Eat Crow (Cheap Thrills 6)

Knowing he was itching to weigh them but didn’t want to put her down for even a second while he put it all together, I got up and went out to find the bag and brought it back through. Then, pre-empting the request, I went back to pick up the roll of paper towels and brought it back.

“Just in case the container is cold,” I explained, waving them in the air.

Chewing his lip, he considered this. “I hadn’t

thought of that. Should we warm the container? Maybe I should heat up a towel, and we can put that inside it instead?”

Opening the box with the scales in it, I only just held back the eye roll. It wasn’t a cheap one he’d bought, it was a professional one.

Seeing my expression and reading it correctly, his cheeks turned pink as he shrugged. “I didn’t want to get an unreliable set that gave us the wrong readings.”

“And the fact you bought Rubbermaid containers?”

“They’ve got a thing on them saying they’re award-winning, that means they’re safer.”

“I don’t think they make them with kittens in mind, though, Logan. More like food and liquid.”

When he didn’t reply, I looked up to see him rubbing Doyle with the tip of his toe. There was something different about him tonight. He looked more at peace since Prince had the babies and was putting himself out there to break my dog down now, too. But he also had tension in his shoulders, and judging by the lines on his forehead, he’d frowned a lot today. Either that or he’d aged, like a reverse Benjamin Button.

Setting it all up for him, I grabbed a pen and an old receipt out of my purse before I waved him over. “What happened?” I asked conversationally as we put Miracle in the container, and I wrote the reading down. “You’ve got a crease like a wedgie between your eyebrows.”

Giving Miracle a small kiss on her head, he took her back to Prince and picked up Smudge, who was mostly white, but already had a black smudge under her nose, on the tips of both ears, and the end of her tail.

As he crouched down to put her onto the scales, he exhaled loudly. “I can’t talk about it right now, but I want to let you know how good it felt to leave, knowing I was coming back to you and these guys and Doyle.” My mouth dropped open at the unexpected revelation. “It’s been a shitty, shitty day, but y’all made it tolerable for me.”

“Uhh…”

At my lack of answer, the side of his mouth lifted in a smile, and his eyes looked clearer when he lifted them to look at me. “Shocked you, haven’t I?”

Nodding mutely, I checked the screen, wrote down Smudge’s weight, and then watched as he gave her a snuggle and kiss and swapped her out for Peanut. She was a peanut butter colored kitten who was the largest of the litter before doing it all over again with Adele, the most vocal of the lot.

I needed to get what I wanted to say back out, but I was a pussy—no pun intended.

“Life’s felt brighter for me ever since you moved in, like I can breathe again. I never thought I’d be so grateful for shitty plumbing,” I rambled as quickly as I could. “So, in order of their weights, Peanut’s a chunky monkey, Adele’s right behind him, Smudge is a bit more petite, and your favorite child is a lightweight in comparison to her sisters.”

Seeing what I was doing and not drawing attention to it, he tucked them in with the blanket he’d picked them up at the vet's office and then held his arms out for Prince, who didn’t even hesitate to walk up to him to be picked up.

It was surreal given their relationship up until only twenty-four hours ago.

“Did you give her the special food the vet gave her? I looked it up online, and there are better ones with more vitamins and nutrition in them that you can get, so I ordered some for her. They also had these little kitten collars, so you can identify them more easily—” I looked at the kittens incredulously. They were all different colors, why would we need help identifying them? “—so I added those. I know we’re a few weeks off them weaning as well, but—”

“Let me guess,” I cut in drily. “You got something for that, too.”

Smiling wryly over his shoulder at me, he went back to watching the babies. “It helps to be prepared. Imagine how shitty it would be if they needed something immediately, and we couldn’t get it.”

“We definitely don’t have that problem.”

“Exactly.” He frowned down at them suddenly. “But what if they need it before it arrives? Maybe I should—”

Groaning, I thumped my forehead with the back of my hand. “You should just relax and have your damn dinner. I’ve been watching them all day, and they seem to be doing just fine, even your little drama queen.”

He crawled across the floor to where I’d set up the makeshift table giving one last longing look at them.

“What’s for dinner?”

“Meatloaf, green beans, and potatoes,” I called over my shoulder as I went to go and get it all out of the kitchen. “The tomato ketchup sauce that should’ve come with it made me feel sick even thinking about it, so I used a tin of chopped tomatoes instead and made a—” I cut off as I cleared the doorway. The guy wasn’t just pale, he looked freaking gray. “What’s wrong? Are you sick?”

“Not yet,” he mumbled under his breath before pasting what looked like a psycho’s version of a smile on his face. “I can’t wait to try it.”