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“I get what you mean, and I’ll be careful.” I don’t want her to be angry with me or to focus on all the negatives right now. I hold up the bag. “I brought some supplies, all freshly washed. Should I put them in the stockroom?”
“Yeah, sounds good.” Kat sets Tux on the floor. “Now tell me all about the party and exactly what happened with that baby raccoon.”
I fill Kat in on the party, and we make a plan to have dinner the following evening. Miles is away with the team for the next few days, and while I miss him, it’s not all bad. It means I can dedicate some time to my friends and my family, who haven’t been getting the attention they deserve lately.
Although I’ve noticed that my mom’s been making plans with friends more often and not sticking to the routine that we’ve followed for the past decade. Instead of watching the same old TV shows, I’ll put on the game in the evening while I tackle emails. And if my mom comes home in the middle of a period, she’ll join me.
They’re small things and little changes, but it gives me hope that if she can move forward with her life, I’ll be able to do the same.
It’s Saturday evening, a week after the Halloween party, and I’m staying the night at Miles’s place. It’s the first time I’ve seen him since he returned from the away games, and we’re ordering in because I don’t want to have to wait to climb him like a tree.
As soon as I’m in the door we’re on each other. He’s still wearing his suit, and I’m dressed in a pair of leggings and a comfy oversized sweater. I manage to get him out of his shirt without popping any buttons off. It’s a lot easier to get me naked.
We don’t make it past the living room couch. Wilfred disappears down the hall, likely into Miles’s bedroom, embarrassed by our nudity.
Forty-five minutes and a couple of orgasms later, we’re sitting on the couch, eating Chinese takeout straight from the box. Wilfred is standing close by, giving us sad eyes, clearly hopeful that we’ll miss our mouths at some point.
“You know what might be good for your social?” Miles has been scrolling through the recent posts.
Since the party, I’ve gained even more followers, which is mostly great. My sister checks the comments now, so I don’t have to see the hurtful things people like to say. Even though I’m back to posting my normal cat videos, a few icky responses inevitably show up on my posts and reels.
“What’s that?” I’m wary about his response. Miles is very pragmatic about social media and considers it a tool, and sometimes a necessary evil.
“Video Q&As.”
“Answering questions about the kinds of services I offer to hockey players doesn’t sound like a good idea.”
Miles sets his takeout container on the coffee table and stretches his arm across the back of the couch. “I want to punch every douchebag who’s made a comment about that. What I mean is, there are a lot of people asking valid questions, like how you knew what to do with the raccoon.”
Every time I think about that, I imagine all the ways it could have gone very wrong. “I was flying by the seat of my pants. I just didn’t want the little guy to destroy their house. And it was my fault he got in in the first place.”
“You couldn’t have known that was going to happen. It was wildly unpredictable. And you were super badass. Maybe you were winging it, but there was intuition at work there. You had some idea what would be effective. You need to cut out the noise, Kitty.”
“How do you mean?”
Miles taps the back of the couch. “It’s like when Parker has a kick-ass game, the fans cheer him on, in the arena and on social media. But if he misses one? Everyone has an opinion, and social media is where they share it. When it’s good, it’s great, but when it’s bad . . . it can really mess with your head.”
I poke at my noodles. “But the jerks will keep commenting no matter what.”
“You’re right. They will. So when I say cut out the noise, Kitty, I just mean cut out the stuff that doesn’t matter, and that’s the negativity and the douchebags. When Parker has a bad game, we post videos of him working out, or at practice, or even at home, making a meal or hanging with his great-grandpa and that freaking cat with the buttons. It makes him a person, not just a player who’s at the whim of the fans. Combat the bullshit by doing what you do best, sharing your love of animals and how to care for them.”
