Page 96 of It's Always Sonny

And he’s still here.

Of course he’s still here. Where else would he go? He has no clothes, he doesn’t know the farm, it’s sub-freezing, and this is his only shelter. Don’t flatter yourself.

Oh, shut up, I tell myself.

Shoot, fighting with myself has made me miss something. They’re talking about pets. Bulldog just got a cat, and now Sonny is teasing him for not getting a dog when that’s in his “literal, actual name.”

“You know it doesn’t say Bulldog on my birth certificate, right man?” Bulldog says.

“Well, it sure doesn’t say Catman,” Sonny says.

The hosts laugh. “What do you have against cats, Sonny?”

“Are you kidding me?” Sonny’s voice crackles with energy. He’s so witty, so dazzlingly funny and charismatic, even if I hated him, I couldn’t stop listening to him.

I don’t hate him.

Not even close.

“Let me tell you something about cats. You know how people say, ‘I can’t even?’ They learned that from cats. Cats don’t take crap from anybody. Cats will jump on your face in the middle of the night and then vanish just to make sure you know they own you, not the other way around. Cats get mad at you for being on your own lawn. Cats will look you straight in the eye, knock your coffee off the table, and then jump in your lap to make you pick between saving your rug or a cuddle. And they know you’ll choose the cuddle.” Jimmy, Bulldog, and their producers are in hysterics. This is the time for Sonny to kick it up a notch. His ability to read energy is even more supernatural than his ability to make a play on the field. “You want to know about cats? Cats are that guy at the party who’ll double dip a chip right in front of your face and dare you to do something about it. Cats are that guy playing Candy Crush with the sound on during a movie but who snaps at you for whispering to your friend. Cats will stand still in the middle of the airport moving walkway just so you can’t pass, no matter how late you are for your flight.”

“So—” Bulldog is wheezing with laughter. He can hardly get the words out. “So I guess this is your way of telling us you’re a dog person?”

“What? No way, brother. I’m a cat man, through and through.”

The hosts absolutely howl with laughter.

“I went over to my brother’s house when he wasn’t there. I’d never met his dog, and you know what that dog did the second I saw it? It rolled over. Are you kidding me? I could have been an intruder, and it’s showing me its belly? Come on. Have some self-respect, there, killer.” Even I laugh at this. “But with cats, sure, they’ll make you work for it, but once a cat loves you, you know you earned that.” Sonny pauses, and when he speaks again, his voice isn’t as slapstick-y. “Cats will mess with you, not because they don’t love you, but because they need to know that you love them. Unconditionally. They’ll test and test you, and yeah, you gotta prove yourself a little, but it’s worth it.”

“That doesn’t sound worth it,” Jimmy laughs.

“Of course it doesn’t to you. You’re a dog man. You want someone to go, I don’t know, duck hunting with. You want something that shows you its belly.”

Jimmy laughs. “You’re not doing a good job of selling dogs or cats here, Sonny.”

Sonny’s voice is wry, but it’s not his usual show-time voice. This one is more intimate. “That’s okay, Jimmy. I’m not the ASPCA. I don’t need to sell anyone anything. All I know is that cats are cool as ice,” he says. “And let me tell you something: I like ice.”

I feel like I’ve stepped into an open flame.

Because he’s talking about me.

I am cool as ice, dang it.

And Sonny just might melt me.

Sonny comes back in the tent ten minutes later.

I laugh.

I was planning to pretend to be asleep, but he was catlike—HA!—as he entered, and I didn’t have time to put my phone down or get settled back into the mummy bag, which is as hot as a sauna after all night with Sonny.

“Looking good, Santino,” I say.

His clothes were too wet to put on, so he’s wearing mine. He’s wearing my parka backwards, meaning he stuck his arms through the armholes, but with the back of the coat at his front. The sleeves barely pass his elbows. He also has my wool beanie on his head, my sweatshirt wrapped around his waist to cover his butt, and the leggings I wore beneath my joggers are pulled up to his knees. Super stretch, indeed.

Don’t judge me for taking a picture.

“You’d better not show that to another living soul,” he says.

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