Page 16 of Ink & Snow
“Good morning,” he said, bright smile stretching on his face.
“Hi. How’s the hand?”
He lifted the appendage in question. “Ah. It hurts, but Dr. Ben gave me some Ibuprofen when he changed my bandages this morning.”
“Did he? How nice of him.” I scrambled down and put the wreaths on the display table.
Amory looked up at the ones I’d hung. “These’re nice. For this Sunday?”
“Yeah. The sheriff mentioned it.”
Amory nodded. “Right. Did Dwayne check in on you again?”
“No. I wanted to make a fire this morning, found a kitten outside. I wanted to just drop her off at the vet, but it turned into this whole elaborate production.”
Amory’s eyes widened. “You got a baby kitten?”
“No. I found a baby kitten and am holding on to her for the time being until the vet finds someone who can take her off my hands.”
“Aww! And of course the one day I don’t stop by the café, this happens. Where is she? What’s her name? Can I see her?”
I smiled. “Since you’re asking and not breaking and entering this time. She’s called Cherry, which is short for Cherry Pie because everyone loves that, and I put her in a moving box upstairs.”
Amory looked shocked. “You put her in a box? You put a baby kitten in a box? Like Schrödinger’s cat?”
He was already halfway to the stairs, so I followed. “No. Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment to explain one aspect of the nature of quanta. It isn’t and never was an actual cat.”
Amory snorted as I followed him upstairs. “And you are lecturing me?”
“Yes, because you’re accusing me of saving a cat only to then put her in a box with poison. I would never.”
He walked into the apartment, looking around. I pointed at the box, and as if on cue, Cherry meowed. Amory cooed in response and tiptoed over to the box by the radiator under the windows overlooking the yard behind the building.
Inside, a black ball of fur was moving around and staring up at us with eyes still mostly blue but with hues of marigold showing through. She meowed again.
“Is she hungry? Do we need to feed her? Oh my god, she is so cute.”
Amory reached out to touch the cat with his bandaged hand, and I caught it by the wrist.
“Careful. I don’t know that she has no diseases, though Duncan said he didn’t think so. I don’t want your cut to get infected.”
Amory smiled at me fondly. “For your information, Ben just gave me a tetanus booster, and doing what I do, I’m pretty caught up on all my vaccinations. And, uh, PrEP. I’m also on that. You sometimes accidentally hit yourself in the finger and, well, I figured I might as well, you know.”
It was difficult not to at least leer a little at him. He still had his jacket on, and all I could think about was getting that off him for some reason. Had to be neediness of the carnal type. Or rabies, courtesy of Cherry.
“Are you giving me the green light to ask you if you’re down to fuck, Amory?”
He turned crimson, the shade clashing with his damn pom pom. “No, I didn’t say that.” He pointed. “Plus, the baby is hungry.”
“The vet fed her. She’s not due for another feeding yet.”
“You sure?”
His warm breath tickled my cheek. I drifted closer, he didn’t pull back. I wanted to move a lot closer still but didn’t want to risk scaring him off entirely.
“I’m very sure.”
“Then she wants to cuddle.”
