Catgirls Can Do It! (Build-A-Catgirl Book 2)

by Simon Archer

  “I do not like the vibe I get from him. I just met him a few minutes ago. He knows Abe Gunther and has done some work for him,” I explained to her. “He didn’t say or do anything specifically alarming. I can’t quite put my finger on it.”

  Krysta smiled up at me, reached one hand up, and touched my face.

  “Oh, Clark,” she said softly. “Put yourself at ease. You are always on such high alert. You said he knows Abe, right? Well, Abe is a good guy. You said the man didn’t do anything alarming. Perhaps it is because there were no alarms to set off?” Krysta was a better salesperson than I ever gave her credit for. She was also correct. There was nothing outwardly apparent about Trevor that would raise caution flags to anyone in the room other than me.

  “You aren’t wrong,” I said. “But, I’m not in the habit of ignoring my gut instincts about people either. So, just be observant if you see him again, okay?” Krysta stepped forward and put her arms around my neck. I slid my hands down her sides and wrapped them around her waist.

  “I will. Don’t worry,” she whispered, her lips just short of mine. “Now, I need to get back to the girls. Cora is talking about giving me a shot at a practice run with her catering company books.” She winked at me and stepped back.

  “Her books? Do you mean business records?” My curiosity was instantly piqued.

  “Yes, that is what I mean.” Krysta smiled and ran her hands from my shoulders, down to my hands.

  “Why would she do that?” I held her hands when they got to mine.

  “We’ve never really talked about my skill set, have we?” Krysta commented. “Clark, I am programmed with the most sophisticated data analysis and pattern recognition capabilities known to the human tech world. I wanted to get some practical business application experience before offering to do the books for VGS.” She scowled slightly as though I’d just ruined a surprise.

  “You never said anything about wanting to do anything other than modifications.” I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “You are correct. I have not,” she said. “I don’t rush into anything. You have a great system set up at VGS, and you have Macy and Kennedi to help you run it. I want to discern if I can add value to your process before asking for a position.”

  I was impressed.

  “Mmmhmm,” I said. I put my hands on her hips, pushed her back just slightly, and smiled at her. “Well, you’d better get running along then, Miss Business Analyst Extraordinaire.”

  Still holding my hands, she turned to the side and brought her tail around to my left arm. She wrapped it around the entire length of my arm and then slowly started to unwrap it as she walked away. She let go of one of my hands, then the other, and finally, her tail slipped completely off my arm before she was gone. As bubbly, naïve-seeming, and people-pleasing as she was, Krysta was also sexy as fuck. I watched her hips sway as she walked until she rounded a corner in the path, and then I headed back to Charlie, Theo, and Abe.

  It was time to put a crib together.

  14

  Bev

  There was a slight lull in the serving line. A little boy had picked up the microphone and was talking on stage, so a good number of people left the buffet to go watch him as he and the other boys started to dance. The lull was beneficial, though, because it would give Ellie and me a chance to reset and restock the meat pots before they all came back. Ellie came over and put her tail around my shoulders.

  “This will be the first break we’ve gotten all day,” she said. She was quite a bit taller than me, so I looked up at her.

  “Yep, but hopefully it is the last. The more food we can kick outta here, the more money we make for the foundation,” I told her.

  “The foundation broke even on the cost of the food in the first hour. Everything since then has been pure profit,” Ellie commented, smiling. She turned, grabbed four plates, and started loading them with food.

  She was the best business partner I could’ve ever imagined having. Her efficiency and youth were a perfect balance to my experience and diligence. On the day we’d opened Belavi, I had been a nervous wreck. I even told Theo he had been a damn fool to let me get into the restaurant business after putting it off for so many years. It had been Ellie, with all her confidence and passion, who reminded me why I was doing it. I loved to cook, I was excellent at it, and it would be a shame for the world to not have access to my food. She was such a crutch that day that I had to remind her of her own accolades. We worked seamlessly together in a kitchen. We shared ideas, and she would dive head-on into developing an idea one of us had while I took care of the details. I had always been good with details. I believed anyone could be if they simply slowed down and observed their surroundings. So that is what I took a moment to do.

  Looking out from behind the buffet, I had a clear view of the entire event set up. The tables for eating were directly in front of me, and the stage and seating area was just beyond that. Across the way is where the tent was set up, and the vendors surrounded all of us. I looked over the tables to make sure none of them needed to be bussed.

  There were two occupied VIP tables, other than the one Theo, Clark, Leah, and Kennedi were sitting at. Behind those, further from the stage, three of the standard seating tables were occupied. The one directly beside where Theo was had a family of four sitting at it. The parents were helping their young children cut up their food. The table behind Theo’s had a single gentleman sitting at it. He had turned his chair, so he could have a better view of the stage. The only other occupied table was nearest the buffet. There were three rather large college boys sitting at it who had been through the buffet line at least three times already. They were laughing and carrying on like youth often do.

  I reached under the buffet table and pulled out a wrapped tray of cornbread and continued checking things out while I took the plastic wrap off. I was happy to see Leah smiling a bit since Kennedi and Clark sat down. She was such a hard worker, and she deserved to laugh. Leah was also rather thin, so I had made sure to put extra butter on her roll. I made sure Ellie knew not to say anything to her before took the food out to the table which she was doing now.

  As Ellie approached Theo’s table, a purple-haired cat girl joined the lone gentleman at this table. She sat down and instantly dove into a deep conversation. They were hunched toward each other slightly, and it almost looked like they were trying to keep anyone from overhearing their conversation. I was thinking about how some people are so private when Ellie returned and stood beside me once again. She took the cornbread from me and started loading it into the warming dish in front of us. I put a hand on my hip as something occurred to me.

  “Ellie, did the gentleman with the CG over there come through here yet?” I hadn’t remembered them getting food yet, and I had an unnatural desire to feed pretty much all people who crossed my path.

  “No, not yet,” Ellie started. “I stopped by the table to see if I could bring something out to them on my way back here. They just said they would be eating after the show.”

  “Hmmm,” I replied. “I wonder why they aren’t sitting in the stage area if they are watching the show. Their table isn’t all that close to the stage like the VIP tables are,” I commented. Just then, the man and the purple-haired cat girl stood up, pushed their chairs in, and headed over to stage seating. Four people had just exited their seats. The first two were in the second row from the stage, and the other two were in the very last row, closest to the VIP tables. I was a bit surprised when the man and his CG sat in the last row seats.

  “There you go, they’ve moved,” Ellie said. “You can rest assured they are having more fun now that they are closer to the stage,” she joked. I leaned over and bumped her shoulder with mine.

  “Watch that smart mouth, Miss Ellie!” I winked at her and looked over the buffet.

  We still needed to reload the brisket hot plate. Once again, I reached under the buffet table and pulled out a wrapped tray. That one was filled with brisket that had been marinated for two da
ys, slow-smoked for eighteen hours, and then grilled to crisp up the outside slightly. It was meat like that that contributed to the extra pounds I carried around my middle. In my opinion, it was worth it. When I had the tray unwrapped, Ellie took it from me. She was always working to make sure I didn’t do any of what she referred to as ‘heavy lifting’ in our business. I rolled my eyes at her as she walked away. Almost psychic-like, she whipped her head around to look at me.

  “I felt that eye-roll!” she said, feigning shock and abhorrence.

  I just laughed and waved her on her way while I started wiping down the returned meal trays. I looked up when I heard the music stop, and saw the boys had finished their dance, and Leah was on her way to the stage. I always enjoyed listening to Leah speak, so I stopped what I was doing to watch.

  By the end of her speech, everyone was on their feet, clapping and cheering. Everyone except the man and the purple-haired cat girl. When Leah took her bow, the cat girl stood up, turned around, and aggressively pointed at the stage as she said something to the man. I’d never seen a CG act like that in a serious way, so I assumed she must be joking around or just being dramatic. The CG walked away, and the man remained seated. Leah had walked by him on her way back to the VIP table, but he kept looking straight ahead of him.

  It wasn’t until Theo, Kennedi, Clark, and Leah headed for the tent that he moved. He stood up, pulled out a cell phone, and made a call. The call couldn’t have lasted more than ten seconds. He put the phone back in his pocket, straightened his blazer, ran his hand through his black hair, and started walking towards the tent. I really don’t know why he and his CG had caught my attention in the first place. I guess it was simply because they didn’t look like they were having as much fun as everyone else. I wish I would’ve taken a sample plate out to them before they’d left the table. Food had a way of making people happy.

  As the man was entering the tent, Ellie breezed by me. “Line is coming back!” she called out. Sure enough, I looked down the buffet to see people stacking up. I had to chuckle to myself when I saw the three chubby college boys were back in line. I got their plates filled about five minutes later, and they walked back to their table. The smallest one tripped over a chair that was left pulled out and flew into the one beside it. It made quite the ruckus, but amazingly enough, one of the other boys caught his friend’s plate of food before it hit the ground.

  The fallen boy stood up, threw his arms in the air, and yelled, “Success!” and started laughing hysterically. Myself, Ellie, and the rest of the guests in line and at other tables all laughed with him. When the boy put his arms down and moved to the side in order to sit down, I saw the front door of the tent open across the way. The man I’d seen with the purple-haired CG walked out the door. He paused after the flap had closed, smoothed his jacket again, and smiled before heading to the exit. That made me smile too. This was much too fantastic of an event to have anyone walk away unhappy.

  15

  “That’s the last brush stroke, gentleman,” I said happily. I set down the paintbrush I was using to apply finishes to the crib I had just built with Abe. Charlie and Theo had already finished the one they were working on. Though not all the cribs were the same, they all turned out beautifully. I stood up just as Leah walked into our building space.

  She exaggeratedly put her hands on her hips and said, “Hello, boys!” She put one of her legs out to her side and popped the opposite hip out to demonstrate faux impatience. “You have perfect timing. We are wrapping up. Hurry and get cleaned up… This day has been long enough without waiting on you boys to get done gabbing! You all can blame Abe for putting me in a bad mood by not bringing Gretchen!”

  Leah winked at Charlie as she completed her fake lecture. Leah and Gretchen, Abe’s wife, had been friends for years, but Gretchen had prior obligations that day and couldn’t make it. Leah didn’t even wait to hear us give her shit about trying to be funny before she turned around to leave.

  “Well,” Charlie started. He bent over to start picking up finishing supplies. “The boss has spoken. Time for us working folk to call it a day!” He grinned at the rest of us as we went to work helping him.

  Within the hour, Charlie, Theo, Abe, and I had our crib-building area cleaned and organized. It took another hour to help inspect the other building spaces to make sure they were clean, organized, and that nothing was missing. Macy and Leah were running all over the place, making sure that once the trucks and vans arrived to pick up the tent and kid furniture, everything would be ready. Kennedi had gone back to the buffet to help Bev and Ellie get packed up. Krysta assigned herself the task of managing vendor booth breakdown. She was checking to make sure each vendor had paid, hadn’t damaged their booth in any way, and were also looking forward to coming to the next event.

  When the last vendor had left, and the last haul truck had pulled away, the ten of us, the Lindys with Macy and Abe, the Cavanaughs with Ellie, and me with Kennedi and Krysta, took one last look around the courtyard to make sure it had been restored to its original condition. When Leah was satisfied that it was, she gave us the go-ahead to leave. We all walked out to the casino parking lot and headed our separate directions. There was only one more day before we were leaving for Japan, so Charlie and I wanted to get home and get some sleep so we could get up early.

  As I lay in bed that night, I noticed a nagging uneasiness in the back of my mind. It felt like the first spark when you are trying to start a stick fire, in that you never know if the flame will take off from it, or if it wasn’t worth paying attention to because it goes out before it hits the kindling. I ran through the day to try to pinpoint what my problem may be. It had been a great day. The only weirdness had been that Trevor guy, but he was of no consequence to me, so I didn’t think that was it. Otherwise, the only reason I could imagine for the unrest was that it had been a while since I’d flown. I wasn’t a scared flyer, but flights as long as the one to Japan, fifteen hours in the air, weren’t my idea of fun. It was going to be an interesting trip, though, that would be for certain. I started running through the things I’d need to do the following day in order to prepare. I was only halfway through my list when I drifted off to sleep.

  16

  It was just after seven when I opened my eyes the next morning. I looked around the loft and realized I was alone. I had a lot to accomplish, so I didn’t waste any time getting up, dressed, and down the loft ladder. I walked through the dimly lit barn. The only light was from the window in the loft that I’d pulled the curtain back on before I left. I opened the barn door and blinked against the sudden brightness. I walked across the drive and up the stairs to the house and was reaching for the screen door handle when the front door behind it flew open.

  “AHHH!” Bev screamed. She hit the screen door, which shot open and almost hit me in the face. I jumped back and started laughing. She threw her hand over her chest like she’d just seen an apparition and started shaking a finger at me. “You nearly gave me a heart attack, Clark! What are you doing sneaking up the porch like that?”

  I was going to protest that I hadn’t been sneaking, but instead, I crouched down on all fours in a prowling stance and said, “I am quiet like cheetaaaaahhhhh!” She started swatting at me as I got up.

  “Get in the house and stop terrorizing me, you big goof!” Bev yelled. “Breakfast is grab-n-go today.”

  “Where are you off to in such a hurry?” Usually, at this time of day, Bev was buzzing around the kitchen like a madwoman getting breakfast ready for all of us.

  “I have to go check the pulled peef roast marinating at Belavi,” she hollered back at me as she scurried down the porch stairs.

  I thought I might have heard her wrong, so I asked, “What is a ‘peef’ roast?”

  She opened Theo’s truck door, climbed in, and closed the door behind her. I was thinking she may not bother answering me, but then she rolled down the window.

  “It’s a combo of root beer pork and smoked beef brisket. We created a lime
and red wine marinade to see if we can meld the flavors together,” Bev yelled as she started to pull the truck out of the drive. Then she waved her hand out the window as she drove away.

  I started laughing again. Of course, she had something new brewing. She and Ellie were always concocting the strangest-sounding dishes and testing them on all of us. Very rarely did they fail to hit their mark, though. Still chuckling to myself, I turned and opened the screen door and went into the house.

  I headed straight for the kitchen and saw Kennedi, Krysta, and Ellie when I walked into the room. Ellie was packing food into a cooler while Kennedi and Krystal looked lost in conversation. Not a single one of them looked at me when I entered, but all three of them said, “Good morning!” in unison.

  “Good morning, ladies!” My amusement from accidentally scaring Bev had me in a great mood. On top of that, Bev had said that breakfast would be grab-n-go. The last time that happened, it turned out was one of the best breakfast sandwiches I’d ever tasted. “What’s the story in here?” I asked as I took the stool between Krysta and Kennedi.

  Kennedi smiled over at me and said, “I was just going over some of the details of doing both the customer acquisition and modifications at the store while we are out of the country.” I looked over at Krysta, who was nodding in agreement.

  “I’ll be meeting with Macy here in a little while to make sure I have all the procedures down as well,” Krysta said. “I’m looking forward to learning more about how she does her upsells.”

  “She’s the expert,” I replied. “Are you feeling okay about us leaving so soon?”