Page 17 of sWitch

Mary Jane didn’t live in an apartment above the animal shelter where she worked for free room and board.

Mary Jane’s house didn’t smell like catnip and candle wax.

Mary Jane probably knew how to scissor just the right way with Remy. The thought had me wanting climb out my window and run away like one of the dogs when they escaped their crates downstairs. They always came back, though. We were nice to them. But that’s not the point.

What I needed to do was get Remy Monroe out of my brain. Remy and those two silver hoops on either side of their lower lip like vampire fangs, waiting to suck me dry of every thought, emotion, and feeling… Remy, with theirgood girlpraise and clipped tongue that slid up my thighs like they wanted to devour me like some depraved demon…

“Stop it, Fauna. Stop it,” I scolded myself out loud. Turnip wiggled in my arms and flopped onto my bed. Waffle and Pinecone jumped up to join him. I fell into a pile of stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows as the kittens curled up around my feet. Sleep was what I needed, especially after the fiasco at the game.

Why couldn’t my nemesis just leave me alone? Why couldn’t I ever find the right words to say until long after someone was mean to me? I wished I had the nerve to tell Prue and Chet and all of them to just go to hell. But no, I cowered under Trevor like some baby bird.

Remy looked disappointed, like she could tell I was weak, like that made her disgusted by me. Heck, I was disgusted by me. The fact that I was still dealing with this nonsense—and the way I’d made it ten times worse trying to fix it… Ugh, maybe Remy was right. I wasn’t a short skirt, long jacket, hair in a bun business woman. Remy was a stylish, cool, sexy drummer with quick humor and endless charm.

They made sense together.

I was a cat hair on my mismatched clothes, kitty-ear headphones, bright makeup-wearing, spineless crybaby. Remy probably had video game sex with me out of pity. Oh, God. What if she said something to someone? What if she told Trevor? I didn’t think she’d do that, but then again, it felt like there was no one I could trust anymore.

But if Remy hadn’t told anyone about our slushy encounter… I shivered at the memory. God, why did Trevor’s sister have to be so freaking irresistibly hot?

Pinecone and Waffles purred lightly as they slept by my ankles, but little Turnip pawed his way up to my pillow, curling into a little white-furred doughnut by my forehead. Just as he began to purr, I closed my eyes, holding my old ducky stuffed animal, and drifted into a fitful sleep.

Only the sounds of yapping pups greeted me in the morning. My weekly solo shift, and even though all I had to do was walk downstairs, I was still always late. I’d slept in, forgetting to set my alarm on my stupid little flip phone from the early 2000s.

“I’m getting your breakfast, Train Tracks, calm down!” I laughed as the giant boxer mix bounced around his crate. “Always so hungry.” Sitting his food bowl down, I smiled and gave his head a rub. “Walkies later, buddy.”

The dogs were fed, then the cats, before I transferred them all to play rooms and outdoor pens to stretch their legs. I threw a ball with the dogs, played feather wand with the cats—the whole time, my ears were muffled with my headphones as I listened to music and tried not to think about Remy.

Remy’s tattoos.

Remy’s muscular arms.

Remy’s undercut.

Remy’s easy way of making me laugh.

Remy calling megood girl…

This was stupid. Trevor would absolutely freak if he found out I had a crush on his twin. He couldn’t find out—no one could.I scooped a black kitten out of her crate and carried her around with me like a little parrot on my shoulder during my tasks. Her little claws dug into my shirt, but she didn’t meow. “You like the ride, Push Pin?”

After sweeping, I sat at the front desk, thumbing through missing pets posters to hang on the community board. My mind kept drifting to Remy even as Push Pin curled up under my ear and purred as she napped. Remy had a show coming up at the arcade in the mall.

I liked the arcade. It wouldn’t be weird if I was just…there…when her band played. Firing up the shelter’s dusty computer monitor, I checked adoption emails before scanning my personal emails.

One unread message from Trevor.

“Dinner at my parents’ next weekend?”

My heart sank and fluttered at the same time. Meeting the parents was nerve racking, but the possibility of seeing Remy made up for it…

“Ok, I’ll start planning my outfit. Any update on the dragon quest?” I hit send and waited a few moments. Trevor was in class, so I knew he was sitting in front of his laptop, bored, pretending to take notes. A new email pinged in my inbox.

“The red dragon doesn’t have the scroll, so it must be the green or blue one. Took me damn near forever to even catch the red guy. But I’ll keep trying tonight. Party? By the way, they make a thing called texting that you do on modern phones.”

I let out a disappointed sigh. How many hours had I logged trying to get this done? Knowing what was waiting at the end of the game… How many others had found it? If I could make it to the mysterious end of thevery not realgame, it could solve a lot of myvery realproblems.

“Emails are more romantic.” I hit send and shut down the monitor before going through my closing duties.

I marched back upstairs once the work day was done, Turnip and Pinecone twisting between my ankles while Waffles batted at the tassels on my couch. They meowed happily as I opened the stinky lid on their wet cat food—turkey delight—and fed them.

---