Page 135 of Knottingley Ever After
“Noted.”
The kitten, on my palm, decides the conversation is too long for her budget. She climbs Matteo. Right up the front of his thermal. She lodges herself on his shoulder, tucks her tail around her front paws, and meows once, imperiously.
“Oh,” Matteo says, delighted. “You.”
Rémi crosses in. The kitten, having clocked the second tall man, leaves Matteo’s shoulder for Rémi’s the way a small unimpressed sovereign moves between thrones. She settles on Rémi’s shoulder. She meows once at me.
“She seems pleased with the housing arrangement,” Rémi observes. “If you love the kitten, Iris, she is yours to name.”
My entire face lights up. I sniff. I lift one finger.
“I,” I announce, with full theatrical weight, “will name her something that screamsworld domination.”
“No,” the three of them say in unison.
“You gave me the reins. I will name her whatever I like.”
I crouch. I scoop the kitten back off Rémi’s shoulder. I lift her, both hands, up over my head in the precise Lion-King-circle-of-life elevation I have, in this calendar year, witnessed precisely zero other adult humans perform in real life. The kitten goes limp the way kittens go limp when they have been lifted by an Omega who is making a decision.
“Boudicca,daughter of the Iceni, queen of the North Wind, scourge of any winger who dares chirp her mother in a practice setting. I name thee.”
They stare.
“She thinks,” Matteo says, very quietly, to the room, “this is the Lion King.”
“You should write a chant in old Iceni Celtic,” Rémi notes, the millimeter smile making its full appearance, “that translates roughly tothis is a kitten.Disney got sued for the original. We can get sued for the homage. Round trip.”
“Wait.” I lower the kitten. “WHAT lawsuit.”
“Some comedian,” Jude says, with the dry recitation of a man who has, in fact, been following the case, “went on a podcast and pointed out that the Zulu chant at the top ofCircle of Lifetranslates, in English, to the precise four-word sentencehere comes a lion.The original songwriter sued him for damaging the song’s mystique. Settlement pending.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “THAT IS PLAYING DIRTY.”
“Mm,” the three of them agree, in chorus.
“Okay.” Rémi puts one hand on my shoulder. “Iris. The kitten is yours. The room is yours. The nest is yours. We have to check with Coach Declan and the front office about the campus pet policy, because none of us actually know whether we are allowed to keep an animal in a team house. Jude and Matteo will handlethat this afternoon. I will stay back and make sure neither of you burns down the kitchen while you break the room in.”
“Yes, Defenseman.”
I cross to him. I hug him properly. He bends his head and presses a kiss to the crown of mine. The kitten, sandwiched between us, makes a small affronted noise.
I cross to Matteo next. He scoops me into a full bear-hug that lifts me, briefly, three inches off the floor and sets me back down.
Then I cross to Jude.
“You,” I tell him, fisting the front of his thermal in one hand and the small heated outrage of a betrayed houseguest in the other, “are a sneaky snake, Captain Kavanagh. The cabin. The lake. The Pinterest interrogation. The whole production. Forty-eight hours of distraction. I should sue.”
“Sneaky,” he agrees, mild. “Yes. Never going to betray you, however. There is a difference.”
He drops a kiss on my forehead. I let him.
The three of them peel out. The two on errand-duty head down the back stairs with the small unhurried captain-and-winger stride of men running a Sunday-afternoon clerical operation. Rémi, on his way down, throws one final look back at me from the doorway.
“And Iris.”
“Mm.”
“Welcome home. Go relax. Enjoy your new room. Enjoy your nest.”
