Page 7 of Kitty Season
“But why darling? I know your mother’s meat is chewy as all hell, but you come from three generations of cattle farmers. Beef is in your blood.”
“Dad! You grew up in South Boston. I don’t think you’ve ever seen or touched a real life cow.”
“Quinn!” he mocks. “Yes, I grew up here, but I was born on a farm in Gilbertville, and that counts.”
“Barely.”
“Well, judging by your meal, you’re barely a vegetarian, so I guess we’re even.” On matching huffs, we cross our arms across our chests and sulk. It’s going to be an old-fashioned Harris stare-down till someone breaks, and that someone will NOT be me.
“Why must you challenge us the way you do?” HA, as predicted, Dad caves first. “As a kid you were a gifted hockey player and tossed it away out of spite. As a teen, I warned you not to get involved with hockey players and you went out of your way to garner the attention of the very worst of them, and as a young adult it’s this. Meat. What am I going to tell your mother?”
“You will never change will you? Nothing I do—” or pretend to do in this case—“is ever right. Every decision is wrong, or flawed or … disappointing for you. Well, I’ve had enough.” I’m fully aware I’m defending a fake lifestyle choice but this attitude of his is so freaking typical it’s not funny. I push away from the table, sending my chair clunking to the floor.
“This is why I stayed living with Lotte. I’m not one of your players, Dad. You can’t blow a whistle and create a set play of my life. Thank you for dinner, but I think it’s best I leave before we say something we’ll both regret.”
Looking painfully defeated, Dad nods in agreement. “Will you at least be home for your birthday next month? Your motherhas ordered a cake, and is planning to fix your favorite pot roast … Guess that’s another plan we’ll have to change,” he adds under his breath.
“Of course I’ll be there. Mom’s suffered enough because of our hotheadedness, don’t you think?”
Another curt nod is my only reply.
“Quinny, babe,”Troye coos as I collapse into his lap two seconds after bursting through his always unlocked dorm room door. Actually, it’s not a dorm, it’s a frat house, but still, he was alone on the couch and now I am mooching atop him. “I take it dinner didn’t go well? ”
“Dinner didn’t go well. Dinner went terrible. And now I’m sad and hungry and a fake vegetarian who had no dinner.”
Troye shifts beneath me. “Wait. You’re a vegan? Since when? You had bacon and sausages for breakfast this morning … not to mention a serving of hot fresh Troye.”
“I said vegetarian not vegan, and hot, tattooed hockey boys are yet to secure a place on the food pyramid.”
“Well, we should. We’re delicious.”
“You are,” I agree, tucking my head into the crook of Troye’s neck, I take a slow deep inhale, filling my lungs ofhim. I’ve never been able to place what it is, because even when he’s sweaty and gross after a game, he still smells amazing.
“It’s probably for the best you didn’t tell him. Your old man hates me. Swapping the lip ring for the septum piercing cemented it. Him knowing … It will only drive you further apart.”
I tune out as Troye tells me again that he’s no good for me, that he’s a bad guy, with a bad attitude, and that he will only break my heart. Contrary to that, he enfolds me in his arms, in his scent, and kisses the top of my head. Once he realizes I have no intention of leaving, his words switch to sweet, whispered silliness till I can barely remember Brady Basse, or why I was upset in the first place.
I’ve always been a selfish prick, but generally, I’ve been able to keep my shitty attitude and wandering dick reserved for those of an equal class of trash; peers who also want and take and use with little to no regard. But the night Quinn Harris fell into my bed, fucked me to heaven three times, fixed me a sandwich, then left before I could pretend to ask for her number, is a night I hit a new low.
Sexy as all fuck, smart, funny, a rocket in the sack, Quinn is the itch I cannot stop scratching.
Everything I ever wanted.
Everything I don’t deserve.
I know that, but even now as she innocently snuggles in my lap, emitting her cute little purr-like snore and nobly fighting off sleep, I can’t turn her away. Instead, I will take all that she will give me. Will feed off her energy and light, sucking her dry till there’s nothing left but a ruined, tortured soul.
It’s what I do.
My birth family tradition.
A now familiar, dangerous warmth spreads like sweet Vermont syrup in my belly as Quinn’s tiny hand twists into the waist of my sweats. “Can I stay the night, Troye? I’m too sleepy to drive home.”
Yes.
“Nope. Sorry, Kitty, but we agreed that you wouldn’t sleep over anymore. Not till you talked to your dad.”
“I did talk to Dad.”
