Page 29 of Betting on the Brainiac

“Maybe she’s saying she wants to feed them,” I suggest when I see some sleepy wiggling.

“Do I just put them down?” Madison asks.

“Maybe?” I glance around, then pull her towel out of the gym bag. It’s wedged in, and when I tug it out, a teal thong flies loose and lands on Madison’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

She glances down at it. “Not where I usually wear my underwear.”

This makes me think about where she does wear her underwear, which makes me tell myself to stop thinking about underwear.

“Let me see if the mama cat will lay down on this towel to feed them.” I arrange it into a nest and give her a soft “Here, kitty, kitty” as I pick her up and rest her on the towel. She sits, her eyes not moving from the kittens.

“What’s supposed to happen?” Madison asks.

“I thought she would lie down.”

Madison sighs. “I have to put down the babies, don’t I?”

“You can do it,” I tell her. “I have faith in you.”

“It’s just that I love them with my whole heart, and I never want to be parted from them.”

I reach over and rest a hand on her shoulder, looking deeply into her eyes. “I’m right here, ready to be your emotional support human. But let’s not let the kittens starve.”

Her lips quirk. “When you put it that way . . .”

“Permission to take a kitten?”

“Just know you’re tearing away part of my soul.”

“Got it.” I scoop one of the babies from her arms and set it down by the mama cat. The mama cat lies down, and I scoot thebaby all the way up to her belly. The baby does some jerky head wobbling while it roots before little sucking noises start.

Madison’s eyes meet mine. “Is it me or is that big-headed baby cat making slurping noises so cute you want to die?”

“I don’t want to die, but that’s cute.”

“Like you almost can’t stand it cute?” she asks.

“Yeah.” Also so cute I can barely stand it? Madison. Madison with her big eyes full of wonder, her face soft as she watches the babies. This is not good for me at all, but a wrecking ball couldn’t move me from this spot.

I take two more and set them by the mama, and Madison moves the last kitten.

She grins. “That is a writhing mass of fur and weird noises, and it’s way more adorable than it should be for anything you could describe as writhing.”

Also not good for me: Madison using the word “writhing.”

This is ridiculous. Maybe I’m having a strong reaction to her because I’ve siloed her as off-limits in my head, and now I’m the victim of my own reverse psychology. It’s possible. I’ve never made a woman off-limits before because I’ve never been on such a high-stakes deadline before. Maybe I’m dumb enough to have made her harder to resist.

I have to think this through later, when I’m not catching that faint caramel scent. When that’s in play, I don’t think any logical thoughts.

“How long do they eat? And how often? And is the mama cat okay here?” Madison asks. “Do we need to take her to the vet, or let her go outside so she can get food? Wait, no, you can buy cat food. What kind do we get her? Do you know what breed she is? Does she need a specific kind of food for her breed?”

Right now, in this moment, Madison is not cool. Not even remotely. I’m so into it that it’s not even funny.

It’s really not. This is going to be trouble.

“I’ll google some more,” I say, “but you know Google is either going to give five hundred conflicting opinions or the most overcautious advice that only truly neurotic people can think of.”

“You google, I’m calling Mrs. Lipsky.”

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