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‘Because I have to hold Mike Hunt.’ Chase jostles his cat as if I can’t see the hairless creature wearing a blue and white striped sailor sweater with a red bow tie collar.
The elderly women in front of us in the airport security line does a double take at our conversation. And the cat.
Reluctantly, I roll my brother’s carry-on full of sex toys forward. ‘You should have checked it.’
‘No way.’ Chase nudges his empty pet carrier forward with his foot, needing both hands to restrain his mutated sailor companion. ‘What if they lost it? Bell’s bachelorette party would be messed up a second time.’
‘And that’s a bad thing?’ We turn in the snake, heading back toward the ID check. ‘Why are you so set on Bell having a bachelorette party, anyway?’ He is weirdly obsessed with it, especially seeing as Bell said – multiple times – that she didn’t want one.
‘I’m going to ensure she has as close to her actual dream wedding as possible.’ Chase tries to guide the carrier with his foot again, but it gets caught on a divider pole. Sighing, I grab the handle and do it for him.
‘Why don’t you put him in the carrier?’
‘I’d just have to take him out to go through the metal detector.’ Mike tries to climb behind my brother’s head. ‘And I do not want to have that struggle twice.’ He shivers, pulling a very disgruntled feline closer to his chest.
I’m not sure if it’s the sweater or the chaos of air travel that’s upsetting him, but even I can tell the cat is not happy. ‘What do you mean about her dream wedding? All your Elvis-obsessed fiancée’s friends and family are flying to Vegas so your sacred union can be blessed by a polyester-wearing imposter.’ There’s no hiding my sarcasm. ‘Isn’t that dream enough?’
‘But that’s just it – it may be Bell and my friends, but it isn’t her family.’ He ducks Mike’s attempt to blind him. ‘She never said it, but I know she’s sad her parents won’t be there.’
That makes me feel like an ass. Bell’s parents died when she was in college. Having no fondness for our father and with our mother already coming, I hadn’t thought about Bell’s family.
‘Also, Leslie would’ve killed me if we didn’t have a party.’ He snorts. ‘Life is easier when she’s happy.’
‘I feel like you spend the majority of your time trying to make your life easier,’ I mutter, once more rolling the bag of penis party paraphernalia forward.
Chase frowns at me. ‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘Next.’ A TSA security guard motions us forward and I hand him my ID and ticket. Even with pre-check, the line at LaGuardia is long and slow. It’s like booking an appointment at the DMV. You think it’ll help, but it never does. I wanted to fly private, but Bell nixed the expense, especially with everyone flying at different times and some from different airports.
The woman in front of us walks to the left conveyor belt, so I move to the right, Chase following.
‘Mommy, mommy!’ A kid in front of me with tousled dark brown hair, jumps up and down pulling on his mother’s shirt.
After she’s loaded all of her and the boy’s bags onto the belt she shifts her lavender headscarf back into place and sighs down at her son. ‘Yes?’
I can feel the exhaustion pouring off her.
The kid points at Chase. ‘Look at the sick animal!’
‘He’s not sick.’ I glance back at my brother’s pet. Well, not sick in the medical sense of the word, at least.
At my voice the young boy’s head drops back, his joyous expression vanishing when his eyes reach mine.
‘He’s a sphynx.’ Chase steps between us and crouches down until he’s eye level with the kid. ‘Wanna pet him?’
I’m sure if the cat could talk, as my brother seems to think him capable, he would have something to say about his owner whoring him around. Instead, he burrows his face in Chase’s neck like an ostrich in the sand.
The kid’s eyes flick to mine once, as if to make sure I haven’t come closer, then widen at the cat. ‘Can I?’
‘Sure.’ With effort, Chase peels Mike off of him. ‘Go ahead.’
Slowly, as if petting a dangerous creature, the kid’s small hand reaches out, his eyes lighting up on contact. ‘Wow.’
‘Come on, Mehmed.’ His mother waves him forward toward the metal detector then smiles at Chase. ‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’ Chase remains smiling, but I catch the flinch when the cat’s claws dig back into his chest. Retaliation for the petting, no doubt. ‘Not too good with kids, are you?’
I hate when my brother asks questions he already knows the answer to.
