Canon (Klein Brothers 2)

Of course, like the pro at psychological warfare that he was, he started purring and weaving his way around my ankles, rubbing his head against my ankle.

I automatically reached out for his jar of treats, only pulling back my hand when I replayed the mess in my bedroom—Magic Mike. I felt that loss in my soul—and bathroom through my mind at the last moment.

“No, you don’t get any of those yummies, you little asshole. And you wait ‘til I see your daddy.”

His loud ‘meow’ followed by a head butt and nuzzle on my ankle got him a damn treat. I was so weak, it wasn’t even funny.

Before I left, I shut the door to my bedroom and made sure the one to the spare room with the stuff for the makeovers in it was locked. Those items were more important than even my nice underwear now, and I couldn’t risk him messing them up.

Of course, the rest of my day followed how the morning had started.

My car decided it was going to make a funny sound halfway to work. So, like the badass adult I was, I called my dad and asked him if he could come and take a look at it. Then, it began doing some sort of bunny hopping thing three blocks away from Delicious Divas, meaning I was off balance by the time I got to work with the force of it. It was so bad, I was lucky no one ran into the back of me by the time I got there.

Like that wasn’t bad enough, I forgot the salon had a push door instead of a pull one, so I argued with it for a good two minutes while everyone inside watched me, their expressions a mixture of amusement, confusion, and horror.

I’d just placed my bag and coffee on the ground and was braced to give it a hard tug when Sayla pulled it open from the other side, causing me to fall through it and land hard on my knees.

“Having a bad morning, bru?”

“Your South African’s showing,” I mumbled, wincing internally at the weak comeback. “Morning, everyone.”

All of them responded, but it was Layla who broke the silence that followed it. “Uh, you look… different.”

I would have slammed my bag onto the desk, but I remembered at the last minute that my phone was in it. Given that I undoubtedly had repairs to pay for on my car, I didn’t need the bill for replacing the glass on my phone, too. Why the hell did it cost so much to do it? So, I placed it carefully on the desktop, then spun around to face my friends.

Of fucking course my bag fell off the top of the desk, landing with an ugly thud on the ground next to my foot.

Pointing at it, I hissed, “That right there shows why I look different. The door gives you another idea of how my day’s going already. But in case you need to dig deeper into the shitsville my day’s been so far, let me give you a blow-by-blow account of it all.

“Outside is an expensive chunk of glass, metal, and modern vehicular technology that tried to give me a traumatic brain injury for the last three blocks. It’s only through a wee bit”—I held my finger and thumb a quarter of an inch apart—“of the infinitesimal piece of luck I’ve been allotted today that no one ran into the back of me. If that’d happened, it would have made it almost a definite when it came to the brain injury part of my shittastic day.”

At the same time, they all took a couple of steps back, increasing the distance between us. Pfffbt, like that’d save them. I wasn’t a fighter, but I was quick with words—not that they’d be on the receiving end of any nasty ones. That wasn’t my thing.

“And because I’ve been given that luck already today,” I continued, “it doesn’t fill me with the fuzzies over how the rest of my day’s going to go. FYI, maybe make sure any tripping, electrocution, and general hazards are kept out of my way today.”

“Noted,” Evie said, smiling as she walked toward me with her hands out in front of her. “Babe, do you need a fresh coffee? Maybe a muffin?”

“Make it an Irish.”

She stopped and blinked. “Um, I don’t know if you should be wielding scissors drunk.”

“I don’t know if she should be wielding scissors at all,” Sayla muttered, getting a nod from Layla in agreement. “She might cut someone’s ear or her finger off.”

I could have been pissed at that remark, but the sad thing was, she wasn’t wrong.

“Um…” Layla held her hand up. “I’m kind of invested in the story. Is there anything else that’s happened?”

“Oh, my cat’s either a furry sociopath, or a psychopath in training. Don’t be fooled by the cuteness in the photos I showed you, he’s evil. Now I see why Canon renamed him.”