39. I Would Only Adopt Senior Cats
I WOULD ONLY ADOPT SENIOR CATS
PRESENT
Lucas apparently wins (again) at poker night, but none of the boys want to talk about it. Looking over the pictures during Project Elrond, I add it to the list of things to read more about later. For now, all that matters is how well the poker pictures, and our other plants, are propagating.
“There’s also less overall negative press, and the stories directed at Brody specifically have trickled to almost nothing. It’s still early, and I don’t know how the response will be to today’s batch of pictures, but my guess is we’ve potentially . . . weathered our fifteen minutes of fame.”
It’s a quick turnaround, but then, without a secondary event, these stories often are.
When I was still training my models, I studied everything from the Murdaugh murders to Anna Delvey and the Tinder Swindler.
Unless there were ongoing events to feed into or twist an existing narrative (the Murdaugh murders, for example, which really started with one son, then escalated to two murders, the suspicion of a housekeeper’s sudden death, and leaked Snapchat evidence), things always died down, usually within forty-eight hours.
“Happy newlyweds don’t sell as many papers,” Brody observes dryly.
Because we’ve already planned the day’s groupings, there’s no reason not to follow through.
Lucas and I are technically in the same guided Koloiki Ridge hike, but he’s so much faster, and there are so many people demanding his attention, we barely see each other.
He comes to check on me twice: once to offer a hair tie he somehow knew I’d be needing and was carrying, and another time to give me additional water, because I never hydrate enough.
Lucas doesn’t bother asking before coming over that night.
We don’t talk about anything serious. Instead, we catch up on everything and everyone else.
He shares his mother’s newest town-council-level petitions, because not only is she not retiring, she’s been steadily increasing the sphere through which she advocates for her community.
And I tell him about Wren, trying out for the school play and mispronouncing the word count in a way that led to unfortunate questions.
Yes, we argue about the role of AI in university learning, and we argue the details of a recent SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics article, and then we devolve into arguing about subplots of a Becky Chambers book published just last month, and which we both read (me, because I’ve always been a fan, and Lucas, because he remembered .
. . I’ve always been a fan). We pointedly stay away from anything that might be emotionally charged.
It’s amazing how easy it is, to fall into old rhythms, to how things were years ago.
How easy it might be if I could get over my own hang-ups, a little insidious voice inside me whispers.
“About that compatibility issue you were worried about.”
“That’s not fair,” I tell Lucas, because he’s waited until he’s buried inside me to say this, when there’s very little I can do beyond feel him, in and around me. “This isn’t the time for serious conversation.”
Because the rash is on the front side of my torso, I insisted on keeping a tank top on.
I insisted on our current positions, which is why I’m face down, on my knees, with my face pressed into the pillows.
The rash is hidden and covered, yes, but with Lucas above me, he now holds all the relative power.
Lucas smooths a hand lazily down my spine, and it’s unclear if it’s to keep me in place (no need) for his own personal pleasure (which, given his low groans, seems unnecessary) or because he simply isn’t able to keep his hands off me.
He was always more cuddly in private, more into PDA in public, compared to me, but these past few nights, the touching has been constant, borderline compulsive.
Now, instead of answering and continuing our argument, Lucas leans forward to bite my shoulder, the movement shifting his cock and changing the angle of how our bodies are joined. I can feel a sheen of sweat along my forehead while I try to remember the conversational thread.
Or whether there was a conversation.
“We can’t talk about the past,” Lucas reminds me, his voice barely shaking even as he withdraws and then thrusts again in a way that has me trying to arch my body into his, find some way to regain even a small modicum of control, to demonstrate that my body is still mine.
Except clearly, from the way his hand snakes under me, from the way he pulls my body into his, the pliant way my limbs obey him, it’s not.
Because the moans I can’t quite hold back as his hand trails lower and thumbs my clit, the way I grind out his name as he pushes back into me, do not seem like sounds I would have allowed myself to make.
They’re definitely not noises I would have ever condoned if any part of my brain were still functioning or capable of exerting any control over the rest of my body.
“And I’m not supposed to bargain for longer than a few short days with you.”
Another press of my clit, a soft kiss to my neck as he repositions me beneath him, slowing our rhythm in a way that feels like a punishment.
One both of us suffer from, given the way he exhales, long and painfully, against my back.
Something both of us find some sick pleasure in, given the way we’re both shuddering and pressing, as if neither of us can get to a place that is deep enough, close enough.
“I just can’t—” I say, completely against my will. I bite down on my lip, trembling with need as one of his hands comes to my ass and squeezes there slightly. My entire body feels close to exploding, and it’s too difficult to try to process that and . . . words.
“I can’t—” I repeat again, and even I’m not sure what I’m admitting to. That I can’t take much more of this? Physically or emotionally?
From above me Lucas sighs.
He nudges my thighs a little farther apart so that he can press in a little deeper, and his rhythm increases as his hand comes around to rest on my clit, establishing an easy counterrhythm that has me flying apart, screaming, barely remembering to contain my scream in the pillow, mere seconds later.
As usual, Lucas allows himself to come almost as soon as I have.
After, he doesn’t move off me as quickly as he normally does, and I don’t complain, because there’s something comforting about being crushed by Lucas’s body, my body too wrung out to protest, my mind a temporary, blessed ocean of blankness.
For the first time all trip, there is no Project Elrond in the morning.
Instead, Brody texts that everyone will meet (or not) at breakfast, and that though there are planned activities the hotel is happy to guide us through, we’re also welcome to choose our own adventure, if we need a break.
Next to me, Lucas is stirring. When he seems awake enough, I show him the texts.
“What do you want to do?” He gathers me to him easily, one arm looped around me as he tucks my head beneath his chin.
“Go back to the cat sanctuary.”
I feel his nod as it digs into the top of my head. “Okay.” He squeezes me to him one last time. “Let me change.”
“Wait, I was kidding.” I sit up because Lucas has already unraveled himself from me. “There are tons of better, more exciting prepaid options.”
Lucas turns toward me, his sleepy eyes warm. “But you want a cat sanctuary.”
Because there are fewer people volunteering, the cleaning portion of our day takes longer than last time.
Lucas drifts in and out of my area, sneaking in kisses, handing me another hair tie because I’ve once again lost the last one.
It’s only after we’ve finished our individually assigned tasks that we sit with the senior cats.
“I would only adopt senior cats.”
Lucas nods. “Fewer years of responsibility?”
I laugh, because there’s no way Lucas means this literally. “Morbid.” I’m stroking one of the cats that has settled onto my lap. “They’re the most neglected.”
“Charlie Brown Christmas tree?”
It was an ongoing joke, that I always went out of my way to buy the partially damaged item, which made no sense given how few things I could actually afford. Maybe it was nothing but rebellion against my father’s insistence on everything being the best.
“Perhaps.”
I watch curiously as a larger cat walks over to where Lucas is sitting and waves his tail directly in Lucas’s face before plopping down next to him: You may pet me now.
“Did you grow out of your allergies?”
“Allergy shots for the past two and a half years.”
I swallow and continue stroking my elderly cat with a hand that’s now shaking. “Did you . . . want a cat?”
He meets my eyes before replying, “You’ve always wanted them.”
“You can’t have known you wanted to get back together as far back as two and a half years ago.”
“You’re right.” Lucas looks down. “I’ve known for far longer than that.”
The breath I suck in is painful. My voice wounded. “You haven’t dated?” Lucas was almost never pictured with the same woman twice, and then only at large functions where it wasn’t possible to tell whether it was a date or a business meeting.
He tilts his head, another lock of hair falling over his forehead. “I spent two years working nonstop, trying to distract myself. Half a year trying to date, to prove to myself I could.” He shrugs. “Turns out, I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Didn’t want to.”
We’re alone in a corner of the sanctuary, and the way the sandalwoods and koas are shading us, the way the breeze is passing over us, the sunlight granting us a halo.
It feels like we’re completely alone, isolated from the other cats and visitors.
“Two and a half years ago, I was still engaged. You got allergy shots to build immunity to cats even though I wasn’t . . . available?”
“I’m not saying it was logical. What’s that philosopher you made me read? With the quote?”
Amazingly, I know exactly what Lucas is referring to. “Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.” I swallow. “David Hume.”
He keeps his gaze averted from mine, but I can see the small smile lurking.
“You didn’t forget the name or the quote.”
“Not even a little.” He looks at me finally, hazel gaze indecipherable. I can see how he must be better at poker now, must be better at hiding all sorts of things. “It’s been my guiding principle these past few years. Together or not, you’re my endgame.”