Page 21 of Waiting Game

I sniff. “I’m out of the playoffs?—”

“You were robbed, I’m sure.”

Nodding, I concur, “I was. But I wouldn’t have won anyway. The Blue Demons aren’t as good as the Stars. If they don’t win the Stanley Cup, I’ll swear off my weekly panacea.”

“Your weekly what now?”

“Panacea.”

“Panacea,” she repeats. “Wait, you mean the pizza?”

“Oh, yeah. I’m being generous tonight. I’m sharing so I’m being screwed out of four slices of paradise. You’ve no idea how much of a sacrifice this is,” I inform her sorrowfully. “But I’ll take one for the team.”

She outright chuckles. “It’s the hockey player in you.”

“Sure is.” I wink at her then jolt when something fluffy scratches my calf.

Mia peeks at my feet the same time I do. “Meet Cubert.”

My brows lift. “Cubert?”

“Cubert the Cuntie.”

I snort. “The cuntie?!”

“What? He’s an asshole.”

“But he’s so fluffy!”

“And his fluffiness means he lacks the motor skills required to be a complete and utter asshole?”

Cubert has a black nose while the rest of him is pure white fluff. Honestly, he looks like he’s been sniffing around tar and got stained for the rest of his life…

The thought makes something click in my head—the tarot card tattoo on her forearm. The cat on it was white with a black nose. The same cat?

He meows at me, which has Mia shaking her head. “Don’t feed him. He’ll bite you.”

“Sorry, dude,” I inform him. “You’ve been branded a biter. No ham for you.”

“He’s worse than a biter, I can assure you. Don’t even get me started on how he acts with the others,” she grumbles, wincing when Cubert decides to play with the leg of the stool she’s sitting on and scratches her with every pass.

“You said ‘others?’ How many do you have?”

“Five.” She shrugs at my whistle. “They found me. What was I supposed to do? Get lost?”

Little hearts pop into being around my head at her admission. This is a cartoon-esque tumble into catching feelings.

It takes a special kind of person to bring in strays with all their illnesses, feralness, and foibles—I’d know, my mum used to do it all the time pre-divorce.

“So, five?”

“Yup. Casper the Charming, Chloe the Cheeky, Curtis the Cunning, Cupid the Cutie, and Cubert the Cuntie.”

“You’re weird.” So weird.

‘I should buy her an engagement ring immediately’weird.

“They live up to their reps,” she dismisses unapologetically.

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