Page 37 of Betting on the Brainiac

Madison arrives twenty minutes later, and I hear her coo over the kittens before she comes to say hello to me.

“Hey,” she says.

I fight to keep my smile a normal size when I return hers.Be chill, Oliver. She doesn’t need another fanboy at Gatsby’s.

“When does the rest of the staff come in?” I ask. “It’s event setup day, right?”

She nods. “Around 3:00. Sorry for the inconvenience, but at least it’s only once a month.”

“Not a problem,” I say. “What’s the rescue situation?”

“No openings yet.” She slides into the booth across from me and scrubs her hands over her face, the first time I’ve seen how much this worries her. “I called them all before I left this morning to make sure, but no. Nothing so far.”

“I’ll take them with me. I can hang on to them until something opens up.” A few days ago, I might have hidden a sigh before offering, but maybe I am under the spell of the furballs. Or maybe I don’t like seeing Madison so stressed.

She props her chin on her hand and drums the tabletop a few times as her eyes wander around the club. Then she blinks and straightens. “I might have a better idea. You know the storage shed in the back? Next to the dumpster? I’m going to see if that might be a good place to put Tab and the babies.”

“That sounds like a band that sings kids songs.”

“It is. They’re dropping their first album soon. I’m their manager.”

I love how quick her mind is. “Cool, cool. What’s the first song I should keep an eye out for?”

“Itsy-Bitsy Spider Gets Squished.”

“Dark.”

“Itsy-Bitsy deserved it. No one invited her. Besides, it’s an emo band.”

“Not trying to be a bummer, but the kittens don’t come across as emo. I think it’s the fluffiness.”

She stands and waves off my concern. “I’m going to dress them all in wallet chains and leather cuffs.”

I can’t fight a grin at the idea of tiny leather kitten cuffs. “You’ve thought of everything.”

“Duh. Want to go on a field trip to the shed?”

No. I want Tab and the Babies to come to my house, but then I’ll never leave, and I’ll fall behind on this climate data integration tool. Failing that, I want Madison to have made the shed invitation with a slightly salacious second meaning.

I slide out of the booth. “I’ll chaperone your field trip.”

“We don’t use the shed,” Madison says as she grabs a key from the office wall. “It’s mainly for seasonal decorations and miscellaneous barware.”

If I ever thought about the shed, I’d describe it as small, but when I stand in front of it considering it for a cat habitat, it’s bigger than I’ve noticed before. A single bulb illuminates the six-by-eight-foot space, and everything inside is organized in labeled bins and stacked against the walls, leaving a four-by-six-foot area of open space in the center.

“What do you think?” Madison asks as she makes room for me to step inside.

I scan the stacks and look up at the light. “This could work. But we have to make sure Tabitha can get in and out, and I’ll see how easy it is to make that light motion-activated. Or if a cat could even set it off. I’ll rig a night vision camera too.”

“I don’t want it to be too noisy for her out here,” Madison says. “How about we do a sound check? I’ll go crank the PA system inside and you tell me if you can hear it out here with the door closed?”

“Will it scare the kittens since they’re inside?”

“Oh, right.” She bites her lip, thinking.

I’ve seen other people with this habit. But I’ve never wanted to reach over and run my thumb over that bottom lip to tease it loose and feel it against my skin.

“—the sound.”

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