Page 92 of Hey, Daddy

Then again, there’d been so many things happen that maybe I hadn’t had time to process it.

Butters still weighed heavy on my mind, but so did Daniil and John.

John was very dead, and that wasn’t going to change.

But every day that Shasha said Daniil lived, was another day that my heart got a little bit better.

Daniil was nowhere near out of the woods yet, but his prognosis was better every day—he was all there, mentally, despite taking a gunshot wound to the head. His heart and chest were also okay from taking a gunshot wound to the chest.

Needless to say, he had a very long road ahead of him, but the doctors were very happy with his progress and expected him to make a full recovery.

“Thank you,” I said. “My heart still aches.”

“It always will. Every time you think about him.” She patted my chest. “Want to come meet the cats? They’re on a terror today.”

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Wait, me, too!” Desi said. “I have a new rump wiggler to try out!”

We both laughed when she produced the cat bum that had a ‘tail’ that rotated around the fake cat butt.

It was cute, and probably a little bit tacky, but people didn’t care when it came to their pets.

The next few hours were spent testing out fourteen products.

Only four of them were awesome.

Seven were passable, and the rest might as well have been garbage.

After even Haze tried to make the last three work, we tossed them back in the box and played with what worked the best.

And surprisingly, the cat rump one was by far the best.

The kittens loved it.

They were everywhere, and my worry faded away in the hours that we played.

That, and I fell a little bit more in love with Desi.

It was everything.

I’m not demure. I have ADHD. Very forgetful. Very chaotic. Very anxious.

—Desi to Haze

HAZE

“I like her. A lot,” my mother said as she eyed the woman that I knew, after today, I was going to fight hard to make her my wife.

“I do, too,” Desi whispered.

“She’s great with the dogs,” my dad said.

I looked at my old man, who seemed to have aged in the week that I’d seen him, and said, “That’s a pretty big compliment coming from you.”

He grinned.

Dad was a vet.