Stray Cat Strut

Chapter Twenty - Pitbulls and Tacos

“You’re still worried about the gays?

Don’t you think Lord has given us bigger problems to deal with?”

--Unknown cardinal during the vatican incursion of 2037

***

“Cat!” Lucy screamed from the dining room upstairs. “They’re here!”

“Got it!” I called back. I was in our bedroom, which was currently bedless . We’d have to rough it for the night, but I figured we could manage one night without anything more comfortable than each other and a few blankets. My armour stood tall and imposing in the corner of the room, with most of my gear leaning up next to it.

We were going to be having dinner, I probably didn’t need to be bulletproof to endure some take-out.

I ran downstairs, swore as I almost tripped on Tim who was using the bottom step as a seat, then eyed the main room where the rest of the kittens were making a mess. We’d ordered enough junk food to feed a small army and the kittens were doing their best to eat their way through it all.

To be fair, Lucy and I had never really ordered food with a full wallet before. We just kept adding more and more things to the order, half spurred on by our own hunger (I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually eaten) and half by the heady feeling of being rich enough to ignore the checkout price at the bottom.

“Y’all behave,” I said over the noise of so many brats and one dog gathered in one room. My cat mecha were lounging here and there, watching over the kittens or being used as mobile benches to sit on.

I got some affirmatives, but the kittens seemed too busy to give much of a shit.

Shaking my head, I ran past them and to the front lobby area. Gomorrah and Franny were waiting on the other side. I was relieved to see that they were in somewhat more casual clothes. I opened the door and grinned at the pair of them. “Hey! Welcome to the Cat Castle! Come on in!”

Gomorrah rolled her eyes, which was nice, I didn’t often get to see her unmasked face, then she gestured Franny in ahead of her. “Hello... Cat?”

“Yeah?”

Franny chuckled. “I think she’s trying to figure out if she should call you Cat or... whatever your real name is,” Franny said. “You know, is this business or fun?”

“My real name’s Catherine, so Cat works either way. No one calls me Catherine though, that’s like two syllables too many.” I shut the door behind them, leaving the colder air outside. “So, will it be Gomorrah tonight, or Delilah.”

“Delilah, please,” Gom... Delilah said.

I nodded as I looked the two up and down. Franny was in skinny jeans and a band shirt for a group I didn’t recognize. Her hair was up in a big red ponytail and she had a grungy army-surplus sort of coat on. Very casual-punk looking.

Delilah on the other hand was done up in a black dress that stopped just below the knees and that had a lace-covered cut-out on the front. Black heels, dark makeup, some eyeliner. “I didn’t know you were into the goth look,” I said. I was feeling a little underdressed, maybe. Clean sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt were maybe too casual.

“She isn’t,” Franny replied. “She just doesn’t know how to dress herself if it’s not in a habit.”

“Franny,” Delilah said.

I laughed, then pointed deeper into the house. “Wanna come upstairs? Lucy’s setting up the table now. I asked Rac and she found it somewhere downstairs. I decided not to ask too many questions.”

“Because you’re afraid of knowing too much about your little friend’s questionably legal activities?” Delilah asked.

“More like I can admit to not knowing if one of our neighbours shows up asking about their table,” I said.

We crossed the room with all the kittens, reaching the staircase surprisingly unscathed by the clowder of shitstains making a mess of the living room.

“This place sure is unique,” Franny said as she looked around. “I thought the exterior would be a sort of one-off gimmick, but I guess the inside needs to be strange to fit everything.”

“It’s a bit weird, yeah,” I said.

“How are your defences?” Gomorrah asked.

“Not perfect,” I said. “Still need to talk to Longbow about his AA gun above. Rac’s made some little turrets that we’re starting to place around, but we don’t have full coverage yet. It’s going to take a couple of days at this rate before the entire tower’s a kill zone for any lower-level models. Longer before we can make it really dangerous. How’s the church?”

“Better than here, I think. The nuns back home all have weapon’s training and we have a decent armory. I set up a few towers with flamethrowers and some more traditional gun emplacements.”

“Sounds nice. I might get someone to train the kittens in using guns, that might be a good skill to have.”

“You could likely use the training yourself,” Delilah said.

There’s a skill package for that.

I huffed, but they weren’t exactly wrong.

“Gomorrah, Franny!” Lucy cheered as we finally made it upstairs. She welcomed our friends with open arms, pulling Franny into a hug, then giving Delilah a squeeze too. “We have food! Come on, sit. We don’t actually have chairs because Cat can’t think that far ahead, but we do have some park benches. Just don’t ask where they’re from.”

“What’s for dinner?” Franny asked.

“Burgers! And fries, poutine, milkshakes, soda, uh, we have doughnuts and three kinds of pizza too. And hushpuppies. Fried cheese bites. We have a whole box of coffee.” Lucy frowned at the table. “I’m missing a couple of things.”

“Like a doctor?” Delilah said. “This all sounds like a quick way to end up hospitalised.”

“Oh right! Salads!” Lucy clapped. “We have those too. Proper American salads, with more meat bits and bread and cheese than lettuce.”

Lucy pulled the two along, then gestured them towards a bench. It was a very small bench, with barely enough room for two people to fit onto it, and only if they didn’t mind bumping hips while they sat.

I glanced at the bench, then up to Lucy who gave me a knowing wink.

I nodded to her as I went around the other side and sat across from the girls. Lucy, it seemed, was keen on playing matchmaker some more. At least she seemed to be a bit subtle about it. It could all be excused away, and it wasn’t like getting the two to sit close together was starting anything.

Grabbing a plastic plate, I started adding junk to it, which seemed to be the signal for the others to do the same. Delilah was the only one showing any sort of restraint. The rest of us were more like a pack of rabid animals tossed into an over-full dumpster.

“Oh, sweet potato fries!” Franny cheered as she grabbed a fistfull, opened a burger, and smushed them in.

Delilah watched the rather disgusting display, but she just smiled fondly.

I glanced at Lucy. She’d seen it too, and we shared a nod.

“So, Franny,” Lucy said as she chewed on a ketchup-dipped fry. “You’re from the same church thing as Delilah, right? Is it, like, a fancy orphanage?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, and no, it’s not an orphanage. It’s more of a boarding school, I guess. You stay there for like, nine months of the year, with a few vacations and breaks here and there. The rest of the time you spend with your family.”

Lucy nodded. “That’s neat! Are your groups big? Or was it just like, the two of you?”

“We’re... thirty-ish in our year-group,” Franny said. She glanced at Delilah for confirmation. “Delilah and I have been together for a while though.”

“Wait,” Lucy said. “I thought you two were just friends... oh, did you break up? I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to stick my foot in my mouth.”

“Break? Uh, no, no, it’s not like that,” Franny said. She laughed, but it sounded forced.

“So, it’s more of an open relationship kind of thing?” Lucy asked.

“No, we’re not gay,” Franny said.

She couldn’t have convinced a kid that candy was good for them with that tone.

Delilah, next to her, shot me a glare that bounced right off the ablative layer made from my willingness to start shit.

“So, how long have you two known each other?” Franny asked. She took a bite out of her burger after firing her question off. It didn’t disguise the bit of red on her cheeks.

I smiled and leaned over to Lucy who turned my way. We kissed, just a quick, chaste thing that still left me licking my lips to taste the saltiness of what she’d been eating.

Delilah and Franny had both stopped mid-bite to stare, and both resumed eating with the same start when they noticed we were done. “Oh, it’s been, uh, a while?” Lucy asked. “Do you mean when we started dating, or when we first met?”

“Uh,” Franny said.

The poor girl, she’d gotten Lucy’s attention. At this point Lucy wouldn’t let go until the two were happily married. She was like a pitbull with a box full of tacos in her mouth.

***