Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

“Damn it. Are they bad?”

“No, they’re good. Oh, so very good.”

“What?” he spun around and looked over his shoulder in the mirror, putting his chest only inches away from my face.

His skin looked like he moisturized it hourly it was that smooth, and the movement of his muscles was completely different in this position to how they’d been before.

I swear I’d just found my happy place.

“Did you get something in your eye? Why are you blinking like that?”

Mental snapshots, those things were real, and in a couple of hours when I went to bed, I wanted these at the front of my mind.

When he drew in a loud breath to sigh loudly, I almost started begging him to do it again so that I could watch what his chest and stomach had done all over again.

“I don’t see any cuts on my back. I’ll clean these if you want to wash up?” When I didn’t answer, he clicked his fingers an inch away from my nose, snapping me out of it. “You okay?”

I could lay my thoughts out to him, I’d already been embarrassed more with Logan than anyone should be throughout their whole life, so I lied.

I, Bexley Anne Heath, set my own panties on fire with what I came out with.

“I think the fumes from the peroxide are affecting me. I’ve got an allergy to it, you know, and it just makes me hazy. I’ll go, and…” I trailed off as I tried to think of something. “Do something out there, and maybe order some takeout for us.”

Judging by the amount of twitching his lips were doing, he knew I was lying my ass off. Then he had to go and make it worse. “What about ordering Chinese? Check and see if they do banana fritters, too, but not Sake for me.”

So, with my face burning, I shot him the bird and stumbled out of the bathroom.

I was desperately trying to take my mind off it as I went and started thinking about how I was going to help the poor feral cat in the attic—which sounded a bit like a sinister Dr. Seuss book title.

I’d seen programs on television where they set traps with cans of food in them, but I didn’t want to risk having my arm taken off when I tried to pick it up. Potholders probably wouldn’t be enough protection judging by what it’d done to Logan.

Did I buy it toys and spend months doing some sort of African wilderness move, where I befriended a lion until I could ride its back?

When I got downstairs, the solution was made for me and found the animal curled up on the hoodie I’d worn on the plane yesterday. I’d been so tired when I’d gotten home that I didn’t care where it had landed after I took it off.

Actually, that was another lie. I’d taken it off and dropped it on where I’d assumed the couch was, forgetting that they’d moved it when they’d shrink-wrapped the place. I’d also seen it this morning as I drank my coffee, but I was too lazy to pick it back up again.

And the cat had benefitted from all of that because it looked like it’d claimed it.

It wasn’t until I was squatted down beside it, with my hand only inches away from its gray fur, that I realized how stupid I was trying to touch it, but I was desperate to let it know that I didn’t mean any harm. I had no idea how it had gotten into the attic, but obviously, it liked living in Pops’ house, and he would have done the same thing I was, so…

It didn’t lift its head as my hand got closer, but its eyes were focused on what I was doing. After the third gentle sweep of my thumb over the top of its head, it finally raised it and started purring.

“Hey,” I whispered. “It’s nice to meet you. I don’t mind you staying so long as you don’t try to fillet me like you did to Logan. I don’t know what Doyle’s going to think about you, though.”

The cat looked behind me like it was looking for either of them. I was about to declare it a feline genius, when I got the answer why it’d done it.

“You’re insane,” Logan murmured, keeping his voice low, so he didn’t scare it. “No way are you keeping a feral cat.”

“He’s not feral, he was just scared, weren’t you?” I cooed at it, giving it scratches under the chin.

“Babe, he’s feral. He’s just waiting for you to blink so he can take your arm off.” He held his arms out to back up his words. Because of the number of cuts he had, we hadn’t put Band-Aids on all of them, just the worst ones.

“Come and say hi, and apologize for scaring him.”

Logan eyed it and shook his head. “No fucking way.”

Apparently, kittykins felt the same way because he lifted his head and hissed at him.