Page 11 of Three Meows

The laughter at our table was louder than the booming music.

Chapter Eight

Rowan was our designated driver, staying sober all night, and he herded us to the car when he decided the level of drunkenness had reached critical mass.

I eyed the transparent foil spread over the back seats and had to blink the haze of alcohol from my eyes to make sure I was really seeing this.

“Oh, it’s for the paint!” I said triumphantly.

“Yeah, good job, detective,” Chester sniggered, then made an impromptu twirl as if he still didn’t have enough after all that dancing.

“Inside,” Rowan prompted, a cleaning rag in his hands as he tried to get rid of as much paint as possible off his hands.

Elijah slid in quietly while Chester was drunkenly focused on getting some entirely too complicated dance move right, which only resulted in him wobbling on his one foot and nearly braining himself against the pavement. Rowan caught Chester in time and pushed him inside after making sure I slid into the middle seat.

With the middle-of-night reduction in traffic the trip back took us only half an hour, but it was enough for me to doze off. I was tired after so many hours of partying.

I woke in the middle of the ride to Chester drooling on my shoulder and Elijah looking at me longingly. On impulse, I pulled the brown-haired man so that he could lay his head on my shoulder as well, then promptly went back to sleep.

The less said about us getting out of the car and up the stairs to our apartments the better.

Rowan left me in my apartment to deal with his roommates, only to return a few minutes later and make me take a vitamin B complex pill and drink a full glass of water in hopes of stewing off my hangover.

I felt a little more human after he left, but still not good enough to get all the paint off me, knowing it would involve washing my long, blond hair and a lot of scrubbing. Just the idea made me nauseous. With that in mind, I decided on the way of least effort and only washed my hands and face then chucked my good pillows, the Goku dakimakura, and the white duvet to the floor, deciding one of my old pillows, a ratty blanket, and the bedsheet were acceptable casualties.

My eyes were already closing when I heard a sound and peered over the bed.

“Meow!” Marshmallow said loudly. He was usually such a polite cat. What was with this noise? Was this punishment from the gods, sent to worsen the pounding in my head?

“Shh, shh, come here if you want,” I potted the space next to me.

The fluffy cloud readied himself to jump… only to fail short of its destination. My eyebrows rose at the sound of the claws scratching over the wooden side of the bed and the pitiful meowing.

I watched the ungraceful attempts at scrambling onto the bed, transfixed.

“What, are you drunk as well?” I joked. It was as if the Pers suddenly had four left feet.

In the end, I bent over the edge of the bed, ignoring how the world swirled around me, to pick the cat up and cuddle him close.

I fell asleep to his machine-gun-loud purring.

When I saw the white cat after I woke up, I laughed so hard the sound stabbed straight into my hungover brain.

Marshmallow looked at me, all disgruntled.

“Well, I thought those of us who were drinking would be the ones regretting their choices today, but I see you are a strong contender, Marshmallow.”

The usually pristine white cat was now rainbow-colored. The leftover paint on my body had rubbed all over his fur during the night when we snuggled close.

“You look so cute,” I cooed at the poor animal, then whipped my phone out to take pictures.

I only got a single good photo before Marshmallow spotted what I was doing and hid under the bed.

“Hey, there’s no need for that,” I tried to soothe the now grumpy cat and lure him out. “How about I take responsibility, hmm? I got you all dirty, so I can clean you up.”

The squished face peeked out from under the bed and Marshmallow made a run… to the bathroom, instead of out the balcony door. Huh. Weird. Did he understand me? Maybe that meant he was one of those rare cats who liked water and I wouldn’t have to wrestle with him to get him back to his normal coloring.

I grabbed an additional stack of towels and entered the bathroom to see Marshmallow sitting primly on the bath runner rug. After checking the water temperature, I filled the tub justenough to submerge the white kitty just a little, careful not to scare him. I shouldn’t have worried: when I scooped the fluffy cat up and deposited him in the water he took it with calm, resigned dignity and let me clean him as much as it was possible.

---