Flaming

It’s suddenly become a moment he hopes doesn’t end soon.

“At least it was fun, huh?” suggests Jonatho. “Your rug thinks so, at least.”

Zakary lifts a questioning eyebrow. Their faces are so close. “My rug?”

“I talk to inanimate objects,” explains Jonatho rather casually. “It’s something I’ve done since I was a kid. I think it’s the way I deal with all the voices in my head. Well, that and putting them to paper in the form of plays. Your rug is laughing with us, by the way,” he says. “Or at us. I can’t tell. Our bodies are muffling it right now.”

“Oh.” Zakary gives it a moment’s regard, then snaps his eyes back to Jonatho’s.

“Am I crushing you?”

“Nope,” says Zakary rather quickly.

“I see. Not crushing you. Just …” Jonatho’s dazzling eyes seem to shine happily. “… crushing on you.”

Zakary swallows.

He’s never wanted someone to kiss him so badly. Please, make the first move, Zakary nearly begs with his pleading, desperate eyes. Make the first move, because I’m still too chicken to make it myself, and you’re an almost-Pulitzer-prize-winning playwright.

“Hey, Red?”

He nearly forgot his new name. “Yeah?”

“Do you …” Jonatho lets out a nervous chuckle, looks away to gather his thought, then gazes upon Zakary again. “Do you want to …”

A sudden noise at the window startles them both. A cat has appeared, brown and black with white spots of fur on her paws, lower back, and a few inches from the tip of her tail—a total mishmash of colors and textures, considering she’s also wearing patches of dirt from the streets. She sniffs a lamp on the table near the window, then looks down at them on the rug uncertainly.

“Hmm, doesn’t look like a Tiger,” mutters Jonatho, observing her.

“I, um … She’s … sorry, excuse me, I have to …”

Zakary gently slips out from underneath Jonatho, their moment prematurely ended, then climbs to his feet. Jonatho seems to situate himself on the floor, propping his head up by his palm as he watches Zakary rush to a cabinet in the kitchen, where he fetches a can of cat food. When he sets the can on the counter, Tiger perks up her ears, watching wide-eyed from the window, knowing what that delightful, heavenly sound indicates. Soon, Zakary comes to the table and gently sets down a small saucer of the wet, fishy stuff she craves. Only after Zakary leaves the table does she take a few careful steps in from the window, sniffs at the saucer warily, then begins to devour.

Zakary takes a seat on the rug next to Jonatho, who has sat up fully now to observe the scene. “Hmm. Not often you see an outdoor cat in the middle of a city,” notes Jonatho. He turns to Zakary. “Where exactly does she go? Forgive me for saying it this way, but … seems rather crazy to leave your window open so your cat can wander off wherever she pleases in the middle of downtown Dallas.”

“It’s not like that. She’s … not really mine. She’s a stray that just keeps coming back.”

“Oh.” Jonatho thinks it over. “Now I understand the ‘sorta cat’ comment from before.”

“It’s just because I feed her,” Zakary explains. “I know you shouldn’t feed strays or whatever, but … even before I started feeding her, she kept coming back to my window. Maybe she knew the people who lived here before me. I don’t know.”

“Or maybe it’s just something about you.”

The compliment flies over Zakary’s head. “Nah. I’m sure if someone else started feeding her more, or fed her something better than the cheap stuff I can afford, I’d likely never see her again.”

“Hmm. I’m not so sure about that. She looks plenty happy on your windowsill.”

Tiger seems to have no care—or awareness—of the guys on the floor talking about her, despite her ears twitching now and then. She hungrily laps at her saucer, utterly incapable of gobbling up her meal fast enough. Her eyes close as she savors every lick and bite. Even when tiny specks and crumbs roll off the saucer and onto the table from her eager tongue, she goes for them too. She’s clearly learned in her life on the streets not to let a single scrap go to waste.

“Why don’t you make it official?” asks Jonatho. “Invite her inside? Take her to the vet and get her checked and cared for and all that? It’d be the responsible thing to do. And you’ve already named her, after all.”

Zakary shrugs. “Is it really up to me to decide where she belongs?”

“She seems to have already decided where she belongs.”

“I’m sure she’s got a life I know nothing about on the streets, somewhere out there. She seems so independent. Something about ‘claiming’ her like that feels … unnatural.”

“Or maybe sometimes you just have to …” Jonatho gazes at Zakary meaningfully. “… take the hint when someone wants to be yours.”