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“I gotcha covered. I also brought my oldest vintage white wine tonight. I didn’t want Gabriella thinking she was getting some of my blood stash and ruining the mood,” Chris responds.
I offer my hand to shake his. He takes it and looks out the one large picture window in his place. “Looks like you’ve just a few minutes before the fur flies. I’ll see you on the other side,” Chris replies.
“Thanks again, Chris.”
Soon after the other guy is out. Fred sets about being my groomer. I submit to an awkward brushing and wish I could help him pick up the ear laying on the floor. He fixes the problem himself. We top my look with a pink bowtie around my neck.
I feel ridiculous, but if it makes Gabriella feel good, it's worth it.
Veronica goes to fetch my love. The room is a chaotic mess of pink and red. I hope she sees the effort and not the misguided attempts to understand human culture. I make sure my freshly brushed tail curls around my feet as I hear Veronica make some excuse of bringing Billy home one of Chris’s graveyard sandwiches.
I hold my breath as Gabriella enters the room. She smiles and spins to take in the whole room. “Oh, you guys! Did you do this for me?”
“Your furry companion wanted you to have a bit of home tonight,” Veronica explains.
“It looks like my eighth-grade Valentine’s Day dance. It's—it’s great. Thank you,” she gushes.
My nerves melt away with the joyful giggle ringing in Gabriella’s throat. I straighten up as she finally approaches me. She kneels and ruffles my ears. “This is great, thank you,” she whispers. The jukebox kicks on a heavy metal riff and emo lyrics about how life is so much better with love.
“Pizza’s up!” Chris announces. He places the food on the table. Gabriella takes her seat with me in the opposite chair. She smiles at the pizza.
“Oh, Chris used fresh pineapple… And he left the skin on it,” she observes. I brace myself for a sour note to our evening. But my beautiful love simply snickers and looks over her shoulder at Chris. “Thanks, Chris! Could I get a knife please?”
That's my girl.
18
GABRIELLA
As I walk to the cafe this morning, a leopard shifter named Lance waves in my direction. I stop and look behind me. When I see no one is there, I wave back, wondering why he would gesture to me.
The next person, er, monster I pass is a pieced-together corpse, a Franken-person, and they also wave in my direction. I spin around to see if they are waving at someone or thing behind me, and when I know no one is there, I wave to the franken-creature.
A smile bursts over my face as happiness blooms in my chest. People and things and monsters are starting to see me as one of their own. The last few weeks have been amazing.
Chet tries to introduce me to everyone we come across, and I’ve even found new places to go in the community. For instance, I’ll be helping Mrs. Murphy with baking for the yearly town festival, and I’ve also been working with the mayor to plan the event.
I open the door to my cafe and sigh. My cafe. That has an amazing ring to it. Even better, the townspeople accepted me for me instead of me having to conform to their ways.
Granted, I’ve put a few cobwebs back in the corners, and the customers appreciated it, even though I don’t tell them they are fake. I flick on the lights and see that everything is ready to go. I only have to add the pastries to the counters.
While stocking the glass containers, I hear a little tingle of the doorbell. I look to see it’s Mrs. Murphy ambling with bags of cooking supplies piled high in her arms. The pile is so high she can't see around her, and I cannot see her face. “Hey, there, Gabriella!” she calls through the bags. I rush over to help her and take the first, then the second, bag out of her hands.
“Thank you so much for your help teaching me how to make treats the town will love, Mrs. Murphy. I’m very excited.” I walk around the counter and start pulling the items out of the bags refraining from telling Mrs. Murphy that I do own a cafe, I do have supplies, and that she didn’t have to carry all the bags into the cafe at once. I also don’t remind her that my cafe opens in twenty minutes, and cooking and baking together will be hard if I’m serving customers.
It may sound silly, but she’s been very sweet about helping me integrate into the town and is pretty sensitive. I don’t want to upset her.
I decided not to open the cafe this morning, at least until things are in the oven. Plus, it’s a Tuesday morning, so I don’t get that busy until lunchtime anyway. I keep theOpensign off, but the door is unlocked if anyone wants coffee or hot mud.
I drop the first item on the counter when I pull it out of the bag. They are frozen bats. “Uh, Mrs. Murphy? You want to cook some bats for the festival?”
She shuffles over to me, and her brown hand squeezes mine. “Yes, it’s a family recipe. I’ll teach it to you so your kids will know what good cooking tastes like.” I blush when I hear about Chet and me having children.
The idea has slightly crossed my mind, but it isn’t time to think about that right now, but I guess the townspeople will be thinking about it for us. I giggle and ignore that she said I didn’t know how to feed hypothetical children with good food. I pat her hand and say, “Thank you. I look forward to learning how to… Oh, what do you make with a bat?”
Her bushy brows knit together. “You’ve never grilled a bat, girly?”
I shake my head. “No, I’ve grilled steak and burgers —”
