Page 27 of By Rude Strength

LA grunted.

Cass chewed and swallowed. “You wanted me tolie?”

“It’s fine.” LA grumbled, glancing back at his phone. “He wants to meet for lunch tomorrow and says to bring some of my paintings.”

“That’s wonderful news!” Cass took another bite of muffin.

“Wait, is that the floor muffin?”

“Five second rule.”

LA made a face. “All right, well, if you’re done meddling, I need to make some phone calls.”

“Can I help?” Cass asked hopefully.

“No, you’ve already done enough.” LA looked back down at his phone. “I do appreciate you writing up that message to Brandon for me, even if it was stupid. I honestly don’t know what I would have said. Even just sayinghellofelt… hard.”

“That’s what I’m here for.” Cass patted LA’s shoulder. “I really do want to help you, Elly. Sometimes that means stealing your phone and texting your friends.” He held his head high. “But never again!”

“Don’t worry.” LA squeezed Cass’s paw and grinned. “I am confident you’ll find lots of other ways to piss me off.”

And indeed Cass did.

LA spent the next few hours looking up phone numbers for workers’ compensation attorneys and trying to schedule a consultation. He was sure that what the funeral home had done was against the law somehow and he was determined to fight for his job. There had to be some way to get it back.

He was looking forward to seeing Brandon and although he didn’t expect anything to happen with his paintings, he’d figured it didn’t hurt to try and it might get Cass to lay off for a while.

Cass, however, hovered and buzzed around like a giant, fluffy fly. He was very curious what LA was doing and when he wasn’t pestering him to ask questions while LA was on the phone, he was going around poking at the paintings on the wall.

LA would grab a pillow and wordlessly threaten to hit Cass only to have him flit over to another painting.

When he wasn’t being absolutely annoying, Cass was slightly helpful. He refilled LA’s coffee mug, gave him lots of thumbs ups, and brought him a pen when the one he’d been using ran out of ink.

It was sort of nice to have some company at least.

Even if said company wouldn’t stop poking at the paintings and nearly knocked one off the wall.

LA hung up from his latest call, scolding, “Will you stop? You’re going to break something!”

“I’m helping you decide which paintings to bring!” Cass argued.

“How exactly are you doing that?”

“Well, I’m no art critic, so I’m picking the ones that you seem to get the most upset about me messing with.” Cass beamed. “I believe those are the ones you care about the most!”

“That is insane.”

“Is it working?”

“I dunno.” LA sighed and stretched out across the couch. “Which ones did you wanna bring?”

“This one with the ghoulish face in blue that has what I believe to be intestines made of buttons? And oh, this one orange ghoulish face with the biohazard tape and gauze.” Cass clapped excitedly. “Last but not least, this pair of ghoulish faces with their tongues, that I believe are old latex balloons, tied together!”

“Those aren’t balloons. Those are condoms.”

“Oh!”

LA chuckled. “Don’t worry. They’re not used.”