Page 27

“Bijoux!” I call, my voice groggy. “Aurora Rose!”

I pat my hands along the comforter, searching for the shape of the cats tucked among the blanket’s folds, but I can’t feel them. My heart pounds, banishing the last of the sleep fog from my brain as I swing my legs out of bed.

“Here, kitties!” I call as I drop to my knees to peer under the bed. “Where are you?”

All I find are some dust bunnies and stray hairs. I get up and take off running down the hall, my bare feet slapping against the hardwood as images of last night flit through my mind like a slideshow on speed.

Or, more accurately, weed.

I remember Priya passing out on the living room couch after we all went inside. I think I left her there with a blanket and put Shal in one of the spare bedrooms.

The last thing I remember before going up to my own room is devouring a bag of Cheetos in the kitchen with Andrea and laughing at how weird it felt to lick cheese dust off my fingers.

The wave of embarrassment that builds when I imagine what I must have looked like shoving my fingers in my mouth and giggling like a maniac gets pushed aside when I make it down to the empty kitchen and don’t find the cats waiting by their food bowls. I pivot and make a break for the igloo, sprinting past a still-sleeping Priya where she’s lying with her entire body huddled under a fluffy pink blanket like it’s a shroud.

When I find the insulated cat bed empty, my pulse reaches a dangerous pace and my vision swims. Mid-morning sunlight is streaming through the windows at full blast. I don’t know how I’m going to tell Sandy I let her award-winning cats escape and get burned to a crisp while I was high out of my mind and trying to ignore how much I wanted to make out with her step-daughter.

I push through the vertigo and race back to the kitchen. I’m just about to shove the sliding door open when a voice from behind me asks what’s wrong.

I turn and find Andrea with her hair piled in a messy bun and some very tiny sleep shorts just visible under the hem of the oversized t-shirt she’s wearing.

I’m suddenly very aware that she’s once again caught me in my pickle pajamas.

“The cats,” I say, glad I can blame the breathiness of my voice on panic instead of what those little shorts are doing to my respiratory system. “I can’t find them.”

She swears and comes over to join me as I push the door open and step onto the deck.

“You’ve checked the whole house?”

I shake my head, raking my gaze over the wide backyard for any sight of exposed cat flesh. “Just their usual spots, but they would have heard me calling if they were inside. They’ve slept with me every night except last night. They must have gotten out.”

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout their names loud enough to make Andrea flinch. I keep calling as I cross the deck and step down onto the lawn, my pitch rising when neither of their bald heads pokes out from behind a flower pot or under a pool chair.

I glance over my shoulder and see Andrea stalking along the bushes that line the property’s fence. She’s found a big stick to pry branches out of the way as she hollers summoning chants that would have Sandy fainting away onto the deck boards if she were here.

“Come on, you greasy little skin sacks! I have more important stuff to do today! Here, kitties!”

I’d laugh if I didn’t feel close to tears.

They might have been greasy and sack-like, but they were also the cuddliest cats I’d ever met. We had a bond. Now they’re probably some neighborhood dog’s chew toy, and I’m going to get my dad fired because of some stupid plan to make my last real summer as a teenager ‘matter.’

A heaving gasp forces its way out of me. Andrea freezes in the middle of lifting the bottom of a shrub with her stick and turns at the sound.

“What is it?” she asks, already bounding over to me. “Did you find them? That did not sound good.”

I shake my head, blinking against the burning sensation in my eyes. I should have known things like joints and tattoos and summer flings aren’t for people like me.

“Hey. Hey, it’s okay.”

Andrea comes to a stop a foot away from me and lifts her hands like she’s about to hug me before she drops her arms back to her sides. She shifts her weight from foot to foot as I cough to cover a sob.

“I lost them,” I wheeze. “I lost the freaking cats. I had one job, and I lost them. They can’t be in the sun. Those poor things. Poor Sandy. What am I supposed to do?”

Andrea lifts one of her hands again and reaches for my shoulder, her fingertips brushing the pickle-patterned fabric of my t-shirt like she’s asking permission. When I don’t pull away, she wraps a firm grip around my shoulder and guides us back to the house.

“We don’t even know if they’re lost yet,” she says as we step back into the cool air of the kitchen. “They have a whole mansion to be hiding in. We’re gonna find those weird little naked felines, okay? I promise.”

I can still feel the ghost of her fingers wrapped around my shoulder when she lets go of me and turns to lead the way to the second floor.