11. nick
NICK
ELECTRIC CHAIR FOR SURE
I couldn’t believe it. There was a filthy, matted rat in my car.
At every red light, I stared at Tallulah’s lap, at the fluffy cat coated in mud, coughing out leaves and crap. I’d always prided myself on a nice, clean car, and I’d caved anyway.
I caught Tallulah watching me, her soft brown eyes illuminated by the hazy lights of Toronto. “You’re not a cat person?”
“That’s not a cat. That’s a pile of crap we found in a park.”
Tallulah raised an eyebrow while the cat licked its leg, like that would’ve solved the problem.
I shrugged. “Pets are expensive, they take a lot of time, and I travel for hockey. Plus, we’re in college. Having a pet is like having a kid. Or having your leg sawed off from the knee down.”
Tallulah was so quiet, I almost took back what I said until she spoke again. “Thank you. For helping me.”
I glanced her way. “Yeah, of course. Any time.”
At the house, I pulled off my hoodie to wrap the cat in, like it would help keep it dry in the relentless rain. The windows of the living room were lit up, probably my roommates gaming. I didn’t need them to ask questions. I passed the hoodie to Tallulah and pushed open the front door.
“Kurosawa!” Gordo belted out, shoving a hot dog in his mouth. His eyes lit up as Tallulah walked in, dripping like I was. “You’re finally getting over the ice cream girl!”
Oh, fuck.
I took a sharp right turn towards the stairs, tugging Tallulah by the elbow. Practically dragging her away from the morons in the living room.
“You idiot,” another teammate remarked to Gordo. “That’s the girl who fucked him up.”
“How do you know?”
He snorted. “Check out the look on his face. It’s the same girl.”
“That’s her?” another teammate asked. “Gordo, what’s she look like?”
“I don’t know, Native? She’s pretty.” I could hear Gordo lumber to the stairs. “Nick, is that the same—?”
I jerked around at the top of the stairs, my neck hot. “Could you guys close your fucking mouths?”
The lower half of the house burst into laughter and Gordo snickered. “Oh, yeah. That’s her.”
Tallulah shot me a quizzical look. I mumbled excuses, ignoring the obvious question. She didn’t need to know her nickname—‘the ice cream girl.’ Especially since she was nicknamed after the six cartons of depression ice cream I’d pounded through this week—
The empty cartons that sat on my nightstand.
Fuck me—the exact place I was taking her. My bedroom was a disaster zone. I’d spent days curled up in bed. Tallulah couldn’t see that—what was I thinking?
I spun around, walking backwards to my door. “Stay here.”
“Aren’t we going inside?”
“No—yes. I have to clean first.”
“I don’t care if you have some girl’s panties lying around—”
“Haha, yeah.” I forced out a laugh, shutting the door in her face.
I’d been sleeping in pretty much the same outfit every day. Why was there so much laundry on the ground? My bed was a mess, the floor was a mess, my hockey stuff was strewn everywhere because I tossed that shit as soon as I walked through the door every day to collapse into bed.
“Shit,” rushed out of me. “Shit, shit, shit!”
I yanked off the sheets to shove under the bed—my laundry hamper was overflowing as-is. Trash went in the trash. My hockey stuff was crammed in my closet. Out of sight, out of mind.
I almost opened the door before I spotted the huge half-empty bottle of lotion on my nightstand. The box of tissues.
“Goddammit,” I whispered.
Emotionally? Fucked up. Morally? Fucked up. Ethically? I should’ve been strapped into the electric chair. Practically a billboard screaming, ‘I jerked off thinking about you. Multiple times. Too many times in fact.’
Back at Marrs, I couldn’t jerk off because that would inevitably lead to thinking about Tallulah. Fridge was my roommate. I couldn’t do that. I was worried my best friend would hear me moan his girlfriend’s name.
So…I stopped jerking off.
Toronto meant privacy and finally getting to blow my load after months of being pent-up.
The trash can of tissues certainly reflected that.
Swearing under my breath, I tied off the trash bag and hid it under the sink. I washed my hands for good measure. Like I could scrub away what I’d done.
Fuck.
Electric chair for sure.
With a shake of my head, I opened the bedroom door.
Tallulah’s lips twitched. “Did you throw away the used condoms?”
“I didn’t—” I stopped myself, surprised. “Are you messing with me?”
The teasing disappeared, uncertainty taking its place. “Yes?”
I didn’t want the teasing to end, I liked it. I just didn’t expect it. Tallulah had never joked with me before. I grinned. “I threw the used condoms out the window.”
That earned a timid smile. Progress.
Tallulah crept into my bathroom with slow, deliberate movements, like she was waiting for me to kick her out. I followed at a safe distance. We didn’t know what to do with each other and the glances between us kept making my mouth dry.
She twisted the knob for the bathtub, her expression apologetic. “Nick? I’m wearing jeans, I can’t get in with the cat. Um…is it okay…?”
“You want to borrow shorts?” I finished.
“…if I take off my pants?” she completed, freezing at my suggestion. “Oh my god, you’re right. That’s a better idea. Yeah, could I?”
I was somewhat aware that I was nodding, leaving the bathroom. At the mirror above my dresser, I pointed at myself, my voice a mutter. “Seriously, Nick, shut the fuck up.”
I found a pair of basketball shorts and left to give her some privacy, searching through the pantries downstairs for something the cat could eat.
The moment I stepped foot in the kitchen, away from the smell of Tallulah’s perfume, my head cleared.
It was seriously fucking with me and the evidence was upstairs. There was a rat in my bathtub.
It only took twenty seconds of Tallulah pleading for me to cave in. Of course I was fucked.
My search for food was successful—there were cans of sardines in the cabinets. It was a good thing my teammates ate like feral cats.
Upstairs, mud was smeared across the porcelain, there were leaves everywhere, and in the end, Tallulah toweled off the kitten, meowing half-heartedly. Now clean, the cat was about four times fluffier than it should’ve been, with coal black fur. It stumbled around the floor like a drunk puffball.
“Huh.” I opened one of the cans of sardines. “The rat cleans up nice.”
“You shouldn’t call her a rat,” Tallulah told me, piling the dirty towels together.
“Why not? She doesn’t understand English.”
“She’ll internalize it and develop emotional problems.”
For a moment, I thought Tallulah was serious, but she snuck another smile at me and I snorted, sliding the can of sardines towards the kitten.
The kitten leaped on the can and buried its face in it, snarfing up the fish.
I leaned against the counter. “So what’s the plan, Tallulah?”
“Um…I guess I’ll take it to a shelter?”
“There’s gotta be one close,” I said, holding in the internal thought of ‘one that’s probably overrun with animals no one else wants.’
“I have a research session at a library tomorrow morning.” Tallulah hesitated. “It’s kind of early but—”
“We start practice late,” I said. “I can take the rat.”
“Okay,” Tallulah whispered. “Thank you. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” I shoved my hands in my pockets. “It’s pretty late for the bus. You could…spend the night?”
“Like in your room?”
“Yeah.”
“In…your bed?”
I nodded, doing my best to appear casual about this. Like any of this was casual. Like I felt casually about her. “You could take the bed, and I could…sleep on the floor—”
“No, I couldn’t—”
“Okay, cool,” I said too quickly. “We’ll both sleep in the bed.”
Tallulah bit her bottom lip, teeth sinking into what had been so fun to kiss. “Nick, I don’t want you to think that…”
Shit, that wasn’t what I meant. “I’m not talking about sex, Tallulah.”
“Oh,” she whispered. Her soft brown eyes watched me. Those eyes were so beautiful. It was hard not to tumble head-first into them. She hesitated. “It’s not like…I don’t want to…”
How was I supposed to respond to that? My heart soared, that she’d want sex with me, just to immediately get yanked down by the reality of her rejection. Again.
“We’re cool,” I assured her. There were so many emotions whirling inside and I was struggling to keep them from showing. “We’re fine.”
“It’s not a—um—inconvenience?”
“No. But you could inconvenience me any time you want.”
Tallulah’s giggle was unexpected. She stopped as soon as she started, a flush creeping up her neck. It was the first time I’d ever made her laugh like that. Light, airy, and very sweet. It was worth fifty kittens in my car.
It made me feel better and so much worse.
I layered towels on top of clean sheets. Tallulah slipped into bed with the kitten. After the night of near-death experiences, it was exhausted, stumbling on its paws. Tallulah smiled, kissing its head.
“Careful,” I warned, only half-joking. “That’s a feral cat. Probably has typhoid or scurvy or something.”
Tallulah snorted, resting her cheek on my pillow. My pillow. “My parents aren’t pet people. My dad’s allergic. I’ve never…this is out of my element.”
The cat yawned, drooping. With big, wide steps, like it wasn’t sure how to walk properly on a bed, the cat made its way over to me.
I frowned. “What’s the rat doing?”
“I don’t know.” Tallulah shrugged, smiling. “I don’t know cats.”
“I don’t know cats either,” I said. The cat locked its golden-amber eyes on me, in a weird staring contest. “My dad likes dogs, but they have to be over sixty pounds. If it’s not big enough to knock me to the floor, I don’t know what to do with it.”
The cat reached the spot closest to me and kneaded the blankets, a purr bursting from its throat.
“No, no, no.” I nudged the kitten away, pushing it to Tallulah. “You got the wrong idea. I don’t like you.”
“Why are you being so mean?” Tallulah whispered, a laugh in her words.
“I have towels on my bed in case the rat pisses on it,” I retorted. “What about that says I’m down to cuddle?”
The cat brushed its head against Tallulah, purring like a motorboat, Tallulah scratching it behind its ears. “You’re missing out.”
“I’m sure I’ll feel that way when I’m the only one not peed on.”
She burst into harder laughter, bringing the cat up to the crook of her neck. The kitten closed its eyes, still purring.
“Do you think it’s a girl?” Tallulah whispered. “I think she’s a girl.”
“No idea. For all I know, it could be a dog.”
Her lips curved for a smile before it faded. “I wish I could keep her.”
I watched Tallulah snuggle against my pillow and thought how funny it was that I was thinking the exact same thing.
In the morning, the kitten was having the time of its life grappling with the small strings hanging off of my blankets, while Tallulah’s unhappiness radiated off of her. I tried to get Tallulah to talk, but she became quieter and quieter. She was disappointed to say goodbye to the cat.
The car ride was silent, only interrupted by the purring. The kitten was in the crook of her neck, rubbing against her, while she kept hugging the cat tight.
I tried to lighten the mood. “When you get back to Marrs, I’m sure you could adopt something furry.”
“Yeah,” Tallulah mumbled.
“Somebody will pick up the kitten from the shelter. It’s a kitten. People love kittens.”
She nodded, avoiding my gaze. “Yeah.”
“You have other stuff going on. Think about the internship.”
Tallulah sniffled. “Yeah.”
Fuck, I couldn’t handle that. Tallulah wouldn’t cry over the cat, would she?
Of course she would. I saw Tallulah bawl her eyes out at Marrs when she tried to save a lizard from getting stepped on, and it leaped to its demise in a gutter.
She’d cried buckets over that lizard, of course she’d sob over a cat.
At the library, Tallulah had to untangle the kitten who’d decided to sink its tiny claws in her shirt. “Can you grab her?” Tallulah asked, her voice wobbly. “I don’t want her to—to—”
“Yeah, of course—”
“Thank you,” she choked out and hurried out of the car.
Tallulah had the right idea. The moment she opened the door, the kitten moved to leap after her. I had to grab it around its fluffy middle to stop that from happening. The door shut unceremoniously and Tallulah hurried away, shoulders sagging in defeat.
I stared at her retreating figure.
The cat scrabbled at the door. Golden eyes wide, it turned to stare at me. “Meow?”
“She’s gone,” I said, like the cat could understand me.
“Meow?”
“She’s gone and I’m going to drop you off at the shelter. We’re not taking in Canadian strays.”
I was supposed to drive away but I couldn’t. I was stuck in the car, unable to move, but I needed to move because this was a Thunderbolt and the odds of the cat pissing in the passenger seat weren’t zero.
The cat climbed over the arm rests, trying to crawl into my lap, but I brushed it away, keeping that barrier between us.
“The thing is…” I closed my eyes. “Tallulah wants you. I think she wants to take care of something. She’d be good at it.”
“Meow?”
“I don’t want her to miss you. I don’t want Tallulah to be sad…”
“Meow?”
I raked a hand through my hair. “This isn’t going to work! Because she can’t keep you. And if I keep you, I’d have to feed you and have a litter box—I have hockey games to go to! I’d need a pet sitter—”
I froze, eyes snapping to the library where Tallulah had disappeared inside.
“I’d need a pet sitter…” I trailed off. “Someone to take care of you. And watch the house while I’m at games. And sleep in my bed. Huh.” I tapped my thumb against the steering wheel. “Someone like the pretty brunette who walked through that door.”
The kitten cocked its head as I pulled away from the curb.
“I need a reason for Tallulah to come over,” I muttered, careful to keep my voice low as if someone was listening. “I think you could be my reason.”