Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

The vet had warned us that Prince might react to Doyle being near the kittens, but he seemed warier of them than she was of him. Every time he heard them crying out, he’d start whining and hide behind me. The big scary dog had met his match.

Prince had adapted to having a vagina and babies like nothing had changed, and for her, I guess, nothing had. Unlike me, she’d known what bits she had and the fact she was baking her little minions inside of her.

The kittens were tiny, and I’d made the mistake of reading up about cats abandoning their babies if they smelled like humans, so I was scared to touch them. I’d even bought gloves at the store today—a dozen pairs, to be precise—so that when I cleaned them out, I didn’t accidentally leave my scent in a place that could trigger rejection in Prince.

Basically, I was out of my comfort zone. Inheriting Doyle from Pops had been a life lesson in itself, but kittens? I had no freaking clue!

Almost like they knew I was thinking about them, the mewling started up again, accompanied by Doyle’s whining. Prince had only been away from them for about two minutes, but she quickly waddled back to them and lay down.

“Maybe they were cold?” I asked my dog, who had his face in the corner of the room we were in, with his ass pointing at the rest of it. Hearing my voice, he turned his head toward me. “You know, you don’t have to hide from them. They won’t be able to terrorize you for a while.”

With a dirty look over his shoulder, he turned back to the corner, leaving me talking to his ass.

“Hey, I don’t know what you’re so scared about. It’s not like your parents saw your tit drawings on the walls. Speaking of that, do you know why you have nipples?”

Sue me, I was bored.

Just then, the front door opened, and Doyle’s stance changed from nose in the corner to a canine sneer as he waited for Logan to come into the room.

“I don’t know why you don’t like him, dude,” I sighed, getting up from where I was lying on a comforter on the floor. “You’re going to have to get over that shit at some point.”

“Because your Pops told him what happened when we were younger,” Logan replied as he came in, bending down to kiss me almost immediately. “I’m sure he probably waved one of my t-shirts under his nose and repeated the word kill.”

I laughed on the outside, but on the inside, I had to admit that’s probably what’d happened. The low growl that came from Doyle made me frown, though.

“Is there some sort of doggy therapy camp he can go to?”

“Not a clue,” he replied as he waved at Doyle regardless and then moved over to where Prince was sitting, waiting for his attention, her babies squealing at the loss of her boobies.

The night she had them had reset their relationship, and now she went to him instead of me most of the time.

Squatting down in front of her, he gave her some chin scratches. “How are you doing, pretty momma? How are our babies?”

“Judging by the crying because she sat up to see you and took away their food, I’m thinking hangry.”

Huffing out a laugh, he picked up the mini version of her mama, gray all over with a white chest and white paws. “Hey, Miracle. Are you being good? They’re not stealing all your food, are they?”

Our trip to the vet had revealed that all four kittens were girls, so now in the house, we were four females ahead of the two males in it. Not that Logan or Doyle cared at all, far from it.

And just in case it needed to be pointed out—Logan didn’t have the same concerns over Prince rejecting her babies if they smelled like us. He said she was too smart for that, which was just as well, seeing how he carried Miracle around with him as much as possible.

He was also the one who picked them all up and carried them upstairs to sleep in our room in case Prince or the babies needed anything last night. Doyle wasn’t left out either because his bed had been brought up and put in the corner, too.

“I’m thinking she’s holding her own on the titties. She got knocked onto her back today during the feeding frenzy—”

“What the hell?” he barked, glaring at the three oblivious babies who were now blindly wiggling their little bodies.

“—but Prince sorted her out—”

“Of course she did. She’s a good momma.”

Rolling my eyes, I continued, “And she fed for longer than the other three and even fell asleep during it.”

With her cradled in one hand, he ran the tip of his pinky finger down her back, making her look even tinier than she already was. “I bought some scales and a box of Rubbermaid containers at the store on my way home so we can weigh them like the vet suggested. If she doesn’t put on weight like she should be, we’ve got the kitten formula for her.”

Ah yes, the kitten formula. Last night, Logan had begged the vet to give us some, so we were prepared. The price of it made my eyes water, but Logan asked if we could have a second container instead of being worried about it. He’d also paid an extortionate amount for the bottle and nipple we’d need, and after he dropped us back home, he’d gone out and bought what the vet had recommended to sterilize it between each use.

He was a mean kitten feeding machine.