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Chapter 8 - Baby It's Cold Out There

"This is California, right?"

"Yes, Simon," Ethan lazily responded as he put a mug of hot coffee in front of me. I was sitting in the back room of the new Arc with the three cat brothers--Ethan, Ciel, and Bas--who were free for the afternoon. I wrapped my hold hands around the mug and sighed as it warmed my fingers.

"You're going to ask why you're cold," said Bas, the youngest black cat, with a grin from ear to ear and holding his mug with both hands.

"When you hear the name 'California' you imagine warmth, sunshine, beaches... Not this," I gesticulated at the window which showed a murky fog clinging to the streets. "I could see clearer in London!"

The black cat giggled and put his mug down. "California has all those things, Simon! But San Francisco is a bay and...and..." He was then deep in thought, tapping his chin.

"And it means we get a log of fog, but it can and does burn off during the day," Ciel continued for his brother behind his newspapers. The white cat looked at me with his bright green eyes. "I swear, you act like you've never been cold before."

I glared at the cat and shook my head. "I've been plenty cold. I just have an aversion to it."

"Then why do you go around naked all the time?" That was Bas. I was going to kill him.

"I don't!"

"Not what Tin saaaays," he said with a wink and a smile.

"Tin is a bloody liar." My ears were warm. Pink. A blush? From me?

"Oh shove off," Ciel grumbled. "You're a glorified nudist, like the rest of us."

"Excuse you." Ethan, the oldest, sat down and wrapped his own hands around his hot mug of coffee. "We're all clothed now."

"No kidding, but what I meant was our jobs usually have our clothes on the floor."

"But I'm not a worker here," I countered.

"People ask about you," Bas quickly chimed in before Ciel got another barb out. "You're popular."

"I don't see how," I grumbled and finished my mug of coffee quickly. I could feel the heat warming me up from the belly. "It's not like I tend bar or work clients."

Ethan said, "It's how you carry yourself. You turn heads, whether you believe it or not. You're handsome."

"Beautiful!" Bas added.

"Average." And Ciel.

"Even you, grumpy Ciel, have said you think Simon is attractive," Ethan admonished his younger brother. "And you also admitted he has one good ass."

My cheeks burned bright and my ears folded down. Why did my butt come up in casual conversation so much?

"The point is," Ethan turned to me, "you're handsome, you're not on the books, and you have this...I don't know, this presence about you. It's a good trait to have. Ciel has it, too. You both make men follow you without even trying."

"Ethan is right. We have to work hard to turn heads, but you two, it's no effort."

"Hey!" Ciel folded his paper down so we could finally see him. He was groomed to perfection like always, his long fur brushed and combed with oils to a shiny gloss. I only looked that good when I used Siro's expensive oils. "I work at it!"

"Here we go..." Bas rolled his eyes as Ciel broke into a lecture.

"You know how much shampooing I do? The infused oils I get? The special combs from Africa? Do you know I time myself in the water so I am not too late or not too early? Do you know--"

I stood up and headed for the exit. "And with that, I'm off..."

"Going to see your friend Tristan?" Bas said with a teasing smirk. "Be sure to give him a kiss."

I was too flustered to respond to that. It had been a few weeks since I had slept with Tri. Since then, things had been...fun. Tin had been pleased that I found someone else to use my pent-up energy on, but he asked me to tell him if I had any feelings about Tri. I think Tin liked me...and I liked him too. I just didn't know, exactly, where we stood. For now we were just going to see where the winds of fate took us. Besides, I knew he had slept with Oro and Miro (those two wolves finally caught their prey after tenacious seducing) but I wasn't the jealous type anyway.

After all, there's a difference between love and sex.

I wrapped a scarf around my neck and headed out to Saint Andrews.

On cold days like this the church and its community room were usually full of people. It was cheaper to heat one room than a bunch of small houses, and the church got free gas. There was a large stove in the community room that kept everything nice and toasty. A few women who were helping watch the elderly and the children also made rice and tea for everyone.

I stepped in and blew into my cold hands, rubbing them together. I stepped over to the donation box and slipped a few coins into it. I always left some money when I came here. These people needed all the help they could get and I finally had some money to give to charities. It was nice being able to pay it back, even if just a little.

"Siiiiiimon!" I was plowed into by a brown and fuzzy thing on my side who wrapped his arms around me. "You came!"

"Of course," I laughed and hugged Lucas, rubbing his back with my claws extended. He was dressed as he usually was. I worried he had no coat but he refused to take mine. He did have the scarf I got him, but it was hung up near the door.

"It's been too long! I haven't seen you in forever!"

"I didn't realize two days was 'forever.'"

"Well, it felt like forever. You and that job... You're always busy now."

"Sorry." I ruffled him between the ears. "But I'm here as often as I can be. You know I like it here."

"I know. You just want to kiss Tristan some more." Lucas made a kissy face at me. I grabbed him by the neck and held him close. God, I was blushing so much today!

"What did I tell you about talking about that in front of people?"

"Ack! Let me go!"

"Simon," a familiar voice sounded to my left. "Don't kill the pup."

I sighed dramatically and let Lucas go. He made a show of it by dusting off his shirt as if I dared touch his expensive clothing. "You're lucky Tri stopped me."

"Uh-huh." Lucas crossed his arms. "You know, endangering a kid is bad. You should--"

"Lucas," Tri said in that same warning tone, "why don't you go get Yong and introduce him to Simon? I know you've wanted to."

"Oh, right!" And the wolf pup ran off.

"Thank you," I said with mock exhaustion. "He's a handful. But he reminds me of someone I used to know."

"Let me guess. Yourself?"

"Now that would be telling, Tri." I smiled and stood close to him.

Well, too close. Our muzzles brushed against one another and we found our lips touching. We were like some kind of force being pulled to each other. It was thrilling but also a little scary, too. I had never really felt this way about anyone. I can't even say it's love... I don't know what my feelings were for Tri.

But I do know I was hard as a rock.

We broke the kiss mutually and adjusted our trousers. Both seemingly caught off guard by the state of affection and what it had done to us. I was committed to spending time with Tri where we weren't in bed...or the sofa...or bent over something. You get the idea.

"How's your weekend going?" I said as I smoothed my shirt flat with both my hands.

"I generally like the crowd but..." He didn't need to say it. I knew if we had been in private we probably would have been naked right about now.

"I know what you mean, but besides that."

The marble fox shrugged. "Things are fine. Lots of people are hiding from the first rainy day of the year. It doesn't help that it's also really cold. We got some tea brewing. Do you feel like helping me out later watching some of the cubs so their mothers can have some time to relax?"

"I'm horrible with kids, but I'll try."

"Now that I find hard to believe," Tri said with a smile as he picked up a box and put it on top of a table. "You and Lucas get along splendidly."

"Lucas is different," I mumbled, putting my hands in my pants pockets. "He's basically me at that age."

"That's the trick with kids, you know, finding a way to relate to them and not treat them as your inferior. They're smarter than a lot of adults give them credit for." He paused a little. "You said you used to clean chimneys at Lucas' age. You must have been smart to have managed to stay alive in such harsh conditions."

"And tiny," I admitted, thinking back on those days. "I was always hungry and thin. Looking back on it, I think our Master Sweep did it not to be mean but to keep us slender so we wouldn't get stuck. Still happened though."

Tri frowned and put his hand on my elbow. "That must have been hard for you to see as a child. But you are who you are by all those trials. And the cubs who are here in the church are no different. Treat them like how you would have treated yourself, but don't show fear. They can smell it."

I chuckled just as I caught sight of Lucas running at me full bore. Before I could turn to wave to him, the wolf pup yelped as he tripped his foot on the rug. Then immediately his feet hit the smooth floor and started to slide forward. Dangerously fast.

The wolf pup's eyes were wide and round like saucers. He had no idea what was happening, but I did. He was going to barrel into me, headed for a painful collision.

"Lucas!" I heard Tri shout.

Without thinking, I dropped my arm low and curled it so Lucas could run right into it. And he did, with a lot of momentum. I don't know how I did it, but I let the force of him spin me rather than try to stop it. In a fluid motion I scooped Lucas up into a wedding embrace and landed on the chair next to me. I had jumped.

Tri would say I jumped to lose the momentum that I got from Lucas's sliding right into my arms, but it was physics and beyond me. I could already hear Bensley yelling at me for not remembering his lessons. Regardless, I was standing there holding Lucas to a hushed room. I looked down at the faces and jumped off the chair. "What?"

"You...you're very athletic," Tri said with his mouth slightly ajar. "You moved like you were made of water."

I eased my grip on Lucas, who was still dazed from what just happened. "It's just practice being high up and moving through rigging. You just get used to walking on narrow places and keeping your balance."

"My hero!" Lucas shouted in a high falsetto voice, threw his arms around my neck, and gave me a kiss on the lips. He giggled like a princess.

So I dropped him on the ground, letting him land on his bum.

"Ow! What was that for?!"

"That's for running at me without thinking about how to stop."

Lucas grumbled but then straightened up and cleared his throat. "Oh yeah, Simon, I want you to meet my friend Yong."

He motioned over to a tiger cub who stood respectably back and out of the way. Lucas's friend stepped forward with his hands behind his back. "It is a pleasure to meet you... Mr. Simon."

"King!" Lucas corrected.

"Just call me Simon, please."

"Very well," the cub bowed his head forward and smiled. The boy was unlike any tiger I had seen before in my life. He was golden with light brown stripes, unlike most of his species who would have orange fur and black stripes. He shone like precious metal and his white fur was as pure as snow on a mountain peak. He was dressed in loose slacks and a soft-looking royal blue tunic edged in yellow. He also wore a cap that was round at the top but without any brim or bill extending from the front or the side.

The thing that really stood out though was he was wearing his headfur long. Very long, much longer than Rut. It was a long braid all the way down to the base of his tail and tied off with a blue ribbon. The striking thing was that the braid was separated into two white strands and one black. Somehow they cut his headfur to grow in strands so that when it was braided, it looked...well, pretty.

Yong smiled and relaxed with a nod from Tri. "Lucas never stops talking about you, Simon." The cub seemed to come alive now, bouncing on the balls of his feet with the energy of Lucas. "He says you're like the br--"

"Now now Yong," Lucas covered his friend's muzzle up with a hand and smiled at us. "Let's not go telling all my secrets."

I laughed as Yong's muzzle was released and saw Tri smiling. He looked at me and then Yong. "Yong is from an old family that was able to bring some of their wealth over from China."

"Father was a government official and insisted we still dress for the role." Yong smiled and puffed his chest out with pride.

Tri chuckled. "Yong's father is running for the city council position opening up. Politics are in their blood."

"It's my pleasure, Yong," I said and shook the cub's hand, wagging my tail. Yong was no Billy, but he was still a clear sign I had an issue with these striped cats. I liked them so, not that I had any desire for the boy, but they all seemed to have an air of mystery about them. Perhaps I am just looking back on these moments with fondness. Yong was such a good and polite kid.

"If your father needs someone to help him canvas the city, tell him I'd be happy to help."

"He will be very touched by your offer, Simon."

I looked at the clock on the wall. "Now that's out of the way, you two are my helpers while Tri and the other adults get some time to themselves. Alright?"

As if practiced, the boys both tilted their heads in thought. It took everything I had not to say they were adorable and risk making Lucas do something destructive to throw me off the trail.

"But we're cubs too..." said Lucas with a frown.

"And you're also two of the oldest. As awesome as I am, I can't do it alone." I reached down and took both their hands in mine, then turned to Tri. "Just sit down, Tri. You look like you've been running yourself ragged."

Tri started to say something, "Simon, I..."

But I didn't let him. "Tristan. Take it from someone who knows what tired looks like--you're it. Sit down or I'll tie you down."

"That could be..." Tri looked at Lucas, who was grinning. He had to quickly correct his course. "Unwise."

The next few hours of my life were what I would call chaos. I had been on the Paramour in the storms that didn't feel as treacherous. Not only had I agreed to watch all the kids, I didn't think it meant I would also be a referee for them as well!

I had to quell an argument between two little girls, help a boy find his missing hat, help give them their snack and warm drink for the day... and it was exhausting. Tri told me he did this almost every day, and I don't know how he did it.

What made it harder was that I was different from them. Besides Lucas, I was the only non-Oriental in the building. The parents had been warming up to me, but the children were either excited to talk to me or terrified of me. I couldn't blame them, since I had seen what people in the city did to one another. They must have all probably seen abuse of some kind to them and their parents.

None of them stayed afraid of me for long, though. I found that, when I spoke without hiding my accent, it entertained a lot of the kids. They said my English was funny and that I needed to practice more. I told them I was actually from England, and then I got asked questions if I was royalty.

It was the first time someone honestly asked me that question and actually thought it could be true. The kids didn't tease me for my heritage as a lot of Americans had done. I knew the jokes my American friends had made were an attempt to be jovial and to welcome me into the fold. But there was always some small part of me that felt bad for hiding who I was. It was the path of least resistance, but it didn't make it feel right all the time.

Yong and Lucas were also wonderful help. When Lucas was given a job, he took to it with his complete attention and serious side that I didn't see all that often. He stopped making jokes and was acting like the older cub that he was. Yong was also being gentle and kind and helpful, sometimes helping me say something in Chinese to help get the kids attention.

When the two hours were up, the children were still balls of energy (furry balls of energy bouncing off all the walls, in fact) but I was exhausted. I sat against the wall with Lucas next to me, both of us tired.

Lucas yawned. "Being an adult is exhausting."

"Kids are exhausting," I countered.

Tri walked toward us and draped a blanket over the two of us. "You both are weaklings," Tri chuckled. "Take a quick nap. You both earned it. Yong is helping me now."

I sighed contently and put my arm around Lucas' shoulders, holding him close. I did fall asleep right there, in the church, on a lazy day.

I suppose whoever is reading this may be wondering why I wrote a journal entry like this. My life was chaotic and crazy, so why add something so mundane?

Well, that's the point. I wanted to have this moment in my journal to show that, for the first time in a long time, I felt like I had a sense of belonging. I felt warm and welcomed--it was bliss. I wanted to write it down to capture that moment and that feeling so I will never forget it.

Home. I felt at home.