“Lynch, watch out!” Blue said from the passenger seat. It was abrupt, making Ronan immediately hit the brakes hard enough to wear a flat spot in his tires.
“What the fuck, maggot?” he asked, trying to spot what made her shriek in the fading sunset light.
“Look, there’s a kitten by the road,” she said, pointing to a tiny thing standing just a few feet from the car.
Ronan got out of the car, walking toward the kitten in question. Absentmindedly, he heard Blue getting out of the car, the crunch of her boots loud as she walked.
“Where did you come from?” she asked.
The cat meowed at her.
Ronan crouched and took the kitten in his hands. It was tiny, barely bigger than his hand, with patches of black sparsely dotting its white coat, and it looked incredibly fragile. The cat meowed when Ronan held him closer, inspecting it in case it was hurt. Ronan didn’t have a lot of experience, if any, with cats, but this one couldn’t be more than a month old.
“Why were you on the road, shitface? It’s dangerous.” Without waiting for an answer, Ronan stood up, holding the cat to his chest. When he glanced at Blue, she had an eyebrow raised in his direction. “What? We can’t leave it here. It’ll get run over.”
Blue shrugged and turned around to get back in the car. Just as Ronan did the same thing, the cat meowed louder, insistently.
“What?” he asked.
Suddenly, a chorus of meows replied from somewhere in the bushes on the side of the road. Ronan looked down just in time to see two more cats come out, followed by another lagging behind.
Bringing the cat closer to his face, Ronan said, “you tricked me, you little shit.”
The other cats —two of them in different combinations of black and white, the last one completely black— immediately swarmed his feet, meowing and biting his boots.
“I can’t take all of you,” he protested, but he knew it was a lie. The Barns were big enough to foster the kittens until they found them a home.
Finally, he looked up to see Blue with her phone out, presumably filming the whole thing, and giggling.
“Come on, Sargent, help me with the little beasts.”
“What will your boyfriend say when you get home with four cats instead of groceries?” She put her phone away, then walked to the cats, crouching to take the black one who was biting his shoelaces. The cat protested, meowing louder.
“We’re still swinging by the store, we need to pick up some things for the damn beasts.”
Despite his intention, Ronan’s voice sounded fond to his own ears. The grin on Blue’s face was telling.
“Shut up, maggot.”
He picked up the remaining two kittens and Blue opened the door to the backseat for him. Once the cats were all in the back, Ronan closed the door and walked to the driver’s side. On the other side of the road from where the kitten came from, he heard a loud hissing.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“What?” asked Blue.
Ronan followed the sound until he found the cat it came from: a beautiful black cat with a shiny coat that looked pissed as hell.
It took a few minutes, but eventually the cat left the bushes and came to Ronan’s extended hand, sniffing his fingers, then headbutting his hand.
From the car, Blue called, “is that the mom?”
If Ronan had to guess, he’d say that the initial hissing was a dead giveaway. Once the cat finally allowed itself to be carried, Ronan put it in the back of the car where the kittens received their mom with even louder meowing.
“You don’t think Gansey is allergic to cats, right?” Blue asked when they got on the way.
“Nah, just bees. And maybe normal shoes,” he replied.
Blue laughed and lovingly punched him on the arm.
“Hey! Watch those hands, I’m driving.”
—
When they arrived at the Barns after their grocery run, the house was filled with a loud energy that reminded him of Matthew. Usually, that meant Cheng had made it to the house and he was playing his awful music for everyone to suffer through. This time though, when Ronan came in, it was to the smell of takeout and the sounds of a movie playing in the background of an excited conversation between Adam, Gansey, and Cheng.
“I’m telling you, this is a masterpiece when it comes to heist movies,” Cheng said.
Ronan rolled his eyes. They’d been arguing about heists ever since Blue brought a movie with an all-female team. Blue herself was the most passionate about the topic, but Ronan couldn’t see why. All those movies seemed stupid to him.
He put down the cat carrier with the kittens and doubled back to pick up the grocery bags he left outside, holding the door open for Blue who was carrying the mom cat. Blue stayed in the car while Ronan was buying and, apparently, during the twenty minutes it took him to gather supplies, she and the cat had become best friends.
Blue set the cat down on the floor where it sat down to lick itself, ungracefully raising one of its hind legs. Content with leaving the cat to get acquainted with the house, Blue left for the kitchen with the groceries.
He was still looking at the mom cat licking herself when Adam came into the foyer, stopping in his tracks when he saw the cat. Ronan still watched her, fascinated with how important it seemed that she groomed the back of her legs.
“Are you aware there’s a cat in the house?” Adam asked.
“Technically, there are five cats in the house,” he replied pointing to the cat carrier where the kittens were.
“Why are there cats in the house?”
“They were on the road,” he replied, crouching to open the cat carrier. All but one of the cats were sleeping. The one who wasn’t was the little shit that got him out of the car in the first place. It made its way out of the carrier meowing, immediately going for Ronan’s shoelaces.
Ronan carefully took off his shoes and left the cat to its own devices, then went out to pick up the rest of the things he bought for the cats: two litter boxes, litter to fill them with, shampoo, and a concerning amount of toys that had Blue teasing him all the way back.
When he came back inside the house, the kittens had started wandering, attracting the attention from the rest of the house. Gansey was sitting on the floor, swarmed by the little beasts who gave him the same treatment they gave Ronan by the road.
“Can one of you help me with this?”
His question went unanswered since Blue came back into the foyer with an open can of cat food, shaking it to draw the cats’ attention. All of them, including the mom, followed her to the kitchen meowing.
From his position on the floor, an undignified Gansey asked, “why are there cats here?”
“Some asshole left them by the road. Or they left the pregnant mom by the road, I don’t know. I’m not the psychic one here.”
“Aw, darling Lynch couldn’t leave the poor kittens to fend for themselves,” Cheng said.
“There was only one cat first,” added Blue from her place at the kitchen entrance. “It was a whole thing. I got it on video.”
“Can I see?” asked Gansey standing up.
Blue passed him her phone. Adam and Cheng immediately went to his side to watch the video as well. Resigned to do the rest of the things on his own, he went to the kitchen and set up the litter boxes next to the back door. Then he unpacked some of the toys and threw them around the kitchen where the cats could pick them up when they were done eating. The only thing they were missing was a bed, but Blue had promised in the car on the way to the store that she could sew one for them.
“So, have you named the cats already or do we get to hold a vote?” asked Adam, coming up behind them, resting his chin on Ronan’s shoulder.
Ronan leaned back, letting Adam hold him for a second before replying. “Why would I name them when they’re only here for a few days?”
“Lynch, you bought toys. The cats are never gonna leave.”
He turned around to face Adam.
“Alright, then that’s Shitface,” he said pointing at the cat that started it all. It was playing with one of the felt mice, wiggling its butt getting ready to pounce on it.
“Creative,” Adam said.
“Well, you name one, then.”
“No, these are your cats, I want no part in this.”
Blue came into the room just then. “How dare you say that about one of your cat children?”
Adam didn’t dignify it with a response, leaving the room to go back to his takeout and movie. He dropped a kiss on the top of Blue’s head on the way, as if to apologize for his lack of parental involvement in the matter.
“The toys are so they won’t damage the furniture while they’re here,” he said, careful to not sound defensive.
“Lynch, I have news for you, Artemisia’s already sitting on the old armchair. She’s not going anywhere.”
“Who the fuck is Artemisia?”
“The mom, obviously.”
“Ah, fuck. You named a cat? You don’t name the cats you want to give away.”
Blue immediately fought back. “So did you! I heard you calling this little guy Shitface.”
“That wasn’t a name.”
“You told Adam it was,” she said. “Are you telling me you lied to our boyfriend?”
“Oh, fuck off.”
“Gladly. After you admit the cats are staying,” she crossed her arms, standing her ground in front of the door. He could’ve grabbed her and moved her out of the way, but he didn’t see the point. Besides, she was always packing a knife.
Ronan looked down at her serious face and saw she was genuinely worried he would give the cats away.
“Cheng can’t name any of the cats though.”
“Too late, Lynch. The black kitten is already named Confetti.”
“Did you name any other cats while I was away?”
“Gansey is still deciding what to name his kitten. Jury’s still out on whether Adam will name the other one or not.”
With this information, Ronan made his way to pick up the still unnamed kitten. He sat down in front of Adam and held it out to him.
“What?”
“Name this cat,” Ronan stated.
“Why?”
“Everyone’s named a cat by now. Except Gansey, but he’s thinking about it.”
“Let him have my share of cat-naming,” he said, pushing the cat away with a hand while balancing his takeout container in the other.
“Come on, aren’t you excited about the cats?”
“There are five of them.”
“I’m familiar with basic math,” Ronan replied.
“I’ve never had a pet before, I don’t know if I can go from zero to five in a second.” He went back to his food, taking a bite before sighing and looking back at Ronan. “I just don’t know what to do with myself around pets.”
“You don’t do anything. Just feed them regularly and don’t step on them.”
“I’m going back to college in a couple of weeks.”
“And the cats are staying here, no big deal. I’ll even use my phone to send you pictures.” Ronan waited for a moment before offering the cat again. “Name the cat?”
Adam looked down at his takeout container and smiled, “beef.”
“Beef?”
“Do you have a problem with that, Lynch?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.
“You said Shitface wasn’t creative enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“Fine. Beef it is.”
Ronan put the cat down and it stumbled as it made its way around the sofa, hurrying to join the rest of the kittens. Adam’s eyes followed the kitten all the way out of the room, the hints of a smile at the corner of his lips.
“So you do like cats,” said Ronan.
“Shut up, Lynch.”
Ronan’s smile matched Adam’s. He knew he made the right decision when he stopped the car. Anything that made Adam smile was worth keeping; it didn’t hurt that it was also the option that made him smile the most.