Page 24 of By Rude Strength

He remembered having it yesterday when he and Cass had been talking about texting Brandon, so perhaps he’d left it down in the living room.

LA headed downstairs, leaning on the railing of the stairs until he finally reached the bottom. He thought he smelled something, like cookies baking, but he dismissed the idea. His focus now was getting a cup of coffee, his morning meds, and then trying to figure out what to do today.

Oh, and finding his damn phone.

He didn’t see it in the living room either, and he wondered if Cass might know where it had gotten off to. Maybe Cass hada phone of his own and could call it to help track it down. LA wondered if it would be a regular sized phone or a big monster phone, and he smiled at the silly thought.

His smile, however, vanished when he walked into his kitchen.

The cabinets were all open with their contents strewn across the counters like a hurricane had come barreling through. There was a creamy yellow batter splattered everywhere including the floor plus a heavy dusting of flour. Cass was standing in the middle of the mess and judging by the footprints in the flour, had been pacing back and forth for several minutes. The disaster had even spread over to the kitchen table where it appeared Cass was making some sort of sugary crumble.

“Oh! Good morning!” Cass beamed. “Did you sleep well? I wasn’t sure if you—”

“What the fuck is this shit?” LA snapped.

“This is a kitchen.” Cass grinned sheepishly. “That I maybe sort of made a little bit of a mess in—”

“Alittlebit?” LA seethed as he stalked toward the table. “What the fuck did you do? I was in the bathroom for like ten fuckin’ minutes tops and—”

“I’m going to clean it up, cranky pants,” Cass soothed. “I thought it would be nice for you to start the day with a yummy breakfast!”

“Nice? Wrecking my entire fucking kitchen isnice?” LA scowled as he grabbed one of his pill bottles that was dripping with batter. “Oh my fucking God.”

“Okay, so, I was in a tiny bit of a hurry because I wanted to surprise you—”

“Mission accomplished! I’m very fucking surprised!” LA wiped off the batter, growled since he had no idea where to wipe it off his hand, and flung it at the floor in frustration.

“I was going to clean up!” Cass protested with a perfectly pitiful pout.

“The fuck were you thinking?” LA pulled out a chair from the table, glaring at Cass as he moved to sit down. “You should have fucking asked me first. Now the whole place is a fucking disaster and—”

Cass poked LA’s nose.

LA snorted, his nostrils flaring. “What the fuck was that?”

“Booping you seemed like the nicest way to make you stop yelling.” Cass smiled warmly.

LA blinked rapidly. “Okay.”

Cass clapped his paws and the entire mess vanished in a blink. Everything was back in the cabinets, the floors and counters were sparkling, and there was no sign that anything had ever been amiss. Even the pill bottles were perfectly clean and LA was so stunned that he jumped when the timer for the oven went off.

“Oh! Muffins!” Cass cooed excitedly as he hurried over to the oven, his wings flapping.

“Why didn’t you just tell me that you could magically poof it all away, huh?” LA opened up his other prescriptions to make a little pile of pills for himself.

“I told you I was going to clean it up!” Cass scolded, donning mitts to retrieve a tray of muffins from the oven. He set them on top of the stove, closing the oven with a swing of his tail. “Youdidn’t believe me.”

“Sorry,” LA muttered.

“What was that?”

“Sorry,” LA said louder.

“Wow.” Cass gasped dramatically, a cup of coffee in his paws that wasn’t there before. He set it down in front of LA, his bright eyes wide as if he was in shock.

LA stared expectantly. “What?”

“You can apologize!” Cass giggled. “That’s amazing!”