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Likes: Lying in the sun
Dislikes: Orange cats because they’re “special.”
Someone had a sense of humor.
“Want to go for a walk, Mittens?” He checked in with Perry. “Could I pick him up? I’ll stay here.”
“Sure. As long as Mittens is up for it.”
Mittens seemed amenable, so Dex did a circuit of the cattery, taking the kitten to visit with the other cats. Each of them had a label with entertaining little snippets about their personalities.
Katy, a black kitten with big green eyes, liked catnip and disliked the musical “Cats.” (But not the film. The film is A+.) Bongo, a feisty gray, liked scratching posts (but never quality furniture!) and disliked capitalist oppression because it incentivizes imperialist expansion.
“Perry?”
“Yeah?” She placed a bowl of food in one of the boxes.
“Who figured out the cats’ likes and dislikes?”
She chuckled. “That would be Ashley. She says it gives her a creative outlet.”
Huh. Maybe she wasn’t such a humorless drone after all. He wasn’t sure what to make of her lack of attraction to him. So she’d made that comment about climbing him like a tree, but she could have been talking objectively about anyone who was reasonably attractive. Dex was unused to being dismissed so readily.
He re-focused on Perry. “How long have you worked here?”
“Well, I’m a volunteer. I try to come in twice a week, and I’ve been doing that for a couple of years since my husband died.”
“Sorry to hear that. About your husband.”
“Thanks. Lung cancer. Smoked forty a day from the age of fifteen.” She shook her head. “But some people can’t be told, right?”
True. People usually did whatever they wanted, even when it was not in their best interest. Dex was the living embodiment of that philosophy.
Perry didn’t seem to know who he was. He supposed not everyone was a hockey fan or followed celebrity gossip, or they did and chose to pretend it was unimportant.
He shouldn’t be annoyed about that. So Ashley wanted to treat him like a regular guy. Except he wasn’t a regular guy. He was Dex Fucking O’Malley, emphasis on the fucking, and that usually gave him some sort of cachet. Without those labels, he was a very dull boy.
Maybe with those labels.
Dex O’Malley
Likes: Hockey, sex, and having a good time
Dislikes: Prudes and party poopers
He was nothing without hockey. That was running a circuit in his brain. If he lost that, he’d lose everything. He needed to make this volunteer thing work because he could not emerge from that courtroom with anything close to a conviction.
Which meant he had to be extra nice to their fearless leader.
“How many volunteers are there?”
“Maybe ten? Cora and Ashley are the only full-time employees, and we have Vet Marty as a part-timer. This place really needs as many hands on deck as possible. Every day, we get new animals, and any money that comes in has to go to food, medical care, and keeping the lights on.”
“So how is this place funded?”
“Donations. The biggest one we get is from the hockey team. Without that, we probably couldn’t keep afloat.”
That made sense. It also explained why Ashley was forced to take him on against her better judgment. This place and likely her job were dependent on donations and the Rebels controlled a major stream of income.
