Except cats couldn’t read minds, of course.
He stopped and glared at the thing. “What the hell do you want.”
Not really a question, as he didn’t care to give the feline an opening.
One black paw lifted and then …
Next thing he knew, the goddamn cat was leaping into his arms, rolling over onto its back … and purring like a Ferrari.
“Are you fucking kidding me,” he muttered. “I don’t like you. Goddamn it.”
“Master, what may I get for you?”
As Fritz, the ancient doggen butler, got up in his face big as a billboard, iAm took a moment to dial back to his happy place. Which, unfortunately, looked a lot like a Saw movie—the body parts of others all over everywhere.
But that was just a stress-induced fantasy. Like, he could remember once, a loooooong time ago, he hadn’t been bitched about everything and everybody. Really. It was true.
Paw, paw, paw. On his shirt.
“Fucking hell.” He gave in and rubbed that black belly. “And no, I don’t need anything.”
The purring got so loud, he had to lean in to the butler. “What did you say?”
“I’m happy to oblige whatever you require.”
“Yeah. I know. But I’m going to take care of my brother. No one else. Are we clear.”
The cat was now rubbing its head into his pec. Then stretching up into the itching.
Oh, God, this was awful—especially as the butler’s already droopy face sagged down to what were no doubt knobby knees.
“Ah, shit, Fritz—”
“Is he ill?”
iAm closed his eyes briefly as the female voice registered. Fantastic. Another party heard from.
“He’s fine,” iAm said without looking at the Chosen Selena.
Leaving the kibitzers in the dust, he went into the pantry with the freeloading cat and …
Right. How was he going to get the load of post-migraine recovery rations down from the shelves with his arms full of—
What was its name?
Fine. It was Goddamn Cat, then.
Looking down into those wide, contented eyes, iAm thinned his lips as he rubbed under its chin. Behind an ear.
“Okay, enough with this.” He played with one of the paws. “I gotta put you down now.”
Assuming control, he took the cat out of its recline and went to put it down on the—
Somehow the thing managed to claw its way into the very fibers of his fleece and hang off the front of him like a tie.
“Are you kidding me.”
More purring. A blink of those luminous eyes. An expression of self-possession that iAm took to mean this interaction was going to go the cat’s way—and no one else’s.
“Mayhap I shall help?” Selena asked softly.
iAm bit out a curse and glared at the cat. Then at the Chosen. But short of taking off his pullover? Goddamn Cat was sticking with him.
“I need some of those Milanos up there?” The Chosen reached up and took a bag from the Pepperidge Farm munchie department. “And he’s going to need some of those tortilla chips.”
“Plain or the lime flavor?”
“Plain.” iAm gave up the ghost and resumed servicing Goddamn—and the cat immediately went into full La-Z-Boy again. “He’s going to want one of the Entenmann’s pound cakes. And we’re going to bring him three ice-cold Cokes, two big Poland Springs, room temperature, and a partridge in a pear tree.”
After one of his headaches, Trez wanted hydration, glucose, and caffeine. Made sense. Twelve hours of no food was bad news. And then there was the heaving he got to party down with.
Five minutes later, he and the Chosen and Goddamn Cat were heading for the third floor. And at least iAm managed to help with things by tucking the long water bottles under his pits. Fritz had also provided one of those handled Whole Foods bags for the rest of it.
Christ, he would have infinitely preferred to make this trip by himself.
“He likes you very much,” the female commented as they ascended.
“He’s my brother. He’d better.”
“Oh, no—I meant the cat. Boo adores you.”
“The feeling is not mutual.”
iAm had every intention of hitting the female with an “I got this” when they finally showed up at the bedroom door—but Goddamn still wasn’t going anywhere.
Which was how the Chosen Selena ended up in Trez’s crib.
Exactly what the situation did not need.
Thank you, cat.
As the door was swung wide, light sliced in, and as luck would have it, the shit spotlit Trez as that big, ugly lug shot up.
Someone had caught the female’s scent.
Oh, FFS.
And P.S., why couldn’t the fucker look worse? His brother should be roadkill nasty after the way he’d spent the daylight hours.
“Where shall I set this?” the Chosen asked either or both of them.
“Over on the desk,” iAm muttered. It was the farthest point away from the bed—
“Leave us,” came a grunt from the patient.
Okay, thank God Trez was finally having a moment of clarity. The Chosen could keep going about her business, and he and his brother could try the whole come-to-Jesus thing again …
iAm became aware that no one was moving. Trez, however, was still upright and the Chosen was deer-in-headlights frozen. And they both were looking at him.
“What?” he said.
When light dawned on Marblehead, iAm narrowed his eyes at his brother. “Are you serious.”
“Leave us,” was all the bastard said again.
Goddamn Cat stopped purring in his arms, as if the animal knew that bad juju was flooding into the room.
But here was the thing: You couldn’t deal with stupid—and iAm was just about ready to stop trying.
Turning to the Chosen, he said in a low voice, “Watch yourself.”
On that note, he took Goddamn and his own sorry ass out of there.
No doubt for the best. He was feeling like going Wrath on his brother, and nothing good was going to come of that.
Striding to the stairs, he retraced his steps. Sometime along the way, he got to tending to the animal in his arms again, fingertips finding that chin and settling into a tight circular stroke.
Back down in the kitchen, which was now full of staff on shift once again, it was time to part company with his shadow.
“Fritz.”