Beauty in the Ashes

“Well, you sure know how to get around,” he grinned easily, laughing under his breath.

“It’s not funny,” I frowned. Forcing my fingers through the strands of black hair framing my face, I huffed, “Just don’t bring this up again and stop pushing me towards Memphis. I don’t need your help. Besides, you’re a guy, so why should you care about my love life?”

The question was rhetorical but he answered anyway.

“I’m not. I’m just bored,” he moved to lay back down on the couch, “and boredom makes me do dumb things.”

I shook my head, not in the mood to talk to Emery anymore.

I returned to the front of the store and found Memphis gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief, but why did I still feel so stressed?

???

By the time my shift ended and I started home, daylight was reluctantly beginning to break through the clouds. I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was drop my bag by the door, flop face first on my bed, and cuddle Brutus.

And that was my plan until I opened the door and he didn’t great me.

“Brutus?” I called. “Come here kitty.”

No cat emerged from anywhere in the apartment.

I squatted on the floor, crawling on my hands and knees to peer under the couch and then the bed for the kitten.

Nope. Not there. Or there.

“Brutus?” My voice became high with panic.

I checked to make sure none of the windows were open and that he hadn’t used one of his nine lives by dropping to the street below.

They were all shut and secured tightly.

How on Earth does someone lose a cat in an apartment this size? Seriously?

Despite the early morning hour, I headed down to the Daphne and Frankie’s. I knocked on the door loud enough to wake the dead.

“What the—?” Frankie muttered, opening the door. He promptly slapped a hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn.

“Have you seen Brutus?” I pleaded.

“Who the hell is Brutus and why the fuck are you asking me about him this early?”

Before I could respond, someone from inside the apartment said, “Baby?”

A moment later Jen appeared. When she spotted me, she sent me a look that said she wished me a very painful death.

Instead of acting like a bitch, which is what I’d normally do, I appealed to her. She was a female, surely she would understand the importance of locating my cat.

I pushed past Frankie so I could see Jen fully, but didn’t venture into the apartment. I was rude, but not that rude. “Hi Jen,” I waved awkwardly. “I just got home and it seems that my cat is missing. You haven’t by any chance seen him, have you?”

“Oh,” her face softened, the anger draining away. “What does he look like?”

“He’s about this big,” I held my hands out. “He’s kinda black with orange and some white.” I clasped my hands together hoping she had seen him. I’d grown fond of the little fur ball.

“Uh…” Her brows furrowed together. “That sorta sounds like the cat I saw with Gregory earlier.”

“Gregory—? Oh!” I jumped up in place. “You mean Caelan?” When she nodded, I added, “Thank you so much!”