“Oh, right. Come in,” she nodded me inside her messy house.
Kids screeched, running around like they owned the place.
“Back here,” she led me to a closed-in porch. “My cat got pregnant again and I can’t keep them. I want them gone, so you can have one for twenty bucks,” she explained, disappearing as she chased down a child.
I stepped into the room, looking around for the kittens.
It didn’t take me long to find them cuddled against their mother.
I smiled, crouching down.
One of the kittens pulled away from its mom, bouncing up to me and playfully trying to nip my fingers.
It was cute and unusually colored. Half of its face was orange with a black ear, while the opposite was true of the other side. Most of its body was a dark gray with black stripes. Hints of orange dotted the mostly dark color—one of its paws was completely orange and there was a white patch under its mouth and front paw.
“Hi cutie,” I reached out, letting it sniff me. “You wanna come home with me?” I asked, scratching behind its ear.
It rubbed its head against my hand, letting out a content purr.
I grabbed it up, cradling it against my neck. I didn’t need to play with any of the others. This one had chosen me.
I stood up, carrying the kitten and cooing at it like one would a baby, and went in search of the woman.
I found her in the kitchen, consoling the screaming infant that had been on her hip.
She looked up at me, completely frazzled.
“You find one?”
“Mhmm,” I nodded, pointing to the cutie in my hand.
She smiled. “Brutus is feisty. He’ll keep you on your toes.”
“I can handle him,” I assured her, kissing his head. I handed her the twenty dollars and drove back into town to get supplies for my new friend. I knew my apartment had a one pet limit, so I was safe with Brutus.
Once I was home, I sat Brutus down in the apartment, as well as my bags.
It was getting late, the sun setting. I needed to get those curtains up.
Luckily, I’d had the forethought to buy a screwdriver while I was at the store. This would be a piece of cake, right?
Wrong.
???
Caelan
I stared at the canvas in front of me, willing my hand to move and make the strokes necessary to bring the image in my head to life. But I couldn’t. Why? Because someone was making too much damn noise!
I threw the paint brush to the ground, not caring that watercolor paint went flying everywhere—all over me, my clothes, and my hair, as well as the walls and floors.
Nobody in this whole fucking building had any respect for the fact that I needed silence to work. Noise was far too distracting when I was trying to paint. I needed to focus, and I couldn’t do that when other people were—I had no idea what this person was doing, it sounded like they were trying to kill something. Well, I wanted to kill them. If it wasn’t Frankie and his annoying girlfriend banging down walls with their raging sex life, it was Cyrus with one of his parties. This was neither of those things, and the commotion was coming from the apartment across from me. Somebody new had moved in. Whoever it was needed to learn real fast that I wouldn’t stand for interruptions while I was working.
I shoved my fingers through my hair, no doubt spreading paint into the strands.
My temper flared as I paced. I reached for the bottle of Jack Daniels I’d been drinking from earlier and took a large swig, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. My body vibrated from the leftover aftershocks of the hit I’d had earlier. Drugs and alcohol were my only true friends. Neither let me down.
I knew it wouldn’t be long until I couldn’t help but barge over to the new neighbor’s place.