Catnip

01 | In Which Caleb Becomes a (Not So) Proud Parent

Caleb Diaz is ninety-nine-point-nine-nine-nine-nine-recurring per cent positive that Marnie Royle has health problems. Not terminal health problems (although odds are those would be far less irritating to deal with) but either one of the following: a) partial deafness or b) a memory span akin to Dory's.

See, Marnie never listens. At all. And sure, she's rude and loud and rarely gives a shit about wounding the egos of the poor sensitive souls around her, so you'd assume it's only natural that she has selective hearing and tends to conveniently forget things, that it's a personality attribute rather than some undetected deformity . . . but no. It can't be. She must have something wrong with her, because even dumbasses with single-digit IQ scores are capable of wrapping their heads around a fact that's been drilled into them time after time again, a fact they've debated into the early hours of the morning, a fact they've refused to accept from day one but nevertheless have been aware of.

Right?                                     

(Caleb is not second guessing himself. Honest.)

"Cal –"

"No."

"But she's so–"

"No."

"– and loveable!"

"No."

"All right, now you're just being –"

"No."

"– dickhead."

"No."

"A dickhead who'll never get head –"

"No."

"–'cause dudes have fucking souls too, Cal, and I hate to break it to you but your black heart's about as attractive as a flaming pile of chicken shit–"

"No."

"– and you know it doesn't make a difference what you say anyway, right, 'cause your mom–"

"Error, red lights, panic stations, communications down –"

"– already said yes."

What a surprise. 'Course Mom said yes. She can't help herself. She's so bad at speaking up that she may as well don a yes-man badge and have 'PUSHOVER' tattooed across her forehead.

"I don't give a rat's ass what Mom said, Marnie." He folds his arms across his chest and stares her down, despite knowing that Marnie's just as stubborn and twice as persistent and there's no hope in hell a dirty look or two will crumble her resolve.

Sure enough, Marnie scoffs. "Right.  I forgot you were such a badass."

"I'm serious."

"Well of course you are, my lord. It would be such a tragedy to forget about your eloquence in the ancient language of bullshit."

"Blow me," he says, because dammit, his argumentative skills aren't exactly top notch, and he can only yell no so many times while stood in his doorway at ten a.m. on a sunny (read: sunny but freezing) Saturday before his neighbours AKA the rubberneckers across the road AKA really just Nine-Toed Joe and his insufferably bigoted nephew begin debating the need for intervention. Intervention a lá shrinks and a strait-jacket.

(Caleb absolutely, positively does not care what his neighbours may or may not think about him. Honest.)

And on second thought, spitting out phrases with not-so-innocent meanings when taken literally really isn't a wise idea when faced with all four foot eleven-unfailingly-dirty-minded-inches of Marnie Royle, but it's out now, and he's wasted so much energy on considering why he should care that he no longer has any energy left to spare on, well, caring.