Despite my unluckiness with cats, I broke out in a big smile and squealed at the sight of the cute little creatures. So this was why everyone was grinning like an idiot. Now that I knew, I couldn’t blame them.
“Kittens! Where did these come from?” I said excitedly.
Gary looked at Hunter, who shrugged. “I was on my jog before coming here and they were just sitting along the side of the road in that box. They had a blanket, but it’s really cold outside and I was worried they’d freeze to death before anyone found them, so I picked up the box and brought them here.”
An MMA fighter with tattoos on half his upper body who had such a soft heart he rescued a box of kittens—Hunter was an odd one, I had to give him that.
“Thing is,” Hunter said. “Now I don’t know what to do with them.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never had a pet before, to be honest. Growing up there’s no way my parents were responsible enough for that. Do you know anything about cats?”
My heart sank. “Not really, no. I didn’t have any pets growing up either.”
Hunter’s face fell. “You see imaginary cats but never had one yourself? Odd.”
“Imaginary cats?” Gary asked.
I looked at Gary then glared at Hunter. He was going to let the cat out of the bag—so to speak—about my lake swim.
“Nah, I’m joking,” Hunter said quickly. “It’s nothing. I just thought Lorrie had a bit of cat lady in her, that’s all.”
I put my hands on my hips. “Apparently it’s less than you thought.”
“I mean, how hard could it be?” Gary said. “You feed them and change their litter box, right?”
“Do you want them?” Hunter asked.
“I told you man, I can’t have pets at the frat house. Plus I wouldn’t trust these cute little things around those guys. They’re pretty irresponsible,” Gary said.
“I can’t have them in the dorms,” I said. Even if I was allowed to have them, I wouldn’t want to care for cats with my suitemates. Things were awkward enough with Kate and Petra.
“Okay, fine. I’ll take them,” Hunter said. “But we need to get food and stuff for them because I don’t have anything at my place. Where do I get those?”
“I think there’s a pet store next to the GUESS at the mall,” Gary said.
Hunter and I looked at Gary quizzically. We’d been to the mall that one time when we discovered the theater was closed but it was a big mall and we almost got lost even finding the theater.
“How much time do you spend at the mall?” Hunter asked.
Gary looked between the two of us. “What? I’ve got to look fly for the ladies!”
All three of us laughed.
“Lorrie, want to come with me to the mall?” Hunter asked. “There’s a bus stop like two minutes away. I’m pretty sure that line goes to the mall.”
“It does,” Gary said quickly.
Hunter chuckled. “Okay. Want to come?” he asked me.
Homework could wait when there were kittens that needed care. “Sure, I’ll come.” I said.
“Great.” He turned to Gary. “You can hang out with the kittens for a couple hours, right?”
Gary nodded. “You bet.”
“Okay,” he said, turning to me. “Let’s go.”
We arrived at the mall about a half hour later. Hunter had showered and changed into jeans and a hoodie, his usual nondescript attire. He never failed to look good in anything I’d seen him wear. Neither of us had much of an idea how to get around, so we found a directory kiosk and navigated our way to the pet store from there. The store was as big as a department store and had row after row of supplies for just about any animal you could imagine. We walked over to the aisle labeled CATS and started figuring out what we needed.
“Thanks for helping me with this, Lorrie,” Hunter said. “I’m sure you have other stuff to do with your day.”
“No problemo. But if you were concerned about me having other things to do, why did you make it such a surprise?”
“I wanted to see your face when you saw the kittens.” He grinned. “It was a very cute face by the way.”
His warm tone made me feel fuzzy inside. Maybe it was just the pet store. “Well, thank you. I’m pretty excited about these kittens. How long do you think you’ll keep them?”
He shrugged. “Haven’t thought about it. I have to get them home and settled first, then I’ll decide.”
I nodded. Even though I didn’t have any firm future plans, I would maybe think twice about adopting six kittens, but Hunter was apparently barreling ahead.
“Will you help me take care of them?” he asked.
What kind of commitment was he asking for here? I decided to keep my answer vague. “Sure.”
“Great.” He picked up a food bowl. “They probably need one of these, right?”
I nodded. “Yeah, I think they need to eat.”
He threw two in the cart and some water bowls too. “What do kittens eat, do you think? As opposed to cats. Is the food different?”
I shrugged, having no idea. Hunter had already picked up a bag of cat food and was reading the back. “This says for cats over one year old. What do you feed kittens, then?”
He scanned the aisle. Someone who worked at the store came over to talk to us. He had dark hair and glasses, and was only a few inches taller than me. Hunter towered over him. “Can I help you with anything?” he wheezed.
“Yeah. I’m looking for food for my cats,” Hunter said.
The guy was wearing a nametag that said TODD. “How old are your cats?” Todd asked.
“I don’t know,” Hunter answered.
Todd looked exasperated. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well,” he said. “Do you know if they’re older or younger than a year old?”
Hunter looked at me over Todd’s head and smiled. “Yeah, they’re definitely less than a year old.”
“Well then you need kitten food, obviously,” Todd said, emphasizing the last word as if Hunter was a buffoon.
I laughed silently, noting the plight of the tall and muscular. Hunter could pretty much snap Todd in half if he wanted to, but he was putting up with Todd being a jerk to him anyway.
“Okay,” Hunter said gamely. “Where is the kitten food?”
Todd stomped down to the other end of the aisle and held up a yellow bag of food. “It’s the one that says ‘For Kittens.’”
Hunter nodded. “Okay, but these are really little kittens. Can they eat that?”
“Where did you get these kittens?” Todd asked.
“I rescued them.”
“How small are we talking?”
Hunter used his hands to show how small they were. I would have just said “super tiny.”
Todd’s eyebrows shot up. “And there’s no mother cat?”
“Nope.”
“Well, you should really get them to a vet as soon as possible, but at the end of the aisle you’ll find kitten milk, syringes, and bottles. There’s a little manual with the supplies that should teach you what you need to feed the kittens.”
Hunter nodded and looked over at me. “This is going to be a lot of work,” he said.
Was he thinking about giving them up for adoption? “They’re really cute, though.”
“Are you going to help me with them?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging. Who didn’t want to play with kittens?
“No, I mean are you going to really help me? Like co-raise them.”
What was he talking about? I looked at Todd, who was standing there dumbly.
“They’re going to be staying at your apartment, right?” I asked.
“I’ll give you a key. I’m just saying, if we need to be feeding these little guys constantly, having some help in case I have to be gone would turn this from being impossible to being a fun challenge.”
I took a deep breath. It felt like no matte
r what I did, I was getting closer to Hunter. “Okay, that does sound fun actually. But you’re not afraid I’m going to snoop around your apartment and find things I shouldn’t?” I teased.
He grinned. “Nah, I trust you.”
Todd cleared his throat. I had totally forgotten he was there, and my face grew hot. Why was I constantly managing to do embarrassing things?
“Yeah dude, thanks,” Hunter said. Todd scampered away as Hunter turned back to me. “Lorrie, thanks for agreeing to help me. I think this will be fun.”
We picked out our syringes, bottles, rubber nipples, kitten milk, and manual. I began flipping through the guide to feeding newborn kittens as we walked to checkout. There was a lot to make sure you got right. I was already feeling a little intimidated by it all.
The cashier that checked us out eyed Hunter flirtatiously from under her dark bangs as she rang up our kitten formula, but then her eyes caught the sight of his tattoos and her expression changed.
“You’re bottle-feeding kittens?” she asked.
“Yup,” Hunter said. “Just rescued them.”
She nodded, her lips a thin line. “Well, make sure you get them to the vet,” she said. “Kittens are very delicate at that age.”
“Thanks for the advice,” I said as politely as possible. Why did everyone treat Hunter like he wasn’t capable of taking care of some kittens? People seemed to love jumping to conclusions about others so quickly. Like people assuming I was depressed and suicidal, or assuming I was having sex with Hunter. Why couldn’t people just give you the benefit of the doubt and assume the best?
“Yeah, thank you Stephanie,” Hunter said, reading her name tag. “We’ll be sure to get them into the vet as soon as possible.” He flashed a smile. I was glad that at least he could take the way people treated him in stride even if I didn’t.
We finished checking out and left the mall. The muscles on his tattooed arms stretched against his black t-shirt as we walked to the bus stop. It made me feel strange to admit it, but being seen with such an attractive guy made me throw my shoulders back and feel more self-confidence than I had in years. Even if we were just friends.
We didn’t get back to the gym until after five-thirty. The people training changed from younger, college-aged guys like Hunter and Gary to older guys in their late twenties and older. I couldn’t help but notice that there were no women training in the gym. The smell of man sweat was everywhere.
Gary was holding a sleeping kitten with a big white spot right between its eyes as we approached. He put one finger up to his lips telling us to be quiet.
“These things do nothing but sleep,” he said. “But wow, are they cute when they sleep.”
The kitten fit into his hand easily. “Check it out,” he said. He used a finger on his other hand to tickle its stomach softly. The kitten squirmed and grabbed at the finger with all four paws without waking up. My heart melted.
“How cute is that?” Gary said.
I looked over at Hunter, who was smiling. “Pretty cute,” he said. “These little guys are probably super hungry by now, though. We have to figure out how to feed them.”
“You don’t just give them regular cat food?” Gary asked.
“Nope. There’s a whole manual on how to do it. I guess you have to bottle feed them when they’re this little.”
Listening to them talk about feeding the cats snapped me to attention and I whipped out the kitten manual. “Yup, and we need to get going on that. The manual says we need to weigh them to figure out how much to feed each kitten.”
“We have a scale in the gym,” Hunter said.
“And we’ll need to warm up the milk,” I added.
“We have a microwave in the office,” Gary said.
I held up the manual and pointed to the warning printed in bold font. “It says not to microwave the formula.”
“Then we’ll just run it under hot water until it’s the right temp. Can’t be that hard,” Hunter said. “Let’s go.”
Preparing the formula was quite an ordeal, but we managed to get it in the right amounts and the right temperatures. Hunter had the bright idea of weighing himself with and without the kitten rather than placing the little creature on the dirty scale, demonstrating practical use of his physics knowledge. He might’ve been a tough MMA fighter, but he was also pretty smart.
We had three bottles and three people, so we fed the kittens in two shifts. Even in my hand, the kittens felt small; they practically disappeared in Hunter’s and Gary’s. As powerful as they were, though, they were gentle with the little kitties, especially Hunter. He took particular joy in tickling the kitten’s tummy after feeding it so it would burp.
“I think it farted!” Hunter said, laughing.
I looked over and narrowed my eyes.
“What? You said that was good!” he cried.
I shook my head. “You’re such a little boy,” I teased.
“Yeah, but you love it.”
Gary took the kitten he was feeding and set it back down on its blanket in the box. “Okay guys, I gotta bounce. Get the kittens home safe.”
“Will do,” Hunter said. “Later dude.”
We put our kittens back in their box shortly after Gary left. They all fell asleep almost immediately after being fed. Apparently kittens had to sleep a lot. I got a little sketchpad out of my purse and decided I would sketch them. Maybe the kittens could be a subject I could use for my portfolio.
“What do you want to name them?” I asked.
“I was thinking of naming them after MMA fighters. You know, Rampage, Iceman, that kind of thing.”
“You want to name a kitten Rampage?”
“Yeah, after Quentin ‘Rampage’ Jackson. Then another one could be Iceman for Chuck ‘The Iceman’ Liddell, and then maybe Bones for Jon ‘Bones’ Jones.”
“Hunter, they’re kittens.”
“Yeah, and they would have awesome names.”
“I’m not taking care of a kitten named Rampage.”
“Come on! How about this: there are three boys and three girls. I’ll name the boy kittens and you can name the girl kittens. That’s fair, right?”
I sighed. “Sure.”
“Awesome. So those are my three names, what are yours?”
“I don’t know, give me a minute to think.”
Since Hunter chose fighter names, I figured I’d choose painter names. “Okay, I’m going to name one Georgia after Georgia O’Keefe.”
“Ah, the woman who paints flowers that look like vaginas.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, she’s a good artist. Then I’ll name another one Frida after Frida Kahlo.”
“Is she a painter too?”
“Yeah, haven’t you seen that movie with Salma Hayek? You know, the one where she has that unibrow thing going on?”
“Oh, that’s right! I remember it now.”
I struggled for a third name but couldn’t think of another famous painter. Why did men have to be such dicks throughout history and not let women paint? After a minute, I gave up and decided to go another direction. “And then the third I’ll call Taylor.”
“Which painter is that?”
“It’s not a painter. I’m naming her after Taylor Swift.”
“The singer?” He looked genuinely perplexed.
“Yup. Got a problem with that?”
He laughed. “Other than the fact that she always blames the guy for screwing up the relationship— never taking responsibility for her own part—no I don’t have a problem with that. I just didn’t realize you liked Taylor Swift. Isn’t she kind of for middle school and high school girls?”
I playfully stuck my tongue out at him. “Taylor Swift is universal, damn it! Her songs are catchy and fun. Plus, she does take responsibility. She’s just never the one at fault.”
“Fine, fine,” he said, still laughing. “So Georgia, Frida, Taylor, Rampage, Iceman, and Bones. I like it. We’ll figure out which kitten gets which name later. I’m gonna go find a bag to pu
t all this stuff in.”
He went away and I sketched the kittens, thinking about which one would get which name. It was only a couple minutes before he came back. He started putting the supplies into the gym bag he’d found.
“Ya know, you should come down to Bigg’s to train with me sometime,” Hunter said with a smile on his face. “I’ll show you the ropes.”
I shot him a wry grin. “I don’t think I’m interested in a sport where I have to wrestle with gross sweaty guys.”
“You think I’m gross?” he teased, taking mock offense.
“No, no, that’s not what I meant.” In fact, I loved the way he smelled when sweaty but I’d never tell him that. It would be too weird. “I guess I just don’t want to get injured that’s all.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you. Since it’s your first time, I’ll be gentle,” he crooned.
I slapped him on the arm playfully. “Shut up, Hunter. Why don’t you just offer to show me the ways of the Kama Sutra while you’re at it?”
“Whoa there! I never suggested that. You’ve got a filthy mind.”
“Sure,” I replied sarcastically.
“But if you want me to show you how to do the ‘rear naked choke’, I can certainly do that.” He wiggled his brows.
I laughed and rolled my eyes. “Is that even a real move?”
He laughed. “Real move, unfortunate name. No, but in all seriousness, it’s fun and it’s also a good workout.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. But I’ve already got swim class to give me a good workout. Oh speaking of which, my instructor for my swim class is Mitch McHenry. He said he knows you.”
Hunter paused for a moment then scoffed. “Yeah, he knows me.”
The change in his tone was weird. “He said he was your ROTC instructor.”
“Yup.”
“But you quit or something, right?”
He stopped. “Or something,” he said after a moment.
It sounded like it was something painful, but I couldn’t imagine what. “Were you kicked out or something? Mitch said your evaluations were excellent.”
He took a deep breath. “Something came up and I couldn’t do it anymore, so I stopped. Listen, we have to get these kittens home. Want to help me with the bag while I get the box?”