Working Stiff(71)

“And you never know what’s going to make those repressed types snap,” Arthur said. “Roxanne here might bend over at a most inopportune time while we were in the animal shelter, and bam! Father Maxence would be all over her ass like a bull elephant in musth.”

Rox turned around, her hands on her hips. “Could you guys try to treat me like a human being and not a walking vagina?”

Cash cracked up, and Arthur raised his hands helplessly. He stage-whispered, “I’m trying to make a point, here.”

“Come with us to the animal shelter, Cash.” Rox smiled at him. “Please.”

Cash’s smile turned sheepish, and he looked away and back at her. “Oh, all right.”





KITTEN SOCIALIZERS





“Hey, Brandy! I’m here!” Rox called as she walked into the lobby of the animal shelter.

They had stopped at the big box store on the way to buy supplies. Arthur and Maxence pretended that they had seen such a store before, as they were worldly cosmopolitans who had seen everything from every walk of life, but they examined the enormous boxes of dishwashing soap with a little too much genuine shock.

Rox hoisted a thirty-pound bag of cat kibble onto the counter and yelled, “We brought dog and cat food!”

“About time you showed up. Why haven’t you called me back?” Brandy turned the corner at a trot and skidded to a stop, staring at the men. “Well, hello.”

Rox said, “And I brought you some fresh meat, too.”

“You sure did.” Brandy took off the stained apron she was wearing, and Rox noticed that she sucked in her slim waistline and thrust out her small boobs.

Rox gestured. “This is Cash, the guy who’s been letting the motley crew and me live with him for a while.”

Brandy stared at Cash, taking in his bright green eyes, muscular chest, and tight waist, and turned to Rox. “Okay, now I get it.”

She rolled her eyes. “And these are two of his old school friends who are visiting, Arthur and Maxence.”

Lines of mock pain gathered between Arthur’s eyes. “Everyone keeps using this ‘old’ word. It’s most distressing.”

Brandy batted her thick eyelashes at them. “Hello, boys. You’re here to volunteer?”

“Yeah,” Rox said. “I told them they could socialize the kittens.”

“Are they coming back next week?” Brandy asked, smiling and sucking on her finger at Maxence, who smiled serenely, seeming to not notice the blatant sexual innuendo.

“I don’t think so. Are you guys staying that long?”

Maxence shrugged.

Arthur said, “Probably not. I imagine we’ll be back home by then, depending on circumstances.”

Brandy stopped smiling. “Then you boys can hose down the dogs’ pens. Kitten socializing is for people I can count on to be here every week.”

After the three guys had cleaned the dog pens and scrubbed a bunch of cat boxes, Brandy finally relented and let them socialize the kittens.

When Rox came to check on them, Arthur was sitting on the floor, flinching and giggling as two tiny balls of fluff used their needle-like claws to climb his shirt. When one reached his shoulder, he plucked it off and set it in his lap to scale him again.

Maxence was sitting on a steel table, swinging his long legs and using one finger to stroke the tiny skull of a very young kitten who was apparently in a coma in his other hand. He had taken off his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, baring his thickly muscled forearms.

A tattoo of three shields, arranged around a Celtic triangle knot, inked his right forearm, just like the one on Cash’s right arm. On Maxence’s tattoo, however, the red and white diamond checkerboard pattern pointed toward his wrist.

Cash was sitting on the other side of the room. An adult gray cat was sitting on his legs.

Wow, if Rox had had her phone out, she might have just had the most popular page on social media: three hot guys with kittens.

Cash lifted his finger to his lips, though he was smiling, and his emerald green eyes were laughing. The bandage on his face wrinkled when he smiled.

The cat whipped around to look at Rox and crouched, skittish, but Cash whispered something to her, and she sat down and turned back to him.

Good Lord, that cat sitting on his lap was Fairy Dust, the cat whom no one else could touch and might be feral, the one who was slated to be a barn cat unless someone could get through to her. Her gray fur was matted and clumped from where she had been chewing it and pulling it out.

Cash held out his fingers to Fairy Dust. She sniffed them. The cat hesitated, watching him with wide eyes, and rubbed her cheek on his hand.

Rox tiptoed over to Cash and slid down the wall to sit next to him. He didn’t look at her, just kept his hand out for Fairy Dust.