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A man that just so happened to be a United States senator.
Needless to say, I always found a good way to get in the news, and it drove my father crazy.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I admitted. “I was at a fuckin’ coffee shop in the hospital’s cafeteria for God’s sake. A coffee shop. I thought to stop by on my way out for a fucking cup of coffee. I don’t even like their coffee, but you know how I am. I need it.”
Brad did know how I was. Between all of us, Brad had, by far, been the one to encourage my love for fine coffee.
“I understand.” He sounded amused. “I’ll tell your father, but he’s going to want to do something about this.”
“Nothing he can do,” I admitted. “It sure is going to be a shame that I’m going to have to miss all of those events that he wanted me to go to, though.”
There was a long pause then he said, “Why do I get the feeling that you introduced yourself to fucking Ebola rather than come to the White House for dinner?”
Because, honestly, a disease that did scary things to my body was preferential to going to the White House for a Christmas party and putting on an act.
By far.
“What does Ebola even do to you if you catch it?” Brad asked.
I looked over at Carolina who was lying on the single bed in the room, and said, “I’ve been trying to avoid looking it up. Listen, I have other calls to make. I don’t have a charger and there’s no telling if and when I’ll get one. I’ll keep you updated as I can. If you don’t hear from me, you can contact Jace, I can’t remember his last name, with the CDC in Longview, Texas.”
Brad groaned. “Goddamn you. You know this is going to piss him off.”
I was laughing as I hung up the phone.
“Why do I feel like I have no idea who you really are?” she asked. “Because based on your end of the phone conversation, I’m insanely curious.”
I didn’t answer and instead made my second call.
“Hello?” Malachi answered on the fourth ring.
He sounded breathless and annoyed.
“Malachi,” I said as I looked around the room. “I know you’re busy with your girl, but you’re the only one that has a key to my place. And I’ve found myself in a bit of a situation.”
Malachi moved somewhere on his end of the line. Doors squeaked. A slam. And then he was back saying, “What’s up?”
I explained to him what was going on, ending with, “I need you to check on Smoke.”
“Oh, fuck,” Malachi said. “Yeah, I’ll check on Smoke. Would it be easier to bring him over to my place?”
I thought about that.
“With him being a police K-9, I don’t really know the protocol here. I’m going to have to call the police chief and see what he wants to do,” I found myself saying. “I, uh, also have cats. Can you feed them, too? They don’t really need looking after just yet. Just fed. They have a cat door. They do all their business outside.”
Malachi paused. “You have cats?”
I did.
“Yep,” I confirmed.
“All right,” Malachi said. “How about I talk to Luke? He’s on his way up here anyway. We have a few things to talk about. Then we can figure out what to do from there.”
“Sounds perfect,” I said. “Thank you.”
We hung up, and I looked over at Carolina.
“You have cats?” She smiled.
“I do,” I admitted. “Earlier in the year, there was a problem with some kittens being stolen from various places. Then a box of them were tossed. I don’t know. I used to be a big cat lover when I was younger. Wanted to be a veterinarian. When all these cats started to pile up at the shelter, I helped find a lot of them homes. Paid for their spays, neuters, and shots. Things like that. But a few really latched on to my heart so I kept them.”
“I heard about that,” she said. “The cats and the storm drain. You’re the anonymous donor that cleared out the shelter, aren’t you?”
I shrugged.
“I read about it in the paper,” she continued. “So how many did you actually keep yourself?”
“Five,” I answered. “Are you going to make any calls?”
She sighed, long and loud.
“I was trying to refrain,” she confessed. “My mom and dad, like I said, are going to freak out. My brothers’ll get pissed.”
“Well just call one and allow that person to relay what’s going on to everyone else,” I suggested.
She sighed. “That may work in your part of the world, but it doesn’t work in mine. They’ll all want to talk to me. Hell, I’m going to be doing some fast talking to keep my mom from coming up here and trying to take care of me.”
