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Jonathan rolls his eyes. “Of course we will.”
“Look, he’s a cat. He’s a rescue cat. Cats don’t understand how cars work. We’ve just taken him to the other side of the country to a house he’s never been in. We don’t want to stress him out.”
“So, what do we do?”
I try to remember what the shelter told me. “We need to close all the doors to limit the space and make sure he can see where his things are. And maybe we can put my T-shirt in front of his carrier, so he’s got like a familiar smell to come out to.”
After yesterday’s impromptu de-shirting, Jonathan goes upstairs and grabs me a new T-shirt without being asked. This one’s from Disney World and has Grumpy fromSnow White and the Seven Dwarveson it.
“Jonathan,” I ask, “why is your entire wardrobe dark suits and souvenir T-shirts?”
He glowers. “I have the suits because I buy them for work, and I have the T-shirts because other people buy them for me as a joke.”
“Who’s buying you joke T-shirts?”
“People with no idea what else to get me.”
To be fair, I wouldn’t know what to get him either. He doesn’t seem to like anything except money, and he’s already got a lot of that.
Once I’ve changed tops, Jonathan puts the one I was wearing down in front of the cat carrier and then angles it so Gollum has a nice view of the scratching post. Then he unlatches the door and, like that one act filled the non-work part of his brain past capacity, walks away to check his messages.
I crawl down the sofa in my blanket cloud to make sure Gollum can see me when he comes out. When I first brought him home, he was so traumatised he lived behind the washing machine for three days. This time, though, he sticks out his head, completely ignores my T-shirt, the scratching post, and me, and beelines straight for Jonathan, who’s standing staring at his phone with the total absorption of a workaholic or a teenager.
Gollum starts rubbing himself all over Jonathan’s legs.
Jonathan looks down in a bit of a panic. “What’s it doing?”
“Scent marking. He owns you now.”
“He does not.”
“You’ll have to take that up with him.”
“Ow.” Gollum’s gone up on his hind legs and is enthusiastically climbing Jonathan’s trousers. “What’s it doing this time?”
“It means he likes you.” I’ve no idea if that’s true, but it seems like a reassuring thing to say.
Jonathan shakes his leg very gently but realises he probably doesn’t want to punt my cat across the room. “Can you make it stop?”
“Liking you?” I ask. “Give him time. He’ll work it out.”
“Seriously. He’s damaging my trousers. Can you move him?”
“Sorry.” I hold up my hands. “You’ve instructed me to rest.”
“Sam”—he does his best to sound forceful even though there’s a cat glommed onto his shin—“you’re not amusing.”
“I think I am actually. I’m getting this sense that I’m a very amusing person. In general like.”
“I’ve met you and you’re not. You’re just annoying. Now please move the cat.”
I get up and move the cat. At least, I try to but he’s not having it. The moment I pull him away from Jonathan he starts making these sad why-must-you-ruin-my-life sounds.
Jonathan glares at me over a ball of feline tragedy. “What…what’s wrong with him?”
“I think you’ve hurt his feelings.” I hold Gollum out and he hangs there like a wet dishcloth. “You see? Look at his little face.”
Jonathan does, in fact, look at his little face. Then he looks at my little face and I’m not sure which of them he likes less. In fact, I can’t read his expression at all. Very occasionally—when he’s not haranguing yez or interfering in things that don’t concern him—he’s almost a good-looking man. If you like ’em sour and interesting. Which I didn’t think I did.
