We’d washed each of them, including Mother Cat—which was not fun, but easier when we had the kittens on the counter with her, and settled them all back in the basket, letting MC feed them.
“You’re a daddy.” Marcus chuckled.
“I can’t keep them!”
“Please,” he said.
“Dude, I cannot keep five cats!”
“You could keep Mother,” he suggested. “The kittens will be easy to place.”
I swallowed. “They need to go to the vet, tomorrow.”
He agreed, “They do. We’ve done as much as we can, but the vet needs to check them out. Can you handle that tomorrow?”
“I mean, I guess so. I haven’t taken a day off from work in months.” I stared down into the basket at the five of them. MC was a beautiful animal, white with gray and orange tabby spots, and young I guessed. The cream tabby boy was also—
I groaned, “God, I cannot have a cat!”
“You’ve already picked them out, haven’t you?”
“Shit. Yes.”
He patted me on the shoulder. “Ever had cats before?”
“Yes,” I groaned. “I grew up on a farm-ish thing.”
“Farm-ish thing?” His eyes danced with humor.
“It’s midnight. I’m exhausted. I cannot brain to make the words go for now. I need to sleep.”
He grew serious. “You’ll be okay over here with Mama and her kittens?”
“Perfectly fine.” I sighed.
“Okay, I’m going to take Pollux out for a quick walk and head to bed. Call me and let me know how it goes tomorrow with the kitties?”
“I’ll even send pictures.”
“Good man.” He nodded. “Kitty pictures are always welcome.”
“Won’t you make Pollux jealous?”
Marcus blinked a few times and looked over at his dog, sleeping near the door. “Uh, he barks at walls.”
Our eyes went wide, and turned slowly to look at the dog. Marcus looked back at me, and gasped, “He heard the kittens. The whole time. They’re about five weeks old…”
“They wouldn’t have started meowing with any kind of vocal range until now,” I continued, “but we don’t have dog ears. He would have heard them scraping around and meowing for mama all along.”
Both of us dropped down to the dog and started giving him pats, pets, and belly rubs. We were cooing over the same dumb mutt who barked me into another room. But he had probably saved the kittens because we had no idea how they got in and out. Which was something else I had to talk to the landlord about.
Pollux looked both pleased and annoyed with us, and as a show of gratitude stood up sleepily, tripped over his own ungainly feet, and slammed me into Marcus, sending us sprawling on the floor.
Or, more correctly, sending Marcus to the floor on his back and taking away my support, and send me sprawling across Marcus.
Across his broad shoulders. His narrow waist. His firm six pack. His sculpted pecs. His defined thighs.
Fuuuuck.
