Just Like a Cat

"Hey Richard? I just wanted to let you know that one of my sisters is going to be in town later, so I'm headed out to go buy her stupid things that make her happy. You need me to pick up anything while I'm out?"

"Um... not really," I mumbled. Then I perked up. "Wait, one of? How many sisters do you have?"

He looked put upon all of a sudden. "I have four sisters and two brothers, and I'm the youngest out of all of them. Thankfully, most of them were already off in college and the like before I was in middle school. I CANNOT IMAGINE how embarrassing it would have been to have all of them in the same school as me, meddling in my life and trying to get me to make friends. Ugh! They're all outgoing too! So they were things like cheer and football captains. Nearly all of them were student body president in high school too! It was enough to make me want to rebel! But... that would have required me going out and actually rebelling, so I just never did it."

I snorted in amusement. "I can easily picture you sitting in your room under a poster that said: Rebel! With one right next to it that said: Maybe Tomorrow..."

That got him to chuckle, which made me inordinately proud of myself for some reason.

"Anyway," he said. "Since I'm not going to be home for dinner, you should probably order take out or something. Looks like neither one of us remembered to go grocery shopping."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, feeling stupid. "Right. I was distracted thinking about something else. I'll probably go do that today."

With a tiny smile, he waved at me and walked away. "Later!"

"Later," I mumbled in return.

Later that evening, he returned home with his sister. She was... damn! She was hot! I couldn't help but drool over her even as I tried to stay in my room and NOT be in their way.

"This is where you live? It's... not bad actually. I thought for sure that you'd be living in some crappy little place because you didn't decide to move here until the last minute."

"Thanks Alli," he grumbled unhappily.

She took a good look around the kitchen and living room, but didn't actually go so far as to snoop through things. Then she rounded on her brother. "So...?"

"What???" Elian asked in bafflement.

"Tell me about your girlfriend! Dad said you said you picked someone up off an app, but there's NO WAY that you'd do something like that! You can't stand being around strangers! So there HAS to be a girlfriend and you just don't want dad giving you shit about it!"

Elian laughed and shook his head. "Nope, no girlfriend. And you're right about the app thing, I haven't quite done that yet. I just... well we've had a couple of parties and... things have happened..."

"Oh???" She asked avidly. But when he made his face blank and stared her down, she broke out into a smile and hugged him tight. "EEE! I'm just so happy that you've had things happen! We were all really worried about you, you know!"

He rolled his eyes and pushed her away. "Stop it!"

"Nope, not gonna!" She denied and seemed to hug him all the tighter.

"Alli! Let go damnit!" He roared, trying to fight her off. He hissed in aggravation. "WHY DO YOU GUYS ALWAYS HAVE TO HUG ME AND STUFF!"

She roared with laughter. "If we didn't, you'd NEVER let anyone hug you and give you kisses on the cheek! You'd never let anyone TOUCH you! You'd think you were a germophobe or something!"

"No! I just don't like being touched when I don't want to be!" He argued.

"Well no one likes being touched when they don't want to be. The problem is that you NEVER want to be!"

"THAT'S BECAUSE YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP!!"

"That's because you never say yes even if we ask you! If you just let us give you a quick hug and hugged us back, we'd let go right away!"

"ARGH!!" He roared, still struggling to fight her off.

She finally relented and let him go. Then she put him in a head lock. "Now, before I go, show me your room!"

Sighing, he capitulated and she released him so that he could lead the way.

"Tidy, but that's not surprising. Is this what you're working on? Cool! I'm in PreMed, so I don't get to play with toys like this!"

"They're NOT toys, Alli!"

"Sorry, I didn't mean it like that. I think it's so cool that you're interested in things like this. Maybe you'll be hired by NASA and help design future rovers!"

"That'd be cool!" Elian gushed happily, apparently forgetting that he'd been mad at her a moment ago.

"So... is your roommate hot?"

"I dunno. I guess so. He's a bartender and always seems to have new lovers whenever he wants."

"Oh? So he's easy? Great! When do you think he'll be home?"

"Ugh! I don't want to be here to hear it if you fuck him! And I don't know. I didn't think he had to work today, but he did say he had to go grocery shopping."

"Damnit, I don't really have time to wait around. I have a long drive ahead of me and I should really get home in time to get some sleep since I have class tomorrow. I just haven't gotten laid in about three months and really want a quick and sure thing."

Elian laughed. "Well, from what I've heard, there's no such thing as a quick thing with Richard. Even if he came home right now, you'd have to give up any idea of going home tonight."

"Mmm... That's so tempting!" Still peeking through my barely open bedroom door, I saw them come back out into the living room. "But I really have to go. Give me his number and I'll text him the next time I plan to be in town."

"Why would I have his number?" Elian asked in genuine bafflement.

Huh... I guess we'd never exchanged that.

"Why, wha- oh nevermind. I guess I should have expected that. You don't have any numbers on your phone that aren't family. Whatever. Bye El!"

"Bye Alli!"

"Give me a tiny hug!"

Sighing, Elian gave in. After a very quick hug and a kiss on the cheek, he practically pushed her out the door. "Love you Alli!"

"Love you too!" She declared in a syrupy tone before taking off.

Elian shut the door and leaned against it with a profoundly relieved sigh. "Man! She's exhausting!"

Suddenly his phone rang and he groaned as he checked it. "Hi Eileen. Yeah yeah, Happy Valentine's day to you too. Alli just left. What??? WHY?! I just saw you all at Christmas! Yeah alright! Spring break, got it! Stop nagging already! I said I'd be there! Where are we going? Alaska? That's new. Might be fun. Alright, see you then." He hung up and grumbled to himself: "I'd better text the rest of them before they ALL call me!"

Still muttering to himself, I watched him walk back to his room. That's when I opened my door wide enough for him to see me.

"Hey, sorry, I wasn't exactly trying to listen in," even though I totally was. "But you were both pretty loud, so... Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that no matter how easy you think I am, I'm not actually the type to sleep with siblings. Couples, sure, but even I think it would be weird to do a guy and then his sister."

He gave me a weird look. "Allllriiight..."

"You honestly wouldn't care if I did?" I asked incredulously.

He shrugged. "My sisters often fought over boyfriends and ended up dating each other's exes. I guess I don't really see what's wrong with it. I mean it'd be different if it was cheating, but it's not. And besides, Alli doesn't like to take no for an answer, so..." He shrugged again and finished walking into his room.

I had to bite back a roar of frustration even as I ran my hand through my hair. I know I KNOW! We're not dating! But could we please just date already?!

***

The next time we had sex - about a week later - he didn't immediately jump out of bed when we were done. He stayed and even let me cuddle with him as we fell asleep. I counted it as progress in my mind even though he still woke up a couple of hours later, pulled free from my embrace, and left to go to the bathroom. I was just awake enough to hear him tinkering with something in his room after that, so I knew that he was working on his project again and wouldn't be coming back to my bed. Still, it was proof that if I kept hoping, things might actually turn out alright in the end.

***

Elian straddled my lap and gave me a nice kiss. For a change, it was me that was writing a report and him that had finished up all his homework for the day. I tried my best to ignore him until I was done, but he had his hands roaming everywhere and his mouth had shifted to my neck.

Smiling, I kissed him again. "Alright, what's on your mind?"

He gave me another kiss. "Spring break starts the day after tomorrow, so I assumed that you were going to throw a party, but you haven't mentioned it."

I shrugged. "I just haven't felt like partying lately."

He frowned just a little, which looked like a pout. "Were you planning to wait until I left for Alaska with my family so that I wouldn't be here for it?"

Crap! I'd forgotten all about that!

"No, actually, when are you leaving and how long are you going to be gone?"

"Eileen says that we're only going for an extended weekend, so I'm leaving Thursday night and should be back by Tuesday night or Wednesday morning," he explained.

"And which one of your sisters is Eileen?" I wondered.

He had to think about this a moment. "Well, Elliot is the oldest, then Ellen, Arlene, Allen, Eileen, Allicia, and me - so she's the fifth child and two sisters above me."

"What's with all the L names?" I wondered, because it seemed odd to me.

"Huh? Oh! My mom loved them. Her name was Alexis and she said that it had been a tradition in her family for generations to name their kids like that. In fact, all of us were named after family ancestors. My dad's name is John, so he felt that so long as she wasn't picking common names that you can find a dozen of everywhere you go, it was fine with him."

He hesitated a moment and I decided to wait and see if he continued.

"My... my name means light. My mom always told me that I was the brightest light in her life because I was - well I was weird I guess, even as a child. I always did my own thing, mostly conducting experiments like a little scientist."

I smiled at him, running my hand up and down his back. "I can believe that. Listen, I'm not planning to have any parties. I'm actually planning to work as much as possible during spring break because everyone else will be partying, which means I'll probably earn a lot of tips."

"Do you need more money?" He asked with a curious frown. "Are you short on your half of the rent or something?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm actually okay on money, I just realized a while back that my mattress is old and worn out and I should probably replace it. So, I'm saving up. The more tips I get, the better!"

"Oh..." he murmured, and then must have decided that he was bored with talking, because he latched onto my neck and gave me what felt like an impressive hickey. Deciding that my report could wait an hour or two, I scooped him up and carried him to my bed.

***

As summer approached, I started feeling a vague sense of panic. Part of that was probably the fact that even I had to spend a bit more time on my studies so that I could pass all my finals. But... It had occurred to me to wonder what was going to happen next.

See, I was still working my way through college, so nothing was going to change for me. Elian - on the other hand - could still decide that he'd rather transfer to MIT. In fact, I was currently about 80 percent certain that's what he was going to do. The idea of him leaving me hurt more than anything I'd ever felt in my life.

So here I was, laying in bed watching him sleep. He'd been staying in my bed after sex - or at least trying - ever since Valentine's Day. Not to mention, our sex life had increased until we were having sex at least once a day, but not always at bed time. Thus he's was only actually in my bed an average of two or three nights a week.

Still... I counted it as progress.

He usually never made it until morning, waking up either to go to the bathroom, or because he felt stifled and needed to get away from my clingy arms. Last night, it had been just a little too hot to cuddle with him, so I ended up keeping a little distance. In return, he'd actually spent the entire night in my bed. I was tempted to pinch myself!

Over time, I'd learned that if I treated him like a cat by basically letting him have his space when he needed it and giving him plenty of attention when he wanted it, well, he'd open up more and come to me more often. The moment I tried to chase after him a bit by asking - or even just hinting - about dating or relationships, he'd either look at me like he had no idea what I was talking about, or he'd retreat into his shell again for a while. So, despite the ENORMOUS amount of patience it took, I never pushed and just basically let him come to me.

But now, finals were literally two days away. He hadn't said anything yet, but I could easily picture him moving back to his dad's within a week, and then deciding to transfer to MIT a week or so later, after his dad had a chance to talk him into it. The worst part was that I wanted what was best for him, and clearly, getting an education that would make him in demand at all the highest paying jobs would be best for him. But still...

My heart was breaking into a million tiny pieces.

He opened his eyes and looked at me. His expression went through a couple of changes. First it was like: Oh hey, I know you. Then it was like: Mmm, I really like you. Then there was: what the hell am I still doing here? Next was: Damnit! I still have so much studying to do! Ending with: Fuck it! I'm too lazy to move at the moment.

I was tempted to laugh, but my heart was still rather heavy and I was also far too close to tears.

Since he had decided to stay put for the time being, he stretched out a bit and then snuggled up with my pillow - which he must have stolen from me at some point during the night.

"Hey, I've been thinking," he murmured.

"Yeah, what about?" I asked.

"Well, I'm going to have a rather busy summer later on, what with Grandma taking me to Japan and Eileen getting married, so I think packing up to move sooner rather than later would be for the best."

I had to hold my breath to stop myself from gasping in dismay and crying. I knew this was coming. This is not news to me.

"Yeah?" I finally managed.

"And even though I have found a lot of apartments online, I think we should look at them together," he continued, seemingly oblivious of my sudden mental crisis.

"Wait... what? Why would we need to look at apartments?" I asked in total confusion. More importantly, what sort of cruel bastard would make me help him choose where he was going to live without me? Although, he was still a bit, um, hopeless when it came to taking care of himself. He probably felt he needed someone who'd been through the process before.

He shrugged. "Well, I suppose we don't NEED to, but I thought that we should. This place is smaller than I like. It's really meant more for students who want to be close to school but live on their own or share with a roommate."

"Yeah..." I murmured in confusion, because that's exactly what we were.

"But even though I've still got several more years of school, I don't really want to stay in such a tiny apartment. Now that I know the basic layout of the city, I'll feel comfortable living a bit farther away and driving."

I was still lost. "Uh..."

He got out of bed and went to the bathroom, then rummaged around for a bit, before returning with his laptop. He had it open so that when he climbed back into bed with me, he could show me something.

"I like this one the best. The complex has a built in gym and a pool. The apartments are larger, and they allow pets. I was thinking about getting a cat."

I raised a brow at him because he basically WAS a cat. I looked at the specs. It was a one bedroom with a closet so spacious that it could almost be a second bedroom.

Even though my heart was still twisted in knots, something important occurred to me. "Wait! So does this mean that you're planning to stay in school?!"

"Of course I'm planning to stay in school. Why wouldn't I?" He asked in confusion.

"No, I mean this school! I thought you were going to transfer to MIT," I reminded him.

He shook his head. "Nope, I really like this program, and I've gotten to know a few of my classmates. Transferring now would just be a pain in the ass. Besides, I can get my first four year degree here and THEN go to MIT for the advanced stuff - if I want. Not sure, honestly. I sort of like the jobs I'll be qualified for with this degree."

Alright... sounds like I might have some more time to work on him; to make myself such a big part of his life that he never wanted to leave me. Although, him being so much like a cat, I could see him actually leaving at some point, and then realizing that he's lonely and that he misses me. THAT would hurt too, but at least it might end with him coming back.

"I guess I'm still confused. If you're planning to stay in our school, then why move? Do you REALLY need a gym and pool that badly? There's plenty of actual gyms nearby, and actually, I think we can get a membership to the YMCA at a discount as part of our student perks."

He tilted his head at me in confusion. "If you don't want to have access to a gym, there's this one." He pulled up the page for a different apartment. The only thing I could really see at first was that it was also a one bedroom. "The apartment is actually even bigger, and it's apparently in a quieter neighborhood, but it doesn't have a gym or a pool. I just love swimming and thought I should get SOME exercise since I study so much. And I think I'll be studying even MORE because the next classes I'll be signing up for sound fairly challenging. I honestly can't wait!"

I pressed my lips together, trying hard to be supportive even though I HATED the idea of him moving out. He actually seemed to notice my mood though, since he frowned in concern.

"Do you REALLY not want to be farther from school? I mean it's not THAT far. It would add maybe 20 minutes to our commute. And I know you like to go jogging to get a bit of exercise. There are jogging trails by both of these places, so I would think you'd like that. This one actually has paved biking trails, which I thought would be nice - oh wait! Are you worried that you can't afford half the rent? I mean sure, it's a bit of an increase, but I don't want you to worry about that."

Now I was confused for an entirely different reason!

"Uh... wait! WHY would I be paying half?"

"I just said! You only need to pay what you already are! I don't expect you to pay more just because I want to live in a better place!"

"But..." I felt like he was speaking an utterly foreign language.

"And if neither of these seem right to you, there's always this one," Elian rushed forward, bringing up a third page. "It's a little closer, has a gym and a pool, but it's not as big and the reviews are all complaints about it being over crowded and not kept in good shape. It would barely be a step up from this place."

Suddenly, all the little tidbits seemed to collide in my head to make a sudden sense. "Wait! Are you saying that you want US to move?!"

Now he looked like ***I*** was speaking a foreign language. "Yeeeah... of course I am. WHY would I want to move without you?"

I was exasperated now and flung my hands out. "WHY do you want to move?!"

"I ALREADY SAID! I WANT A BIGGER PLACE!!" He shouted in clear frustration.

"YEAH, BUT YOU NEVER EVEN ASKED ME HOW I FELT!" I pointed out. "HOW WAS ***I*** SUPPOSED TO KNOW YOU WERE TALKING ABOUT US MOVING TOGETHER?! AND!! THESE ARE ALL ONE BEDROOMS!!"

He looked like a cat slinking away in shame all of a sudden. "Well... I guess we can get a two bedroom, if you really want, but I just thought..."