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I eyed the cupcakes, but when Dane gave me a stern look, I grudgingly acknowledged that they were for kids. Okay, I might have sulked just a tiny bit, because Dane went into the bakery and bought me one of my own.
“They had the option of orange frosting,” he said. “But I thought it was too soon after the cream cheese incident.”
I grinned and offered him a bite of the cupcake, even though I knew he didn’t like sweet things much. I licked the frosting off as we walked, then ate the cake part slowly. Dane kept looking at my mouth, so I licked my lips. When I kissed him, I knew I would taste vanilla sweet.
We headed back inside through the bar so Dane could check to see how Johi’s Halloween karaoke night was going. It was early, so things were just getting underway, but there were already a lot of people in costume milling around the bar.
“Wow, go, Johi!” I said.
Karaoke reminded me of Sof, so I snapped a picture of the gathering crowd and texted it to her.
What are you being for Halloween? I asked. And what karaoke song would you sing?
She wrote back right away.
We’re all dressing up for the show tonight! I’m being Cher from Clueless and Coco’s being Dionne ;) What are you?
No costume this year :( But Dane and I just saw a kids’ costume parade that was the cuuuuutest.
L-oser! she wrote back. Then, Also adorb. Tell Dane he should be Mr. Clean next year.
I started cracking up and Dane raised an eyebrow.
“What’s up?”
“Ahem, nothing,” I said, and shoved my phone in my pocket.
“Hey, Huey, do you mind?” Johi asked. “I gotta take the trash out to the dumpster before it starts to stink, and Roy and Amanda are bringing stuff from the basement. Can you serve for a sec?”
“I’ll take it out,” he said, eyeing the two huge garbage bags.
“That works too,” she said.
She saluted him in thanks and Dane hefted the bags.
“Do you want me to grab—okay, never mind,” I said, ducking past him to hold open the back door.
I followed him into the alley and moved to open the top of the dumpster. There was a flash of movement in the dark and I jumped backward.
“What’s wrong?” Dane asked, instantly on guard.
But the sound of a hiss answered before I could. I bent down and peered around the corner of the dumpster.
“Oh my God, kitten! Did I scare you, baby? I’m sorry.”
I made my voice as soothing as possible, hoping it would come out.
“Don’t touch it—it could be rabid,” Dane said.
I scoffed.
“Nooo, you’re not rabid, are you?”
I held my knuckles out to the kitten, which was still in the shadow of the dumpster.
With a sigh, Dane set the garbage bags on the ground. He crouched next to me, and I could tell he really wanted to pull me away. I kept murmuring to the kitten softly, hand outstretched, and after a few minutes I caught the gleam of lantern eyes emerging from the shadow behind the dumpster.
“Oh my God, baby,” I cooed.
It was a tiny little thing, more fluff than substance. A black kitten with some white markings and a tail longer than its body. It made a mewling sound and I melted.
I turned to Dane.
“Can we take it upstairs? Give it some food? I think it’s really hungry.”
Dane sighed.
“Hang on.”
He ducked inside and I managed to lure the kitten a few more inches out of the shadows.
When Dane came back outside, he knelt behind me and handed me some bar mops.
“Pick it up with those in case it tries to bite you, or has…I don’t know. Diseases.”
I snorted at him. Still, I did as he said because…yeah, it was filthy. When I reached for the kitten, though, it streaked past me. I sighed in defeat, assuming it would run away down the alley.
Then I heard a choked Eep and turned to Dane to see that the kitten had jumped onto his shoulder.
We both froze, him staring at me, me staring at the cat on his shoulder. Dane’s eyes were huge, and the kitten was nuzzling his neck, purring. It looked even tinier in the context of Dane’s broad shoulders, and my stomach was molten with cuteness.
“Oh. My. God. It’s purring. Holy shit, that’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What do I…do?”
He said it with the confused horror of someone being asked to defuse a bomb.
“Um, stand up really slowly so it doesn’t fall off and walk inside?”
“I’m not walking through my bar with a cat perched on my shoulder like Edgar Allan Poe!”
I snorted with laughter.
“Side entrance, then.”
Dane stood up slowly, and I expected the kitten to jump down any second, but it didn’t. It just crept a few inches closer to his neck, tail flicking.
“Oh, the trash,” Dane said.
