There was more cursing, and the purring got louder. She had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself laughing.
A minute later, a big hand appeared above the deck plates and deposited Barnaby on the bridge floor. Barnaby sat, looked offended for a moment, then jumped straight back down into the gap.
“What the draanth? Cat, I do not need assistance with this task. It is a zero-feline task.”
The laugh escaped before she could stop it. She couldn't help it. A nearly seven-foot alien warrior losing an argument with a twelve-pound cat was the funniest thing she'd seen in months.
Thyaar's head appeared from under the console as he braced his arms on either side of the gap and pushed himself halfway out. He looked at her, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek again.
His face was smudged with something dark and his hair had come loose from whatever he'd had it tied back with, copper strands sticking to his jaw. His expression was so filled with exhaustion that she nearly laughed again.
"He likes warm things," she shrugged. "Whatever that coil is, it's probably the warmest spot down there."
"It is." He disappeared again. "It's also the component I'm trying to repair."
More purring. She heard Thyaar sigh, a real, bone-deep, I-give-up sigh, and there were no more attempts to move Barnaby. She could picture it. The ginger tom sprawled across something critical, eyes half-closed, completely immovable, while the hot alien tried to fix the ship around him.
The legs of the borrowed pants were pooling around her feet again. She tucked them under and hugged her shins. The shirt smelled like Thyaar; leather and something underneath did funny things to her heart rate. She'd caught it before, on the ramp, when he'd been carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. A flush of warmth, low and strange, prickled across her skin.
She shifted against the bulkhead. It was just an adrenaline crash, it had to be. Nothing more, nothing less.
"How did Emily's cat end up with you?"
His voice came from under the console, muffled by components and possibly cat. She blinked.
“Excuse me?”
"Barnaby. Emily asked me to collect him from her apartment. Yet, I found him living with you."
She was quiet for a second.
"Em went to the Mate Program offices," she said. “She got an alert from them, which was weird since she’d never signed up. Said there had to be some kind of mix-up. She was going to sort it out and come straight back." She picked at the hem of the borrowed shirt. “But she didn't come back."
The sounds from under the console slowed, but she kept going because once she'd started talking it was easier to keep going. Especially when he wasn’t actually looking at her.
"I waited. Went to the offices three times but they wouldn't tell me anything. They just kept trying to get me to sign up." She snorted. "Like that was going to happen. Eventually, I went to the police, but they said she'd left voluntarily and there was nothing they could do."
"And then?"
Sighing, she dropped her head back to the wall behind her. “Yeah… and then Em’s mother happened."
Something clanged, and he swore.
"Miranda."
The way he said it made her head come up.
"You know Miranda Evans?”
There was a pause.
"I've had the displeasure."
She stared at his legs. That was a very specific way to phrase it.
"Yeah, well," she said. “She showed up about a week after Emily disappeared. Canceled the lease, and had the apartment cleared out. Everything. Emily's books, her clothes, the photos on the fridge. They were all gone. Like she'd never lived there. She never liked Barnaby anyway, but he’d hidden on the ledge outside the window. Which is good, because I don’t know what would have happened if she’d gotten hold of him.”
She shuddered. “She’d probably have taken him to a high-kill shelter or something.”
