Kaden huffed. “The cat that hates me?”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“Hedoes. He tolerates me because I feed him. He loves you.” Kaden glanced at him. “That’s what I don’t understand. He loathed you on sight. Now he pines when you leave the room to go to the toilet.”
Joe shrugged. “It was the last vet visit. Trauma bonding.”
“Unbelievable,” Kaden muttered, though Joe had leaked, as he called it, when Bobby got distressed at the vets.
They walked in comfortable silence for a while, shoulders brushing now and then, the rhythm of their steps falling into sync as it always seemed to do.
“Hey,” Joe said after a moment.
“Yeah?”
Joe slowed, turning slightly. “You know they were all there for you, right?”
Kaden blinked. “What?”
“The crowd. The queue. The applause.” Joe’s voice softened. “That wasn’t luck. That’s yours now.”
Kaden looked ahead, at the people moving past them, at the ordinary street that suddenly didn’t feel quite so ordinary.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I think I’m starting to believe that.”
Joe smiled, reaching out to hook their fingers together.
The sun came out as they walked and Kaden knew that in one way, Joe was wrong, hewaslucky. If he hadn’t touched when he’d been supposed not to, he’d never have met Joe. Love might have started with explosions and drama and lust, but it had settled down into a feeling that had crept around his body, just as Joe had. Love had whispered in his ear, brushed fingers across his cheeks, stroked his back and told himthiswas what he’d been looking for.
Whenever Kaden did anything, there was always that feeling at the back of his mind that he wanted to tell Joe something, share something with him, hear what he thought. Love was still lust, still finding joy in each other’s bodies but it was much more than that. He glanced at Joe who immediately looked back at him and smiled.
The city stretched out around them, full of stories, full of lives, and Kaden had stopped feeling as if he was chasing a dream.
He’d already found him.
Several years later
The message arrived the way Joe always suspected it would, but had hoped it wouldn’t. Not with sound, nor light, but with recognition.
He was standing at the sink, washing a mug, when his world tilted. Not really the world tilting, but him. The internal jolt hadn’t been violent, just enough to remind him that there were still links to a reality he once inhabited. His former kind had to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Earth, which was worrying.
His hands fell still, water dripping from his fingers. Inside his chest, his heart raced in panic.
294
Now came sound. Hearing that number in his head lit up an old ache in his body.
Status unresolved. Report.
The words were in the language of his old planet. He wished he couldn’t remember it, but the memory was still there. He remembered everything.
Joe closed his eyes.Fuck! Fuck!
If he didn’t reply, would they leave him alone?No, they won’t.
Kaden was in the other room, half-asleep on the sofa, a book sliding toward the floor, Bobby snoozing beside him. Joe touched Kaden’s shoulder.
“Hey,” Kaden murmured and opened his eyes.
