“Tomorrow, she will be at the party. She is with her friends tonight,” he replied. “My brother, Sasha, is out with his friends as well.”
Hale and Carlos looked absolutely terrified, their eyes on an ottoman.
“Hale? Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Carlos’ voice shook.
“I do and I’m not even high.” Hale wrapped his arms around himself.
I got real fear from both of them. On the ottoman sat a little black kitten with blue eyes.
“Does anyone else see a cat on the ottoman?” Carlos’ voice continued to shake.
“I do.” I hugged them, because I didn’t know what was going on.
“Yes.” Anders gave them a look.
“Okay, so everybody can see him? Are we all high or has Lucky finally decided to show himself?” Carlos replied.
“Um, Lucky is made up.” Anders laughed.
Dimitri scooped the kitten up with incredible tenderness for such a large man. “This is Chernysh. I found him a couple of days ago. Bozh'ya Korovka is quite jealous that the cat distribution system has blessed me.”
“That is such a Gweny statement,” Clark replied.
Carlos frowned. “But that looks like Lucky. Well, baby Lucky.”
“Lucky is full-grown with a collar,” Hale replied. “But yeah, he does.”
“Again, Lucky is imaginary.” Anders plopped down on the couch.
“We can't normally see Lucky, but that doesn’t mean he’s not real,” Carlos added.
“Oh, this is the cat that you see when high?” I still really didn’t understand the imaginary cat thing.
“Yes.” Carlos nodded.
Dimitri handed Carlos the kitten. “He is just a cat.”
The tiny cat looked up at Carlos and made a cute baby kitten sound that melted my heart.
“I did tell you to get a cat to fill the loneliness of an empty house.” Carlos chuckled.
I scented the absolute tiniest shift in Dimitri’s mood. It lasted just a second, but something about what Carlos said made him incredibly sad.
“My little baby is real. I will be back.” Dimitri went upstairs.
We all took a seat. A moment later, Dimitri came down with pizza.
“If beer, soda, and vodka aren’t sufficient, you’re welcome to look in the liquor cabinet upstairs,” he replied.
“This is fine, thank you.” Oh, that pizza smelled good. I took a slice.
Anders set a shot glass in front of each of us. “Okay, rules of the game, pick a team, and if your team gets scored on, you have to take a shot. And considering most of you are picking the fucking Tigres, instead of the Sasquatches, who are second best to only the Knights, this is going to be fun.”
Drinking game? Okay, well, watching hockey just got a thousand times better.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Hale
