171 Talk to Me

All of Justin's waiting had finally paid off: the kittens were going back to the shelter the next day so Emily had taken the day off to enjoy them one more time. The number of cats in his house would be reduced by more than half.

He tried to hide it for Emily's sake—she didn't know how hard a time he'd had with all this—but he was secretly thrilled to have things go back to some semblance of normal. The guest room would be closed up again and all their stuff would be moved to Cookie's room, now the generic cat room.

They sat on the living room floor. Surprisingly, all fourteen cats had joined them. They were rarely all in a single room at once aside from mealtimes.