Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 85885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 429(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Jane had clearly played this game before, but Marmot was losing her shit, tugging at Charlie’s sleeve, then getting her claws caught in the flannel and flipping over onto her back to free them. Charlie laughed and teased her with his fingers, and Marmot jumped onto his chest and began making biscuits on his sternum.
“You won her over,” Rye said.
Marmot acted tough but she was a little softy at heart.
Charlie tipped his head and looked at Rye upside down. He smiled an upside-down smile, lines appearing around his eyes. Jane looked up at him just like her human.
“That’s the biggest damn cat I’ve ever seen.”
Rye padded into the room and sat cross-legged on the rug next to Jane. She was black with gray markings and had little tufts of fur on the tips of her ears. Her tail was practically the size of Marmot’s whole body.
“She’s a Maine coon,” Charlie said, sitting up.
His movement displaced Marmot who protested by jumping onto his shoulder. Charlie’s face lit up like a big kid’s.
“Hi,” he cooed to Marmot. Marmot flicked her tail in his face.
“Can I pet her?” Rye asked.
“Sure.”
Jane lay on the rug, eyes half-closed, massive tail twitching lazily.
Rye sank his hand into her thick coat and scratched. Jane purred, a deep motorboat rumble. He scratched between her tufted ears and her eyes drifted shut. She was the softest thing he’d ever touched. He buried his face in her luscious fur and breathed in the scent of wood shavings and something lightly floral, like fabric softener. The combination reminded him of being outside in the Seattle spring when he walked through the woods and on the beach.
“You ready to take care of that leg?”
Rye muffled his groan in Jane’s fur and dragged himself up.
Charlie stood also, plucking Marmot off his shoulder with one hand and depositing her on the rug. She stretched luxuriantly and then walked up on top of Jane to lie down on her back. Jane opened one eye, then closed it again in welcome.
The cats curled into a ball of gray and black and orange and white. It was impossibly cute.
Charlie pulled his phone out and snapped a picture.
Then he led Rye back into the bathroom and had him sit on the edge of the bathtub. The air was still humid from the shower and smelled of the jasmine shampoo.
“Guess you like it here, huh?” Rye said, suddenly wanting to delay this as long as possible. “Wyoming, I mean?” He pointed at the sweatshirt he was wearing.
“It’s the cowboys,” Charlie said.
Rye blinked. Okay, so Charlie Matheson was into cowboys. That was...really hot.
“The football team. The Cowboys. U of W.”
“Oh.” Well that was disappointing. “Did you go there?”
Charlie’s face did something complicated and illegible.
“No.”
“Oh.”
Charlie sat on the floor at Rye’s feet and tugged the sweatpants up to his knee.
“I should’ve told you not to let the fabric touch the cut,” Charlie murmured.
Rye fixed his eyes on Charlie’s red-gold hair, determined not to look at the exposed cut for one second.
“Okay, you have some slivers of wood in here. I need to clean them out.”
“Mmfh,” Rye said. He caught a glimpse of tweezers and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He smelled alcohol and then felt a flash of pain. He made himself freeze but the sensation of the cut being prodded was nauseating. He tried to breathe through his nose but that just made the alcohol smell stronger.
“Whoa, whoa, hold on,” Charlie said, and Rye opened his eyes as he rocked backward off the lip of the tub.
Charlie caught him with a hand on his back at the same time as Rye caught himself.
“Come down here.”
He eased onto the tile floor, vision swimming.
“Does it hurt a lot?” Charlie asked gently.
Rye shook his head, taking shallow breaths through his mouth.
“It’s the alcohol. Don’t like the smell.”
The stink of it as his mother scrubbed every surface of the only apartment his father had been able to find at the last minute. He’d had a headache for days. Years later, on his hands and knees, he’d scrubbed with an identical bottle the mouse droppings and cockroach husks in another horrid apartment.
Charlie opened the bathroom door and flicked on the fan. Rye let his damp hair fall over his face, trying to smell jasmine instead.
“I’m gonna have to use it again to clean the cut. I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “But I have to make sure it’s not infected. Will you be okay?”
Rye wanted to say no. He wanted to bury his face in Charlie’s shoulder and feel arms come around him and hold him. He wanted to hide. But hiding never did any good.
“Yeah, ’s fine,” he mumbled. “Gimme your shampoo?”
Charlie passed him the bottle of shampoo from the shower and Rye unscrewed the top and held it under his nose. He leaned back against the bathtub and closed his eyes again.