Taming Beasts | MxM | Petshop

Part 17

Leah frowned at the two tickets I had tossed onto her desk. "What's that?"

"For a wellness hotel. They've got a really nice spa," I explained grudgingly. Initially, I'd been intending to take Moondrop, but it seemed ridiculous the more I thought about it. He hadn't even so much as breathed in my direction since I'd slept with Taz almost a week ago.

"I can see that," Leah said, irritated for no apparent reason. She sighed. "Why are there two, Vince?"

"Well, don't you have a boyfriend or something?" I groaned, not wanting to have to explain myself.

"Oh boy," Leah muttered with a shake of her head, then fixed a deadpanned glare on me. "I have a girlfriend, if you care to remember, and she's been in France for two months now so very unlikely that I'm going to take her."

"Then don't."

She rolled her eyes, giving me the familiar attitude before picking up one of the tickets, turning it in her hands. Suddenly, she seemed exhausted. "Vince?"

"What?" I grunted at her sharp, almost accusing intonation.

"This says, and I'm quoting, your pet will be loving it," she reads, then flicks her tired gaze up to. She sighs when I don't answer, simply staring back in puny defiance of the truth that she was getting leftovers as misplaced charity. "Vince baby, what did you do?"

"Nothing." I frowned, taken aback by the fact that she thought two spa tickets inherently meant that I'd fucked up somehow. "I didn't do anything wrong."

Her eyesbrows rose pointedly nefore a manicured finger was directed at my face. "There. That's exactly what you did. I didn't ask if you did anything wrong, you assumed that all by yourself, so that's your puny conscience speaking."

"It's not puny."

"Stop deflecting." The tip of her finger moved in circles as if hypnotizing me to talk. "Spill it. What happened? You've been crazy annoying for five days now, and Joe's been in an accordingly good -"

She broke off with a groan, bringing her hand to her face to rub her eyesbrows, hiding most of her devastatingly disappointed expression for me. I partly feared that she'd caught on but was mostly annoyed by her being overly dramatic about it. "You're cheating, aren't you?"

"It's not cheating," I justified vehemntly, crossing my arms in front of my chest. "Are you taking the tickets or what?"

"No, I'm not taking the tickets." She put the one she'd picked up back. "Give them to Moondrop and apologize."

"He's a pet, Leah."

She rolled her eyes at me.

"We didn't even have sex yet!" Which bothered me more than I cared to admit - in addition to the silent treatment.

Leah dared to facepalm at my argument.

"I'm not going to be monopolized by a pet."

She waved her hand in a circular motion as if urging me to continue.

I frowned. "What?"

"Go on. I think we're getting somewhere," she said, though she was sounding disinterested in the whole conversation. I mean, you just scratched that you're sluttiness is basically a symptom of your commitment phobia, and-"

"I'm not talking to you," I interrupted her flatly and stomped off towards my desk. When I'd slumped down in my swivelling chair, she gestured at the distance between us.

"You do realize that we're working in the same room, don't you?"

I narrowed my eyes at her, giving her the silent treatment. That's one thing I'd learned how to do in the last couple of days, and I could testify that it was infuriating.

Leah chuckled, but I knew this was only funny the first five minutes before it started messing with your head and doors were thrown shut in your face. "Vince baby, you're almost cute when you're sulking like this, so I'm tempted to help you out."

I didn't think she could - and besides, I was committed to keeping my mouth shut.

Leah laughed heartily when I fixed my gaze on my computer screen in silent defiance. "I take that back, you actually are cute. So it's decided, I'll help you if you ask nicely."

I thought that was never going to happen, but I cracked when I wanted to take a shower only to have the door thrown shut in my face since Moondrop was occupying the hot tub, same as always. My resolve shattered when he tore his bowl away from beneath my foot and stalked off, almost unhinging the door when he unleashed his anger on it - and when I heard the subsequent 'bang!' of the door to the guest room being forced shut, I knew that I wasn't able to take this any longer.

"Help me," I told her flatly first thing in the morning.

The cocly bitch pursed her lips, aware that I was out of options. "Ask a bit more nicely and I'll consider it."

"You get a raise."

"I'll help!" She beamed and jumped from her chair, bag already thrown over her shoulder. "Let's go!"

"Right now?"

"Yes," she groaned. "Vince baby, you'be wasted enough time already."

I suspected she was only trying to avoid working, but if she thought she was able to get the damn cat to stop being mad at me, I wasn't going to complain. I still doubted her capacity to do so, though.

When I opened the door to my apartment, Leah brushed past me, curiously looking around. "Damn Vince, you really need to tell your system to tone down with the cleaning agent."

Seriously, I had no idea what this woman was going on about, only that her opinion was grinding my nerves. Taking a deep breath, I suppressed the urge to strangle her. "Does it matter?"

"Well, you've got a pet."

"And?"

"Pets don't like perfume, much less citrus scented cleaning agent."

"And how would you know?"

"I'm a woman."

No idea why I asked.