Page 75 of Karma Kitty Christmas
“Three,” she said. “He’s got a thing for cats with one leg or no eyes or tails that have been chewed off. I’m telling you, if you can resist a cat with a chewed-off tail, you’re a monster, and I want nothing to do with you.”
“And yet,” he said, watching as Julia—freed of her leash—was currently rolling in a pile of blankets that were possibly the only clean things in the duplex, “you didn’t bring me a cat, which I know how to care for—”
“A”—she said, still bustling. He couldn’t look at her anymore. She seemed to be simultaneously putting dishes in the dishwasher, cleaning up takeout containers, and stacking mail on his table—“cats need very little in the way of care. If I gave you a cat, you would feed the cat and let it crap on all your stuff and forget to feed yourself, and then when you died you’d be glad the cat survived on your eyeballs. No. A cat is not high enough maintenance for you right now.”
“And B?” he asked, watching as Julia found one of Chrysanthemum’s toys under the pile of blankets. Tentatively she shook it and was rewarded when it squeaked. Her eyes opened in joy, and she shook her head, squeaking it some more.
“Julia was found two weeks ago,” Mari said, her voice getting a little lost among a clatter of kibble in a stainless-steel bowl.
Julia stopped her assault on the squeaky toy enough to trot into the kitchen, searching for the source of that familiar noise.
“So…?” He sounded dubious—and he was—but he still watched the creature to see if she would eat and drink from Chrysanthemum’s bowls.
“See her tummy?” Mari said patiently, bending to fondle Julia’s ears as she came to eat. “See the elongated nipples?”
Milo grimaced. “I didn’t want to say anything in case it made her self-conscious.”
“How very kind,” Mari told him, and she may have rolled her eyes at him, but she was continuing to pet the dog, so Milo couldn’t see. “But yeah. She’d had a litter, and shemournedher litter for her first week and a half, and Georgie said she was getting depressed, because maybe she got dumped because thepuppies were cuter and everything she loved had just gotten, you know….”
“Yanked away,” Milo said, suddenly desolate. Because that’s what it had felt like when he’d gotten home that first week in August to find that Stuart had taken all his stuff, including his ugly table lamps and his weird art on the walls and the half-grown cat Milo had gotten them to celebrate their first anniversary three months earlier.
“Yeah,” Mari told him, suddenly bending over the back of the couch to hug him. She dropped a kiss in his greasy hair, and his eyes were blurry for a whole other reason besides hunger. “Just like you,” she said softly. “And that’s why I brought her.”
Milo took a gulp of air, hoping he could maybe not cry. “Why the cat ears?” he asked.
“Because you’ve never had a dog before,” she told him. “I thought maybe they’d make it easier to adapt.”
Milo nodded and felt another sob coming on. “Oh Jesus. Mari, can I go cry in the shower?” Because hereallyneeded the shower.
“No,” she said softly. “You acted so together in August. I should have known you weren’t. You cry right here.”
And he did, Mari’s arms around his shoulders, until Julia, still crunching on kibble, jumped onto the couch and rested her chin on his knee.
EVENTUALLY MILOstilled, wiped his face on his filthy shirt, and managed to struggle up to excuse himself to the bathroom.
When he got there, he flushed the toilet (which helped with that awful smell) and scrounged up a towel that wasn’t mildewy before jumping in the shower.
He had to wash his hair with hand soap because he was out of shampoo, but at least he still had toothpaste when he got out. His beard tended to be scraggly and patchy anyway, so theelectric razor took care of that, but unfortunately all that self-care forced him tolookin the mirror.
Ugh. No. His face was thin to the point of gauntness, his cheeks sunken, his eyes—which were usually an attractive almond-shaped brown—also sunken, his skin practically green.
Yeah, he wouldn’t want to shag himself either.
Out in his kitchen he heard Mari, still clattering, and thought of how busy her life was, and how she’d taken a special day here to wade through his trash and do a wellness check on her jerk of a friend who had blown her off for a month.
At his door he heard a tentative scratching sound, and surprised, he opened it.
Julia was sitting there, staring up at him with those oddly shaped flat eyes, her cat ears still firmly in place. He couldn’t tell if she was reproachful because he’d locked her out or irritated that he’d gone somewhere she hadn’t, but something told him the two of them were now bound inextricably in the mutual endeavor to make sure Mari hadn’t wasted her time.
“Well, old girl,” he said softly, bending to scratch her behind the ears, “I think we’re about to become a thing.”
She snorted and walked toward his bedroom in a slow, stately gate unlike any Chihuahua or Chiweenie he’d ever met. He didn’t even want to look to see what he had clean.
“OH MYGod,” Mari said when he emerged, carrying a load of laundry. “I can’t… I can’t even….”
“Bella Vista Broncos,” Milo said grimly. “I swear to Christ, they’re the only clean things in my drawers.”
“Who keeps their gym clothes from high school?” she demanded. “Milo, you’retwenty-eight years old.”
