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“What should I say to this woman?”
Sasha sashays over, her head rubbing against my arm. Her fluffy tail twitches, knocking pages aside. I hurry to catch a check before it falls, and the sudden movement startles her. She hisses and bites my elbow.
I barely feel it through the lab coat, but I scoot her aside. “No, Sasha. No biting.”
She plunks down on her butt, unhappy at my tone. A plaintivemeeoooowfills the office.
I sigh. “Come here, then.” I pick her up and set her in the cradle of my arm. She tucks her head into my elbow as I stroke her back. After a moment, she pulls out and crawls up my arm onto my shoulder.
“You know, you won’t always be small enough to do that,” I tell her.
She digs in, her head against my neck.
At least I can type the email again. But what to say?
Maybe I should cut this off. I shouldn’t encourage her.
But Ensley is safely away, ensconced in another state entirely. The image of her returns, looking up at me on the cot. I can picture her body, almost feel it in my hands again.
Heat rises in me, words I’ve never said aloud forming in my head.
I start to type.
I picture you in my bed. No coveralls this time. But we can keep the rain. It will block out the world as I touch every part of you, learn exactly what makes you cry out. Can you scream? I bet so. I will find a way.
I stare at the words. Yeah, that’s about the heart of it. The sort of thing you might write a long-standing lover. Certainly not someone you mainly knew as a kid.
Time to delete it. I reach out to highlight the whole thing, planning to suggest she find a rescue kitten of her own. But a new incoming message makes my computer ding, and somewhere along the way of the cat tromping my keyboard, the volume has maxed out. The noise reverberates in the small space, startling me.
Sasha flies off my shoulder in fright, landing on my desk. Her back paws hit the keyboard, making it shift on the desk, knocking off more papers. She yowls and jumps away.
I try to grab her, but she shoots across the room. Thankfully, the door is closed so she can only huddle between the wall and a filing cabinet.
Another loudvroooshsound sends her scrambling farther back. Good grief. I punch the button to lower the volume, ignoring the new alert while I fetch the kitten. Something in the back of my mind sends alarm bells about the sound, but the kitten comes first.
I kneel on the floor, my hand outstretched. “Come on, take a good bite of my finger,” I tell her in low tones. “It’s your favorite thing to do.”
It takes a while, but eventually she does indeed latch on to my thumb, and I pull her out. I tuck her in my lab coat pocket, my hand petting the scruff of her neck as I return to my desk. Time to close out the day. Ensley can wait. I’m done.
I’m about to shut down my emails when I notice my draft message is no longer on the screen.
Realization starts to dawn as I scan the icons, looking for where it has been minimized. It’s nowhere.
Oh no.
Ensley’s message to me has an upturned arrow beside it, signaling that I have replied to it.
No, no.
I hold my breath as I switch to my outgoing folder.
And there it is. My dirty, dirty email.
Messagesent.
Chapter 11
ENSLEY
