by A. J. Downey
I said as much when one of the guys commented on the weather and left everyone in stitches.
“We gonna have to start naming every new recruit things like ‘fish.’” Major said.
“Duck,” Blackjack declared staring off into space, mellow in his high.
“Find a real mean motherfucker? Goose,” Cipher declared to another round of laughter.
We’d wrapped up business a while ago and were just chilling, none of us in any real hurry to get out in the weather.
“Y’all are some fuckin’ dumbass losers,” Nine declared over something I’d missed. My mornings started at like four-thirty, and it’d been a long day of shoveling ice and slinging crates of frozen fish down at the market. I had barely had the time to get my ass home and shower, change my clothes, before making church.
“Right, well, it ain’t getting any better out there.” I sighed. “I’m going home and pass out.”
“Pussy!” Tic called, laughing at me and I shook my head.
“Man, you try getting your ass up at four-thirty every day slinging fish and shoveling ice and shit.”
I worked four twelves down at the market, and had Saturday, Sunday, and Monday off. Today was Friday. I usually powered through Saturday and Sunday with the boys and did nothing but fucking sleep and catch up on laundry on Mondays. It was a whole lot of rinse and repeat but that was just life, I guess.
I went out to my bike, the night dark, the air cold, the sky pissing rain in a steady fucking miserable non-stop drip to the point I think we’d all give our left nut for a break.
I took the tunnel, would pay the toll, just for the chance to be dry for a fuckin’ minute as I headed north to my shitty old hotel room turned studio apartment up on hooker alley, aka Aurora Ave N. in North Seattle.
I was riding at a good clip, taking the curve near Green Lake when something orange and white tumbled out from the Jersey barriers in place and stumbled into the roadway. I knew a cat or kitten when I saw it, and this was a bad stretch. It was pretty calm this time of night, so I pulled off, jumping the curb and stopping on the side there in the soggy grass right beside the sidewalk, the deserted Green Lake looping trail below to my right.
I waited for a couple cages to pass, a truck, the kitten struggling not to get hit, and finally as soon as there was an opening, I darted out and snatched the little guy up – barely getting my ass back to safety without getting taken out myself. Fuckin’ crazy-ass cage drivers thinking they’re the next Dale Earnhardt or some shit, fuck!
I got the cat under the light and he looked up at me, and it was bad. Half his little face and one eye was all raw hamburger, his fur wet and sticking up at odd angles, streaked with the rusty color of blood.
“Oh, shit. Hang on, little man,” I said and with his pitiful cries echoing in my ears I thrust him into my jacket against my chest and zipped it up, trapping him.
He struggled, but there wasn’t anywhere for the little guy to go, and he was pretty fuckin’ weak.
“We gotta get you to a vet,” I said. Straddling my bike, I looked up twenty-four-hour emergency vets near me.
There was one up past my place, way past my place, that specialized in cats up toward Bothell, shit – a good almost twenty miles north.
No problem.
I got back onto 99 and managed to not get taken out and twisted the throttle, shifting gears smoothly and hauling ass.
It was slicker than owl shit out here, and I was trying not to get us both killed as the little ball of injured fur squirmed like a motherfucker inside my jacket.
I pulled into the well-lit lot in front of the animal clinic’s doors that were marked with a bold red stripe, big white block letters going through it stating ‘emergency’ and I hopped off the bike.
Inside, it was well lit, but a little on the cooler side and a girl my age, maybe a little less looked up from behind the receptionist wrap in a set of cartoon unicorn pony scrubs.
“Help you?” she asked, looking at me confused as I dripped water on the non-slip gray mat in front of the wrap.
“Yeah, he’s hurt bad,” I said, unzipping my coat and dragging the unfortunate little furball out. “I found him just by Green Lake, the sharp curves there.”
The girl took off her chunky black framed reading glasses and set them down, holding out her hands and taking him from me.
“Oh, God,” she declared. “I’m the only one here. Come on back and help me,” she said, and I went with her. She started doing things with swift efficiency.
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Fish,” I answered automatically.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Fish,” I repeated. “Everyone calls me Fish.”
“I need a legal name, for the paperwork?”
“Oh, Saul Masters.”
“Okay, Mr. Masters, and what’s his name?”
“Uh… Nemo?” I thought about the conversation earlier.
“And how will you be paying?” she asked.
“Wait, that’s not my cat,” I said. “Is this how you get a cat?” My brow wrinkled in confusion.
“This is how you get a cat,” she affirmed, and I really looked at her, then.
She was beautiful, even with her face free of makeup, her nails natural and clipped short, her hair up in a messy sort of loopy bun thing, the ends spiky and at all angles. Her skin was smooth, her eyes calculating and focused and the most astounding shade of gray, an almost silver in her face. I bet if she ever let that tawny golden wheat blonde hair down, that her eyes would be out of this world framed up by it.
“Cash, card, what?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter,” I said, snapping back with it. “I’ll pay it. Just fix him.”
“My pleasure. Poor little guy is in really rough shape. He’s going to have to stay overnight, may need surgery. This could get really expensive.”
“He’s a little scrapper, a fighter. I’ll pay it.”
“We’re talking maybe a couple thousand dollars here, you sure?”
“You trying to talk me out of it?” I asked with a half-smile.
“We can’t take on another clinic cat,” she said. “I’m making sure – I would hate to put all sorts of care into him, call the doctor and wake him up to come down here, just to have you skip out on the bill and little Nemo here end up in a kill shelter.”
“Fuck that! This little guy fought way too hard to live, just look at him.”
She looked up at me and fixed me with those eyes and I felt my heart do a barrel roll in my chest. Shit she was pretty.
“Let me get him stable, call the doctor, and get the rest of your information. Hand me that thing there,” she pointed at a weird tube looking thing that looked like it went on the end of your finger, but I’m sure that wasn’t what it was for. I obediently handed it over. “Okay, I think that’s all I need you for. Please don’t ditch,” she said.
“I’ll be right out here in your waiting room,” I vowed.
I went out and took a seat, tired and fucking around on my phone just to stay awake. She came out a little while later.
“Doc is on his way, he’s definitely going to need surgery for that eye, you want to get him neutered at the same time?”
“Yeah.”
“Vaccinated against…” She listed off a bunch of shit I couldn’t follow.
“Yeah, might as well do it all,” I said.
“Alright.” She nodded and said, “We can take care of some of this upfront and the rest when you pick him up.”
Five hundred and eight-nine dollars later, I was damn sure hoping a blow job came with things. Yeah, shitty and douche baggy to say, I know, but all I could picture was her lips wrapped around my cock, her eyes rolled up and looking at me and down boy.
“Anything else you want to know?” she asked me and without missing a beat, I shot back, “Your name would be nice.”
She fixed me with a flat look, those eyes giving away the calculations that she had going on behind t
hem and I waited her out. Finally, she said, “Kinzleigh.”
“Kinzleigh?” I asked, “Never heard a name like that.”
“Yeah, well, it’s East Tennessee for I was raised poor white trash,” she said, and her tone was clipped. My eyes went a little wide and I laughed. She didn’t have a trace of an accent. I wondered if she worked on that.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Kinzleigh,” I said.
“Nice to meet you too… Fish. Can I get your number?” she asked, and I grinned. “To call about Nemo,” she added and my grin only grew.
“Sure thing.” I wrote it down on the pad and paper she handed me, and she said, “I’ll call you as soon as he’s ready to go home.”
I nodded, and it was halfway back down Aurora that it hit me, shit, I don’t even know if my apartments will allow a fucking cat… fuck me!
I was going to have to figure that out, but it looked like I had a little time. What I couldn’t stop thinking about was Kinzleigh of the efficient sharp wit and silvery eyes. I wondered what her story was. Didn’t sound like it was a happy origin story by any means, but at the same time neither was mine; so many people’s rarely were.
I barely dragged myself through a hot shower before collapsing into bed, falling asleep to the vision of Kinzleigh looking up over the rim of those smart little glasses at me, naughty librarian style.
I had some fucking dreams that night, I tell you what…
Also by A.J. Downey
The Sacred Hearts MC
1. Shattered & Scarred
2. Broken & Burned
3. Cracked & Crushed
3.5 Masked & Miserable (a novella)
4. Tattered & Torn
5. Fractured & Formidable
6. Damaged & Dangerous
The Virtues
1. Cutter’s Hope
2. Marlin’s Faith
3. Charity for Nothing
4. Stoker’s Serenity
The Sacred Brotherhood
1. Brother to Brother
2. Her Brother’s Keeper
3. Brother In Arms
4. Between Brothers
5. A Brother’s Secret
6. A Brother At My Back
7. A Brother’s Salvation
Sacred Hearts MC Novella
Christmas with the Brotherhood
Indigo Knights
1. Her Thin Blue Lifeline
2. His Cold Blue Command
3. A Low Blue Flame
4. His Wild Blue Rose
5. Her Pained Blue Silence
6. A Cold Blue Call
7. Her Reluctant Blue Cavalier
8. Forged Under Fire
9. Under A Blue Moon
Sacred Hearts MC Pacific Northwest
1. Over the High Side
2. Wind Therapy
3. Apex of the Curve
4. Low Sided
Paranormal Romance (with Ryan Kells)
1. I Am The Alpha
2. Omega’s Run
3. Hunter’s End
Indigo City Darker (with Jared KingPacal Lain)
1. Triple Threat
2. Double Shot
Standalones
Synchronicity
About A.J. Downey
A.J. Downey is a Pacific Northwest girl living in an East Tennessee world who finds inspiration from her surroundings, through the people she meets, and likely as a byproduct of way too much caffeine. She specializes in real and relatable romance stories featuring that real-life kind of love that everyone craves.
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