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“You’re talking to Mr. Skitters about love?”
Fuck.
“Uh… I made him chicken. I was making pancakes for when you woke up. Did I?—?”
“No,” she says. “I got cold, and then I couldn’t sleep because of reasons.”
“I think I might know a few those,” I say.
She shifts her eyebrows and rolls her lips together. “Uh, yeah.”
“Tea?”
“You never have coffee,” she says. “Are you out?”
“Yeah, something like that.”
“Tea would be great.”
I make her some and set it on the counter. Marci sandwiches the cup between her hands and watches me fill a bowl covered in paw prints with water. She laughs under her breath.
“You really want a cat,” she says. “I like that.”
“Cats were worshiped in Ancient Egypt. They used to mummify them so they’d join the pharaohs in the afterlife.”
“Yeah.”
“But I always wondered if they got to the other side and discovered that the cats were the ones in charge.”
I take the bowls and set them on the floor in the kitchen.
Mr. Skitters eyes me with suspicion and pads out of the living room and into the bedroom. I’ve left the bedroom window open a crack so he can get in and out.
“He’s not ready.”
Marci sounds disappointed.
“All in good time.”
I take the bowls out to the back porch. The air is crisp and salty, and I take a minute because I’m about to go back in there, make Marci pancakes, and talk to her about last night.
I want more of her. I want as much as she’ll give me. Fuck the rules.
If I can’t have Marci’s heart, I’ll have her body, her mind, and whatever she’ll offer me, for as long as she’ll give it. Even if it’s scraps.
I enter the kitchen and find her whisking the pancake batter.
“Hey,” I say. “I was making that for you.”
“You’ve done enough for me over the past twenty-four hours. And before that,” she says. “How about you take a seat, and I makeyoupancakes?”
“Angel.”
“I want to,” she says, smiling. “It will keep my hands busy.”
If that’s what she wants, I’m not going to take it away from her. I sit down on the stool and watch her move around the kitchen. She’s beautiful, even when she’s groggy.
“Why were you asking Mr. Skitters about love?” Marci asks, as she ladles batter into a pan on the stovetop.
