Fireball (Cheap Thrills 1)

Lifting it up so I could look at its face, I grinned when I saw two tiny green eyes peering out of the ball of tabby fur. That’s right, Tabby had bought herself a tabby cat. Some might have looked at that as a coincidence, but to me it was part of her eccentric and unique self because she probably just got it because she’d fall in love with the animal.

The more I looked at it, the more I had to agree that this kitten really was adorable. That’s when something registered – it was smaller all over than a kitten typically was, and its legs were really short.

“Tab, how old is she?”

“The breeder and vet said that she was fourteen weeks, why?”

“She’s kind of small. If I’d found her on the street, I’d be thinking she was about five weeks old at most.”

Puttering around in the kitchen as she opened cans and packets of food for her new pets, she reassured me, “That’s because of her breed, Munchkins stay tiny. Sonya Townsend has one and I kind of fell in love with it when I bumped into her at the vets office with Law, so she pointed me toward someone who bred them near here and, as luck would have it, they had one still up for sale. I’m not really a cat person because they can be total assholes, but Katy hooked me in on the first purr.”

I had no idea what a Munchkin cat was. I mean, I knew what a munchkin was, but they wouldn’t call a cat that would they? Were we even allowed to use that word these days?

These thoughts distracted me from the kitten uncurling herself until she was sitting on my hand watching me watching her. When she made up her mind, she let out a tiny little yeowl noise and yawned widely, and I made a huge mistake, lured into a false sense of security by her cuteness.

“Cute little bugger, aren’t you,” I told her, reaching out to stroke her with the tip of a finger.

And that’s when it all went to shit.

TabbyScrewing the lid back on the Betadine, I put it on the shelf in the cupboard and reached for the box of Band-Aids. Turning back to where the injured man was sitting on the edge of the bath, I winced when I saw the amount of the red medicine that I’d had to put on him. It was like looking at a piece of modern art, slashes of red and pink everywhere. Looking at the box, I counted how many were in it because it was going to take quite a few to patch Dave back up again.

“I’m really sorry,” I said for the tenth time. “I’ve never seen her act like that. Katy Purry’s normally so…”

“That cat isn’t fucking purry, Tab. She’s more like Lucifurr.”

Opening ten of the Band-Aids, I laid them out on the counter beside me and decided to start at the top and make my way down to his arms. The scratches on his chest were only small ones because his shirt had protected him slightly from her nails, so these were the worst ones.

This was something Sonya had warned me about – Munchkins could have a bitching temper. It didn’t even mean that they didn’t like you, it just meant that they were in a shitty mood and you were in the wrong place at the wrong time. This was the first time I’d seen it happen with Katy though, and really it hadn’t been that bad, although the evidence said otherwise.

Once I’d stuck them all on him, I took a step back and looked down at my handiwork. Seeing another scratch that needed covered, I tried to move away to get one, but Dave’s hands closed around me, cupping a butt cheek in each one, and stopped me before I could get very far.

“What made you get the animals?”

The answer to this question was easy, and because he was Dave, I had no issues telling him that truth. “Because I was lonely. Jose has Olivia, and Ellis is always at her house helping out…when she lets him in. I missed you and figured if I got something to cuddle I wouldn’t feel so alone when I came home.”

His eyes softened, and by the end of it he’d pulled me tightly against him. “My Tabby with her heart of gold. What am I going to do with you, fireball?”

I didn’t mean for what I said to slip out, and when it did I about died of embarrassment. “Just love me.”

As soon as the words were out and I realized what I’d said, I clapped my hands over my mouth and started to question whether Jose’s tactic of covering her eyes so no one could see her was worth trying out. I expected him to run for the door like I’d told him I had herpes, but instead he pulled me tightly against him and said confidently, “Ok.” Making my hands drop down in shock.