Chapter 15 - Henry #3
But the cat was in the guest room, why would he want to…oh. Ohhhh. I froze for a long moment, processing that, then swallowed. “If you want to,” I finally managed to say weakly.
His smirk warmed into a full-on smile. “Definitely.” But then, rather than continue flirting, he seemed to decide to focus on the matter at hand, and he headed past the closed door of my room to the guest room I’d indicated. “How do you want to do this?”
I shrugged, picturing the room as it had been the last few times I’d entered it.
“He’s probably under the bed, so we should be able to just open the door and go in without worrying too much.
” Matching deeds to words, I pushed open the door of the room and slipped inside, Jamison close behind me, almost clinging to my back.
We took in the apparently-empty room for a long moment, and then Jamison bent to look under the bed.
“Either you’ve got a very quiet under-the-bed monster,” he told me, looking over his shoulder at me, “or that’s Solo’s eyes peeking back at me.
Here, boy.” He danced his fingers lightly over the floor at the edge of the bed. “Come on out and see us.”
No response, not that I thought either of us had really expected one at this point. I took the opportunity to cross the room to check the food and water dishes, both of which showed signs of use. “Well, he’s been eating and drinking,” I said. “So he’s come out long enough to do that.”
“What a good boy!” Jamison cooed, still focused under the bed. “You’re so brave, Mr. Solo.”
I grinned at the honorific. “Maybe if we offer him treats, he’ll come out?” I suggested.
“Worth a try,” Jamison agreed, and shoved a hand into his pocket to extract one of the treat packets.
He carefully ripped off a corner, exposing the edge of the paste inside, then looked thoughtfully from the packet to the glowing eyes under the bed, which hadn’t moved. “How much do you love your flooring?”
“Huh?” was all I could manage to that. What did my flooring have to do with any of this?
He squeezed a dollop of treat paste onto his index finger, then used it to gesture at the floor at the edge of the bed. “I was thinking I could smear some of this on the floor closer to him, so he can smell it. Then once he gets a whiff of it, maybe he’ll come closer to get more.”
“Oh.” I thought about it for a split second and decided that if my floors could hold up to dirty feet and a mop, they could probably hold up to a little stinky cat treat. “Go for it.”
Doing as he’d indicated, Jamison smeared his fingerful of treat on the floor about halfway between the edge of the bed and where Solo was crammed back against the wall.
I squatted down, trying to get a better look, still couldn’t see much, and shortly found myself on my knees with my face almost pressed into the floor and my ass up in the air as I peered at the cat.
Jamison was stretched out on the floor next to me, also watching Solo avidly.
There was a moment where nobody moved or breathed, and then I saw Solo’s nose twitch. Jamison reached out and grasped my thigh in excitement, making an eager noise. A paw was extended and tapped gently into the smear of treat, then withdrawn and licked. I held my breath.
Solo army-crawled forward until he could reach the treat smear with his tongue and lapped it up.
I let out the breath I’d been holding a little too loudly, and he startled, staring at me for a long moment, and then apparently decided I wasn’t a threat and returned to licking up the treat.
Jamison pulled his hand off my leg and squeezed a bit more onto the tip of his finger of his other hand, then extended that hand to the edge of the bed.
“Come on, Solo. There’s more here for you. ”
Solo regarded us with suspicion, and Jamison’s free hand returned to my thigh, squeezing anxiously.
Seconds passed, and finally Solo crawled the rest of the way to the edge of the bed and lapped at Jamison’s finger.
“What a brave boy,” he complimented the cat when his finger was clean.
“Can I pet you?” He set the treat packet down and reached his hand slightly closer to Solo.
The cat flinched but didn’t withdraw, and soon Jamison’s fingers were in his ruff, stroking.
Solo remained focused on the treat packet and slunk forward until he could reach it.
He began licking at the torn edge of the packet, and I sat back on my heels, picked it up, and squeezed a bit more of the paste to the opening so Solo could get to the good stuff.
By now, the cat was completely out from under the bed, though I noticed that one foot was stretched backward as if he was prepared to leap away at a moment’s notice. Jamison continued to card his fingers through the fur of Solo’s neck, and I just kept squeezing up more and more treat paste.
Without warning, Solo clambered up Jamison’s side, dislodging his petting hand, and perched on his back.
He was now perfectly positioned perpendicular to me, the better to get at the treat paste I was dispensing; Jamison, on the other hand, was pinned in place by ten pounds of furball.
He made an eep noise and started to turn over, but froze when Solo dug his claws in to keep from being dislodged.
“I think you might be stuck there for a while,” I told him dryly.
Jamison sighed and propped his chin in his palm, looking over his shoulder at me. “I think you might be right. How is it that I’m being held down by a cat who weighs a fraction of what I weigh?”
I grinned and squeezed up more paste. The packet was almost empty now, Solo’s licks growing more frantic as he chased the flavor.
“That’s the magic of cats. I saw a t-shirt once that called it ‘purr-alysis’: the state of being immobilized because there’s a cat on your lap and you don’t want to disturb it. ”
“Purr-alysis,” Jamison mused. “I like it. Though technically…” He wiggled his butt. “There’s not a cat on my lap.”
Did he really have to draw attention to his ass like that?
I tried not to drool at the tight, pert little thing shimmying in front of me.
“I think the term can still apply,” I said through a slightly dry mouth.
I went to squeeze up more paste and discovered the packet was now completely dry.
“All gone,” I told Solo. I swear the cat frowned at me then, and he let out a peevish meow, pawing at the packet in my hand.
“No, really.” I unfolded my legs so my butt could hit the ground and sat back, holding the packet out to him to sniff. “There’s no more.”
Jamison, moving carefully and slowly, managed to turn over onto his back, with Solo moving with him like someone standing on a rolling log. The cat ended up sprawled on his stomach, and Jamison raised a hand to pet him again. “Poor starving boy.”
I snorted. “Hardly starving, going by his bowl.”
Jamison adjusted himself again, this time moving so he could lay his head on my thigh while he continued to recline on his back.
The cat surfed his movements, miraculously - or maybe not so miraculously, given that he was a cat - staying in place.
Jamison sighed and nosed the seam of my jeans affectionately. “We got him out from under the bed.”
I set down the empty treat packet, wiped my hand on my jeans, and touched his hair, taking comfort in the companionable touch. “We did. We're awesome cat whisperers."
"Hell yeah, we are."