Gabriel starts laughing. “Honey… there’s a tobacco store in the shopping center. I don’t like the smell of tobacco. Can you make them leave?”
“I didn’t buy the damn shopping center!”
“Ooh, there’s a chocolate shop. Do you think now that we own them, I can coerce them into giving me discounts on chocolate? Or evenfreechocolate?”
“I didn’t buy the shopping center, and even if I had, I definitely wouldn’t be running it like some freaking mafia member!”
“I think I’d look cute in a fedora,” he says.
“I’m never buying you anything ever again.”
Gabriel gives me a mocking look of surprise. “NO! My love, you’re like Santa. I’ve always thought Santa was a bit sexy in a ‘grandpa I’d like to fuck’ way.”
“I’m never going to live this down. I should never have shown you the house. That’s it, I’m selling it.”
Gabriel gasps and even hisgaspis sarcastic. “You can’t sell it! I already envisioned us having our mobster meetings in the living room!”
“Why are we in the mob now?”
“Because we’re going to buy up the whole city and make them give us discounts. You’ll be the brawnandthe brain and I’ll just be the sugar baby.”
I raise an eyebrow. “You are a pain in my ass and I’m going in this place alone.”
I hurry out, but Gabriel quickly catches up to me before hesitating when he sees where we are. “Oh my god… you’re taking me to a cat café? I’ve always wanted to go to one of these. This is so romantic.”
“Good, it definitely was my idea and my idea only. Matthew’s stupid idea was to buy the house,” I say, irritated that Matthew was right. Really, who even needs him? He’s pretty much just a waste of space like the rest of the humans—besides Gabriel, of course.
I hold the door open for Gabriel as he grins at me, feasting on my suffering.
Just inside, a woman wearing cat ears smiles at me, and I can already tell this interaction is going to be atrocious. “Goodmorning. I hope you’re ready for apuuuurrrfectday!”
Shoot me now.
“We want to stare at the Felis catus,” I say.
“How long would mew like to play in the cat room?”
Fucking hellllll.
“Do you have like a two-minute option? Even that’s pushing it. Thirty seconds tops?” I ask.
“An hour, please,” Gabriel says, sounding far too excited.
The woman gives him two thumbs up as I wonder what would possess her to enjoy her job this much. “I would also like you to know that all of the cats are from local shelters and everysingle one of them is waiting for theirfurrrrrrever home! Here’s a little bio sheet!” When I try not to take it, she forces it into my hand.
“So these are the unwanted ones, I see,” I say.
Gabriel gives me a look and I just smile charmingly at him while I pay for an hour of feline torture as if we can’t stare at Lucy Fur for free. But Gabriel isthrilled,and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. He’s like a little kid as he rushes into the room and looks around at the cats in various stages of napping. He quickly picks up a wand, and a lanky adolescent with black fur stands up and stretches before trotting over.
“Oh my god, this is so fun,” he enthuses as the cats begin to wander over to see what he’s up to.
As I sit down and watch, I realize that I could sit here all day just to enjoy the happiness on his face. It makes everything worth it… even letting Matthew be right for the first time in his miserable life.
“Come sit down here and play,” Gabriel says to me as he reaches over to one cat that clearly has absolutely no interest in getting out of its bed. Its face is so flat and scrunched up, it looks like it ran into a wall. It’s been shaved, probably to rid it of mats a former owner had neglected, so now its fur looks hideous with only tufts of hair around its head, feet, and the very end of its tail. It snubs its nose—like Gabriel’s touch could possibly not be the best thing on the planet—and twitches its tail in irritation, so Gabriel moves away from it.
“Oh, I’m enjoying every minute of watching,” I say, but he pats the ground until I submit and slide onto the ground next to him. He hands me a wand and urges me to play.
The cats ignore me as one climbs onto Gabriel’s lap, another rubs on him, and two more chase his wand.