He’d been sitting in the same position, with Marmalade on his lap like a lump of dead weight, for three hours now, and the result wasn’t pretty. He refused to get up, though. He had a lot of work to do, but that wasn’t exactly why. He couldn’t face Angie. Not right now. Not with these images of her in his head, refusing to go away. Each time he thought of her, he saw her in the arms of someone else. So he tried hard not to think about her at all. Angie, for her part, got tired of trying to reach him. She thought about bringing him his dinner, then, angered by his refusal to come and eat with her, decided to leave it out instead. Let the cat get it, she huffed, and went to bed early. Somewhere after midnight, just when Brian thought his ass was going to fall off, Marmalade broke from her feline coma, stood on all fours, and stretched and licked her shoulder. Then, out of the blue, she jumped away violently, using claws and using them with intent. Brian felt it through his sweatpants, and knew the cat had drawn blood. “Hey, that hurt, you little shit!”
