Page 105 of Talk Nerdy To Me
I slam the doors shut and hold them, a sound escaping me that I’ll be embarrassed about later…when my heart isn’t pounding in my throat.
“What?” Britt shouts as she jumps inside, hand over her heart.
“Someone fed Gizmo after midnight,” I tell her in a panic as the doors beside me rattle and I try holding them too, stretching myself across the front.
“What?” she asks, confused.
“There’s a fucking fed-after-midnight gremlin trapped in here!”
The doors in front of my knees start rattling, and I adjust again, wondering why there has to be so many damn cabinets and how the bastard is moving between them.
“I haven’t read anything that substantiated the existence of gremlins either,” Britt says slowly. “I find it improbable there’d be something like that in Banana’s playhouse.”
“Banana’s what?” I ask just as I hear something hiss above me.
A chill spreads down my spine as I slowly cut my gaze up toward the hairless, vicious creature there. The growing growl turns into a malicious rattle in its chest just before it spits out another hiss and makes a terrifying, warning noise, poised in the pounce position.
“Britt, run!” I shout as it lunges.
I dart out the door, and Britt shuts it behind me.
“She hates most people, but she’s just indifferent to me. I’ll be out in a minute,” she says from inside like it’s no big deal, as I lie in the hall floor, unaware that I’ve even fucking fallen until I feel a stabbing pain in my ankle that starts helping me piece the puzzle together.
“I think I just suffered an adrenaline black-out,” I say toward the door as I wince and push up to a sitting position.
The butler steps over my legs, smirking like a smug son of a bitch, as he walks back down the hallway to lurk some more.
A possessed cat with a playhouse inside a giant closet in a house that needs intercoms for better communication, since yelling is probably undignified.
Fucking. Rich. People.
Britt walks out just as I manage to get to my feet, and she shuts the door behind her.
“Sorry. I should have warned you,” she says with a slight grimace. “She’s a very selective sort of cat.”
“Is it a rich people thing to shave cats?” I ask her, watching as her brow furrows.
“No,” she decides to say as she walks away, not elaborating.
“Why do you have to feed her?” I ask as I follow.
“Because she’s indifferent to me,” she answers like that explains everything.
The creepy butler follows us to the door as Britt opens it, and he watches as we leave, exchanging dry, parting pleasantries with Britt like it’s a rehearsed line he can’t even muster up enthusiasm for.
She’s just as dry and dead in tone with him.
“My brother’s having this big fundraiser event in two months that I’m partially helping with. I know there’s a rule about not asking for a date too far in advance, but I didn’t know how far ahead you had bookings for the band. I was hoping you could be there if nothing is scheduled yet,” she says like she’s been working her way up to that.
I exhale heavily, scrubbing a hand over my face as I open the passenger side door of my truck for her.
I shut the door behind her, feeling her eyes on me as I hurry around to my side and climb in behind the wheel.
“Is the dress code black-tie?” I ask as I drive away from the intimidating house. “You haven’t ever seen me at any of the events Tag hosts, because black-tie things aren’t really in my comfort zone,” I confess, feeling a little like a dick.
“To be clear, you’re uncomfortable with the dress code and not the fact that I asked two months in advance?”
At my nod, she seems to relax. “Okay then.”
