Page 45 of The Unhinged Christmas of a Cat Lady
I blink.
She lifts the tray sheepishly. “The kittens have worked out how to jailbreak. If I don’t block the gap at the bottom of the door, they do this weird little pincer move and shoot out like furry missiles.”
I glance at the door. Then the tray. Then her.
“You’re building a metal barricade.”
“It works,” she says defensively. “Usually.”
I nod. “Inventive. I’m impressed.”
“I’m surviving,” she mutters, crouching to reposition the tray. “Barely.”
“You could’ve just asked for help, you know.”
She glances up, surprised. “With the kittens?”
I nod, stepping closer, hands still in my coat pockets. “I could look into something. A proper barrier or… whatever would stop the Great Escape.”
She gives a quiet laugh. “It’s not really something you should have to worry about. As a landlord.”
The word lands awkwardly between us. Precise. Distant.
She straightens, brushing a curl out of her face. “Anyway—thanks again. For the lift.”
Then she opens the door just a crack, tray still braced in one hand. “No escaping,” she mutters firmly, addressing the chaos on the other side like a worn-out nanny.
I hear a tiny meow, a shuffle of paws, and then she slips inside, guiding the kittens back with a gentle nudge of the baking tray. The door shuts quickly behind her with a softclick.
Silence.
I stand there for a moment, staring at the now-closed door.
She’s right, of course.
Other landlords wouldn’t let her have pets at all. Especially not indoor kittens with a desire to roam free. They’d worry about scratched floors and lost deposits and carpets that smell faintly of cat biscuits.
But I’m not just any landlord.
And she’s not just a tenant.
Chapter twelve
I’ll Be Home for Gay Porn
Miranda
SJ’s off with his dad for the weekend. The kittens are snoring in their basket, their tiny bellies rising and falling in perfect synchrony.
And I’m on the sofa, yoga trousers around my ankles, a burnt-orange blanket trapped over my crotch, and a very expensive, highly rated, frankly overqualified vibrator humming away between my legs like it’s auditioning for an award.
The one with the lips. And the flicky bit.
It’s been twenty minutes.
Twenty. Full. Minutes.
The vibrator is warm to the touch now—not quite dangerously hot, but definitely the kind of heat that suggests it’s been doing overtime without a break. I even dug out that ridiculous bear-and-twink porn from the deepest depths of the internet, the one with far too much oil and entirely too much chest hair, just to give my brain something to bounce off.
