Bad Company by K.A. Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

made a sound were the springs that had been poking Kellan’s back through the mattress.
    “Nate. Your cat’s stuck outside.” Kellan pushed harder. “C’mon. She won’t come in for me.”
    Nate’s head shifted in time with another pitiful sound from his cat. “Sh’sfine.”
    “It’s raining and she won’t come in.”
    Nate made a completely indecipherable sound and started snoring.
    Kellan sighed. The window had drifted shut again as he tried to wake up Nate.
    He slapped it open and reached out for the cat who glanced at his hand disdainfully. The wind picked up in a way that told Kellan a downpour was on its way in T-minus ten seconds. The fire escape wasn’t that long. He could reach her without having to climb out. He lay across the sill and stretched. She was just past the tips of his fingers, ears flat, crouched under the shelter of that leaf. Kellan wiggled farther.
    Three things happened at once. His feet left the floor, the window frame crashed down on the backs of his knees, and a sudden slam of thunder split the air. Quan Yin jumped, the big pottery base of the plant tilted wildly and went over the edge of the fire escape, banging and crashing as it went, and Kellan’s head and arms followed as he grabbed the cat before she went over too.
    He kicked his legs, but the window was surprisingly heavy, and he didn’t have much leverage with his arms full of angry wet cat. The rain was coming in waves from the bay, soaking them both in seconds. As he managed to tuck her close to his body, Yin stopped clawing at him. He kicked harder with his feet, but the sill didn’t move. His abs strained to hold him above the fire escape.
    None of the neighbors seemed perturbed about the crash of the planter into the backyard. Maybe they thought it was more thunder. He tried to angle his foot toward the bed and finally hit something hard and covered with skin.
    He swung at it again.
    Over the rush of water he heard a muttered, “Stop it,” then at last, “Jesus Christ, Kellan, why’re you kicking me?” Nate’s voice got louder. “What the fuck are you doing?” Nate sounded a lot more alert as his hand landed on Kellan’s calf.
    The window came up off his legs, and Kellan slid back inside with Quan Yin. “I was saving your cat.”
    “She sits out there sometimes. She’s fine.”
    “In a thunderstorm.”
    Nate blinked and rubbed his eyes. “Shit. You guys are really wet.”
    “This bulletin brought to you from the Department of Duh.”
    Nate shut the window behind them. The sound released the cat from her temporary paralysis. She tore a strip of cotton from the T-shirt and a strip of skin from Kellan’s stomach before springing away and disappearing somewhere in the apartment.
    “Ow. You’re welcome,” Kellan called after her.
    “That’s my shirt,” Nate blurted.
    “Another brilliant observation. I borrowed it. Or did you want me sleeping naked?”
    “Jesus, just stop it. Stop it.” Nate collapsed on the bed, rubbing his forehead and eyes. “What time is it?”
    “Almost five.”
    “My head is going to explode. And I have to be at work in two hours.”
    “Yeah, that’ll happen if you pound back all those bitch drinks.” Kellan leaned over and sniffed. “Blue Skyy or Smirnoff Ice?”
    “Do you know how pathetic it is that you can figure that from smell?”
    “I’m pathetic? Who’s the one who drank so much of that crap that he’s trying to hold his brains in his skull?”
    “Shit.” Nate clutched his head some more.
    Kellan got up and found a towel, leaving the T-shirt behind in the basket in the bathroom. When he came back, Nate was still moaning and yanking at his hair like pulling it out would help his headache.
    “So what made you want to get so wasted? Me or that pretty thing you went out with?”
    “He’s not a thing. He’s a man. A hell of a better one than you.”
    Kellan rolled his eyes at that, but Nate kept going.
    “When he was seventeen, his parents asked him if he