Page 63 of Advanced Chemistry

“Lady, have you tried playing hard to get?” Anton asked her. In a compelling show of her flexibility, Einstein batted a piece of crust off his plate and ran with it in her mouth.

“She’ll be fine,” I told him. “She’ll quickly realize she doesn’t want it.”

“She just wants to be included.” Sebastian was also a cat whisperer. He was tender with her, scratching under her chin and between her eyes. I was impressed that Einstein wasn’t swatting him away.

I grabbed her box of cat treats from behind the couch and put a few in Anton and Sebastian’s hands. She didn’t know where to go first. She ran back and forth, her stomach swinging as she moved. She was in heaven.

She reminded me of myself.

“Your cat is much nicer than my aunt’s cat, Link,” Anton said. “Whenever I come over, he hides under her bed. I’ve only seen him once, when I camped outside his litter box on Thanksgiving. How is Einstein with your friends?” Anton massaged my foot hanging off the couch, while one of his feet rubbed up and down Sebastian’s leg. Like everything else, it all felt very easy.

“She tolerates everyone,” I said. “Loves no one.”

“She loves you,” Sebastian said.

“I’m not sure about that. Do cats love? Or does she realize that she’s completely dependent on me for food, water, and shelter?” I was equally confused about love as my cat.

“Love via Stockholm Syndrome.” Anton flashed his winning smile.

Cats could be very withholding, but that’s what I liked about them. They weren’t furry balls of slobbering love like dogs. They made you work for it.

Meanwhile, I was turning into a cat myself because the more Anton circled his fingers around the soft skin of my ankle, the more I wanted to purr in his lap. I reached down a hand and ran the tips of my fingers over Sebastian’s head.

“So where’s this puzzle?” Anton asked. “And do we have to do it?”

“Yes. Or else we can’t call this a Puzzles and Pizza night. It would just be a pizza night, which anyone can have,” I said.

“Starry Night,” Sebastian read the puzzle box cover. “One thousand pieces. Looks challenging. You finish this in a night?”

“Never. It takes me a few days to complete a puzzle, but I get a good start on Fridays.”

Anton eyed the box. “We can get it done tonight.”

“That is highly doubtful. It’s a very difficult puzzle, and I’m only one person,” I said.

“What about us?” Sebastian asked.

“You haven’t done puzzles in years, you said. You’re both novices essentially.”

“Is that a challenge?” Anton asked. He glanced at Sebastian. “Seb, I think Chase thinks that we can’t do this puzzle.”

“Chase does think that.” Sebastian smiled back at him. “Do we ever back down from a challenge, Anton?”

“We do not.” Anton grabbed the box and stood up. “Let’s puzzle this bitch.”

21

ANTON

When Chase invited us over to eat some pizza and do a puzzle, I thought that was code for eat some pizza and have some sex.

And it could’ve been. We were all pretty comfortable in the living room, but as Sebastian said, I never backed down from a challenge.

AndStarry Nightwas proving to be a challenging fucker. Van Gogh came to play.

The plan was to do the puzzle for a little bit, to keep up the spirit of Puzzles and Pizza night, but it turned out that puzzles were more addictive than opioids.

The night wore on, but we couldn’t stop. We were on a mission. The three of us sat around the kitchen table, listening to music, and working on the puzzle in near silence. The quiet was punctuated by my routine cursing when two pieces didn’t fit and my routine whoops and hollers when I got two together.

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