just chuckle humorlessly.
Maeve isn’t wrong.
This is awkward as hell, and also bizarre.
I can’t escape Blair, yet I haven’t even met her.
“Wait! You have Ash, right?” Maeve adds. “How is he doing?”
At that, my lip quirks. “He’s great,” I say. “We all get along with him. He’s happy, fat, and purring.”
“We don’t use the term ‘fat,’” Piper corrects me gently. “We say ‘soft.’”
I chuckle. “Yeah. He’s very soft. He seems to be growing softer by the day.”
Piper smiles. “Good. I remember Ash was a friendly boy. He would do well with more cats in the home. Is that the only cat you have?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say, mesmerized as the kittens drink from the bottle. The other two that have been fed are back in the box, milk-drunk with full bellies.
“Can I…can I try feeding them?” I ask, and Piper nods, handing me both the kitten and the bottle.
The kitten makes small snuffling sounds as it happily drinks from the bottle I hold. I balance the furry body with hand, holding it to my chest while my other hand tilts the bottle.
“You can do a combo of milk and wet food for the next two weeks,” she adds. “After that, you can just give them wet food, and we’ll eventually find good homes for them.”
“You’re really good at this, Rowan,” Maeve observes. “Hey! Now you’ll have something to talk to Blair about.”
“Holy shit, Maeve,” Piper sighs, glaring at the Omega. “Stop.” Then, she turns to me. “Sorry. This is awkward because we don’t know you, but Blair is my best friend, and I feel obligated to protect her.”
I nod. “Understood.”
“Me, too,” Maeve adds. “And if you end being her scent match like your brother, you better learn how to bottle feed a kitten. Cats are about to become your life.”
Piper observes me feeding the kitten. “You are doing a pretty decent job at it. The kittens seem to trust you, and when you brought them in, they weren’t too stressed out,” she muses.
“Maybe Ash could be the big brother they need,” I mutter. I remove the bottle from the kitten’s mouth, and my lip quirks at the formula stuck to the fur around her face.
I came in here expecting to drop these kittens off and possibly see Blair.
But, as I hold one of them in my arms and meet their blue eyes, the storm in my heart quiets.
Blair isn’t here, but these three kittens are.
And that’s something.
“So, what does it mean to foster? What exactly would I be doing?”
“Wait. You’re interested?” Piper asks, surprise flashing in her eyes, while Maeve grins.
“How could you not be? Cats are the best animals in the world! They adore you, Rowan!”
I scoff. “I don’t know about that, but I appreciate the sentiment.”
“If you’re serious about this,” Piper adds, “we can discuss what to do, and I can send you home with a supply kit. Because Ash is with you, I have a pamphlet of additional instructions. We’ll keep in touch for the next few weeks until we find homes for them. Is that something you want to do?”
The kitten buries her face into my chest, and I cradle the back of her head gently.
Travis is going to be pissed. Ryland will be excited.
And my buddy Ash will be a big brother to these kittens.
That’s how it works, right?
All I know is that as I look back to the other two kittens that Maeve holds, this just seems right.
“Tell me what I need to do,” I tell Piper, “so I can take these three home.”
It’s late afternoon when I return to the packhouse with three sleepy kittens, a carrier, and a kit full of supplies provided by the rescue.
I didn’t know cat rescues could be like this.
Blair knows what she’s doing, running Furs and Purrs.
They even have a pet food pantry for families in need, which is fucking awesome.
No wonder Ash is the best cat ever—he was under the care of the best person in the world.
Ryland is in the living room when I arrive, glued to his laptop on the couch.
“Um, Rowan?”
“Yeah?” I crouch down on the carpet with the carrier while Ash runs up to me, letting out a pleased yowl.
Answering mews come from inside the cardboard, and I open the top, allowing the kittens to poke their head out.
Ash lifts his head to go nose to nose with one of the kittens while Ryland’s eyes bug out of his head.
“What the hell are those?” he demands.
“They’re puppies, Rye, aren’t they cute?” I ask sarcastically. “What do you think they are?”
“Rowan, I swear to fucking god—”
“Some piece of shit left them outside a dumpster behind Pets Express, and I had to go to the rescue. They’re three girls,” I mutter. I refuse to meet my brother’s eyes, even though I can feel him staring at me in shock.
“Wait—back up. Did you see her?” Ryland closes his laptop and joins me on the floor, his tone no longer irritated.
“No,” I grumble. “I didn’t.”
A kitten tumbles out of the carrier, and Ryland holds out his hand, creating a gentle barrier between Ash and the kitten, just in case. “But now we have kittens.”
“Yeah. We do.” Cautiously, Ryland moves his hand, and Ash sniffs the top of the kitten’s head. “We’re fostering them for a few weeks.”
“And how the hell did that happen, exactly?” Ryland is just as enamored with them as I am now. The three girls have made their way out of the box, and they move to Ryland and pile into his lap.
“It felt right,” I murmur.
“This was impulsive,” Ryland adds fondly, petting the kittens.
“Yeah. But it still felt right.”
We sit in silence for a few moments, Ash cautiously observing while my brother and I entertain the kittens.
Despite the hurt and longing in my chest for Blair, the cats and their unconditional trust offer a comfort that I’ve never had before.
Holding a kitten makes me feel like maybe everything will be okay.
I wonder if this is why Blair chose to run a rescue dedicated to helping them.
“Travis is going to be pissed,” Ryland says quietly, and I laugh.
“Pissed about what?”
My grumpier-than-usual pack leader enters the room, dressed in a black shirt with the Scents logo and dark jeans.
Ryland and I were hanging out with the kittens longer than I thought if Travis is about to leave for work.
I pick up a kitten and hold it up, presenting it to Travis, who clenches his jaw.
“What. The. Hell. Did. You. Do.”
“I know you’re not mean mugging a kitten right now,” I say cooly. “That’s a dick move, Trav, even for you.”
The kitten lets out a soft mew, and Travis’s eyes narrow. “Why are there kittens here?”
“We’re fostering them,” Ryland says simply, and I’m thankful my brother has my back. “Just for a few weeks until the rescue can get them adopted out.”
“What? You went to the rescue?” Travis stomps over and stands above us, looking down and glaring. “Why the fuck would you go there?”
One of the kittens trots over to the leg of his jeans, digging her claws into the denim.
I watch amused as the creature climbs him like a goddamn cat tree, not caring about the grunts of pain he lets out as razor claws stab into his skin. Once the kitten reaches the top of his thigh, Travis plucks the creature off him and cradles her in his hands, his eyes softening.
“I went there,” I say slowly, “because some asshole dumped these girls in a box, and the rescue was the best place to go.”
He blinks. “Was she there?”
I shake my head. “Rest assured, only you get to see her,” I snap.
Travis ignores my barb. “Then you decided to keep them,” he deadpans.
“Yeah, I decided to foster them. Which means they’ll stay with us until they’re big enough to be adopted out.”
“I know what fostering is,” Travis hisses, but it’s hard for him to look intimidating when there’s a kitten yawning in his arms. “We’re not equipped for this.”
I chuckle. “Sure. Like you haven’t been learning every fucking thing about cats for Blair. I’m sure you have an encyclopedia in your head about every cat fact known to mankind.”
Travis’s eye twitches. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Uh huh.”
“Come on, Travis,” Ryland says. “Live a little. We have more than enough space for them, and they’ll be good company for Ash.”
“Once we know they’re not carrying fleas or anything else.” Travis says. “Until then, they stay in the spare bathroom.”
I chuckle to myself. I knew it.
Travis has been learning as much as he can about cats since he met Blair.
Of course, he would know what to do.
And it’s impossible to reject a tiny kitten that looks up at you with trust in her blue eyes.
“This could also be our in with Blair,” Ryland adds. “You can ask her for advice about the girls and show her photos.”
“She’s not talking to me,” Travis sighs.
“What the hell do you mean, she’s not talking to you?” I ask. “Get her to talk to you.”
His jaw tenses. “It doesn’t work like that with her,” he mutters, as the kitten crawls up onto his shoulder.
“God,” I groan. “Try.”
But a flush has begun to spread up my pack leader’s neck and to his face. “I do. But I’m not going to force her to talk to me.”
“Wait, she’s been like that ever since the match?” Ryland asks softly.
Travis nods.
My brother’s face flickers with pain, and I’m helpless to stop it.
“She’s…sad,” Travis adds, his voice gruff. “And I don’t know why. I can’t force her to talk to me—her walls are up again, like when we first met. She’s polite and she smiles—but it’s like she’s not there.”
Ryland lets out a deep, shaky breath.
“It’s not because of you,” I tell him. “You barely spoke to her.”
The kitten in my lap begins to purr as I absentmindedly stroke her chin. She closes her eyes in bliss.
“I feel fucking helpless,” I admit to my packmates.
“Knowing she’s hurting, and that I can’t do anything about it.
Then, I found these kittens, and bottle fed one.
It just feels nice to be…wanted,” I admit shamefully.
“If I can’t be there for her, if I can’t help her, at least I can care for these three. ”
Silence fills the room, and I feel my brother watching me.
“We’ll need kitten formula, wet food to wean them on, a heating pad, a litter box—” Travis starts, but I interrupt him.
“Already have all that. I was sent home with a box full of supplies.”
Travis nods. “I guess we have four cats now,” he murmurs, petting the kitten that rests on his shoulder. “But no more coming home with any animals until we discuss it first. Any. I don’t care if it’s a damn goldish. No more pets.”
Ryland nods. “Sounds good.”
I nod as well, marveling at the kitten that has fallen asleep in my lap.
It doesn’t take away the ache of needing the Omega I haven’t met yet.
But it’s something.