Page 28 of Love at First Ink

“Damn, who knew cat food was such a lucrative business?” Marisol ran her hands down a purple bag designed for outdoor cats.

“You’re going to need this one.” Cisco located the indoor, grain-free cat food with gut health. Whatever the fuck that meant for cats. It wasn’t a particularly large bag—for the price, he would have liked it to be twice the size. Still, he put two in the cart. He then moved on to the wet food and grabbed the chicken and veggie one listed on the paper.

“Those look heavy,” Marisol commented, looking at him with long black lashes.

“I’ll carry them for you, Princesa. Don’t worry.” He winked.

“A chauffeur and a grocery boy? If this is your idea of a second date, you are doing great,” she teased, eyes shining with mirth.

“Is this a second date?” he teased back. “Because if it is, I want to take you to lunch after this.”

“Well, I suppose I can schedule you in. I’m dreadfully busy. Laundry to be done. Dishes to be washed.”

“That’s very domestic of you,” Cisco joked.

“Actually, Mrs. Baker does it for me. She’s wonderful.”

“And Mrs. Baker is?” Cisco asked, raising a brow.

“My maid,” she said simply.

Of course she had a maid. He didn’t fault her for it. He had a bi-weekly cleaning company that scrubbed his house from top to bottom. He wasn’t a messy person, but his time was limited, so this helped keep his house in order. Strangely enough, it also helped with his mental health. There was just something about a clean house that eased pent-up anxiety.

He didn’t know Marisol well…yet, but he believed she had enough pent-up anxiety to deal with.

“Could Snowball come to lunch with us? I don’t want to leave her alone yet. We could get her a carrying case?” Marisol suggested, gently brushing the cat’s fur with her red-manicured nails. He thought briefly of those nails being dragged down his back while he…

Yeah, no. Definitely shouldn’t be thinking of that.

“Yeah, I know a place. Let’s grab the last few things she needs,” he said.

Marisol allowed him to take the lead, which Cisco was all too happy with. He found her a self-cleaning litter box with odor-free litter. Marisol seemed particularly thrilled about that. To him, it looked like a little cat spaceship Snowball could shit in. After a quick Google search to look at reviews, he noticed they were overwhelmingly positive, which helped justify the hefty price point.

“Oh, I want to get one of those scratchy post things. Cats love those, I think,” Marisol said once they entered the toy aisle. Toys overflowed the shelves, from squishy mouse toys to fluorescent fish on a stick. It took a bit of searching until they came upon the cat towers, all equipped with multiple cat scratching posts. He didn’t know so many different types of towers existed.

“Hmm, what do you think, Snowball? Which one do you like the most?” Marisol scratched Snowball behind the ears.Snowball looked up, cast a glance around, and put her head back down, clearly uninterested.

Cisco couldn’t offer any words of wisdom. He never owned a cat in his life. Marisol inspected each tower. The short, small ones and the large towers that looked like they trained cats for the kitty Olympics. After a moment of deliberation, she pointed to a tower with three different stories and two scratching posts. “I think Snowball will like that one the most.”

“Can’t disappoint Snowball,” he quipped before leaning down to pick up the box. “Fuck, this thing weighs a ton,” he grunted as he maneuvered the box into the cart.

“Do you think it’ll be easy to put together?” Marisol asked. “I’m not good at building things, but my brother-in-law is.”

“I’ll put it together for you.”

“Oh, you don’t?—”

“What else does Snowball need?” Cisco cut her off. He already planned on helping her put the cat’s equipment together, so he didn’t want to hear her protests.

The last things they picked up were a few other furry toys and a food and water dish that could be programmed to feed and water at certain times of the day. Cisco led them to the front where he started to place everything onto the conveyor belt. He watched the price skyrocket just after two things and was once again left baffled at how much it cost to raise a spoiled pet.

“The total is four hundred and forty-eight dollars even,” the teenager behind the register said. His eyes lingered a little too long on Marisol, specifically her chest, before Cisco promptly stepped in front of her, glaring.

The boy blushed and quickly looked away.

“Just one second,” Marisol murmured, searching throughher purse, but Cisco already had his wallet out and handed over a black card.

Marisol’s head jerked up just in time to see the teenager swipe Cisco’s card. Her lips parted in silent surprise before closing abruptly once she realized what he was doing. Her honey-brown eyes met his. “You didn’t have to pay for this,” she said with a hint of accusation. As if by him paying, it would allow him to hold something over her. Not for the first time, it made him wonder what the people in Marisol’s life were like if she was this suspicious about everything.

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