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Hehhey, and welcome to another week of I'm Still With the Hockey Hunk, my ongoing furry soap opera!

If you have any comments about the story or this chapter in general, don't hesitate to drop me a line or two. It'll help me to be a better writer, and I enjoy all the feedback. Don't forget that votes, faves and watches help others to find these stories as well.

Have a fun read as we again dwell to the mysterious world of Rory Gliese! : )

*

A pair of gentle eyes looked at me, glinting from the striped face that had suddenly appeared over the backrest of the next booth. Someone was looking at me, and I looked back, and my ears perked with surprise, as much as my eyes must have widened.

"Hello, I wonder if you remember me, but I am pretty sure I remember you," the softly-spoken one noted, a small smile on his lips.

Okay, so I admit, first I just said "uhhhhh", and my tail flicked under the table, but then I gave a quick nod, and managed to smile back.

"Hello," at least I was polite.

"I hope I wasn't interrupted anything," Lord Mistwillow nodded towards the phone held in one of my paws, with the text from Victor still open on it, waiting to be answered by something suitably cute and Rory and maybe a little bit of sexy, too, if I could manage that much.

Talk about interruptions...my paw flicked and turned the phone around, flat against the table, and I quickly shook my head, and tried to smile again, feeling oddly Mason-like in my reaction to being face to face with the writer tiger so suddenly.

"Oh, no, it was just a text," I explained dully, and received a nod.

"Rory, wasn't it?" the Tigerwillow spoke to me, still earnest and curious of me, his head titled a little, "I apologize if I forgot your name, I meet so many furs nowadays that I cannot always keep a track of them."

"Yeah, that's right, Rory Gliese," I gave my name quickly, wondering on just how easy I was to forget in the long run.

Well, at least Victor hadn't forgotten me...even if meeting me was almost as random as seeing some faceless bookstore dude in yet another obscure main street retailer, just another face in the sea of furs.

Poetic ponderings aside, I was still being looked at by the tiger, perched on his seat and looking over to me like a little cub peeping over a fence. It must've looked hilarious from the other side, and it would've been perfect if his paws had been holding the edge of the backrest, for balance.

Hahah.

"Then I remembered right," the tiger declared with a smile. "Good afternoon to you, Rory. Have I stumbled upon your regular haunt, by any chance?"

The tiger flicked his ears as if to indicate the quiet restaurant, and I shook my head, and snuffled.

"My first time actually," I spoke.

"Mine as well," the tiger nodded, "I just...I was walking around downtown and felt like a sandwich and maybe some nice coffee, and I happened upon this place...seems to be alright, though."

"It's a student place," I noted the gist of things with a busy-looking nod.

The Mistwriter's smile broadened.

"That it is, perhaps I had an instinctual inkling that I would like it here," he grinned.

I chuckled.

"Perhaps, yeah...it's nice enough...never visited before, though, but I got this...," I picked up my voucher and waved it briefly, "...for a free meal, and I decided that I'd check it out."

"Ahh," he nodded enthusiastically, as if it was actually a very fascinating thing alright. "Hopefully you will enjoy your free meal, Rory."

"Thank you," I smiled, ever so polite a Rory as I was again, "and...well, you enjoy your coffee and sandwiches as well."

"Thank you," the tiger nodded, but remained as he was, and after a couple of seconds, spoke again. "Well...would you like to join me on my table, Rory? If you would...care for the company, that is, of course, I will not interrupt your meal if you wish to dine in peace, but I would enjoy the company, if you might."

Now wasn't this peculiar, I thought, watching the tiger watch me, as I realized that I had just been invited to the dinner table of a famous writer, who wanted to talk with me! How odd was that? It also felt weird that he was definitely having more of an effect on me now than before, back at the shop, where, honestly speaking, I didn't get much of a COOL!!! vibe out of the big cat...perhaps Mason was freaking out so much that there simply wasn't any room left for my surprise and admiration and wonderment at the presence of a renowned author. Perhaps it was because I had no idea what the books were about and still hadn't even wikied the whole thing properly to get at least a basic understanding of the books and whatever went on around them.

At least there was lots of potential for slash fiction, if I should believe Mason, and why would Mason know about slash fiction anyway?

Would you go out with me?

_ _

Ugh...perhaps the wolf indeed was keen on making some Mason/Rory slash, or maybe it was just a fanfic in the making in my head, imagining things about the wolf who probably just wanted to innocently hang out with his awesome workmate Rory.

Just maybe.

Freaking-out wolves aside, yeah, here I was and suddenly felt a bit small in the presence of the infamous Lord Willowtiger, looking at me with that infuriatingly calm expression he had on his face whenever he dissed that poisonous Ms. Lopez to the ground.

Well, at least I hoped that he wasn't planning to diss me...and anyway, when did you get a chance to sit down on the same table with someone who was certified to be grade A for Awesome by so many geeks? How lucky was that?

Mason would probably garrote me for this, but I picked my phone and stashed it in my pocket as I got up and walked over to the other side, tail looping behind me. Mistwillow settled back to his seat and waved a paw across the table.

"Please, sit wherever you like," he said, and I took the leather seat opposite to him, and got comfy.

The tiger had a plate with a half-eaten chicken sandwich on it (delicious), a tall mug of coffee which had been sipped a few times but was still warm, and emanating a beautiful aroma that made me crave for a nice cuppa as well, although I knew I would be better of eating something real. There was also an iPad, inside a protective leather cover, right next to a real old-fashioned spiral-bound notebook, for pawwritten notes, I imagined, a few lead pens and a couple of paperback books, all sprawled to take over the whole table, or so it seemed. Mistwillow noticed me looking and immediately began to rearrange things.

"Excuse me, I was working a little," his paws gathered his notebooks aside and piled them next to the little basket that contained Tabasco, toothpicks and salt and peppershakers, "I tend to spread things around."

"I wouldn't want to interrupt," I spoke quickly, wondering whether I had just caused an entire chapter of The Sword Polishers of Caledon Rocks to fall into oblivion because I happened to break the tiger's train of thought.

"Oh, it's completely fine," the tiger replied, seemingly happy with my room allocation now, because he sat back and relaxed again, paws resting on the tabletop, "I came here to relax, not to work. Though of course it is a work that always follows me everywhere."

I gave a quick nod, as understanding as I was, peeping a little over the iPad that might contain the draft of the next bestseller, currently three feet away from my prying eyes. No wonder that I felt a little bit intimidated.

"I guess it is," I agreed.

"Indeed it is," the tiger repeated, watching me again with those calm eyes.

I noticed that he was wearing his green jacket again, the one that I had almost gotten lost in the back room at the Albrecht Brothers. He also had a small bag you could carry over your shoulder, currently stashed off to the side, probably for carrying all his author stuff with him wherever he went.

I didn't really know what to say, how to begin a conversation with the mysterious tiger, who seemed to be out of this world for most part. I always thought that writers must be living out there, in the worlds they create, for a better part of the time, and only occasionally come down here to the plain of us mere mortals, to share some esoteric wisdom about the places they had discovered within their minds. I knew that it was stupid to think like that, because of course there must have been thinking we might have had in common. Maybe the tiger read newspapers or watched the movies, or the television, when he wasn't busy doing writing things.

Asking Lord Mistwillow whether he had seen that rerun of Frasier last night felt something of a letdown, though, so I contented myself with some hopefully not too distracting silence for a moment, just sitting there, providing whatever amusement I could, since I was invited there. Always up to serve, Rory, master of customer service, eh?

Gah, I was also terribly hungry, and I was pretty sure my tummy would start to growl soon if I didn't get something to eat swiftly. Thankfully, a waitress seemed to notice my plight and hurried over, bringing a glossy menu for me with a lot of smiling and hellos.

"Welcome to the Lefties, I'll come back to take your order very soon," the cougar waitress smiled, and I smiled back, and took the menu, and she left back to being a busy buxom waitress.

"She suggested the fried rice and pork for me," Mistwillow's voice emanated from beyond the glossy plastic-enclosed menu, and I felt my ears flick, and I peered at him over the edge of the menu.

"Ahh, thanks," I took the suggestion in almost absent-mindedly and let my eyes scan across the menu until I found the "Day's Special" with the aforementioned dish mentioned.

I put the menu down and smiled a little.

"Well, I'll trust her judgment and try that out," I spoke, and received a smile.

"She assured me that they had very fresh ingredients," he said, "I would have perhaps sampled it but I had a heavy lunch with Ms. Lopez and the local representative of the publisher."

My tail hid itself under the seat at the very mention of the power-dressing purple menace that was the leopard named Ms. Guadeloupe Lopez.

"She didn't follow you to your city tour?" I smirked a little, showing teeth and all, hoping that she was an accepted target for the tiger as well.

Mistwillow chuckled.

"She went to day spa at the hotel, she said something about bad carbs and bad antioxidants and mentioned a colonic irrigation," the tiger mused," at that point I decided not to make any further inquiries into the matter."

While the genuine idea of Ms. Lopez getting something stuffed up her ass was one that brought sick satisfaction even for me, thinking about glorified enemas while on the dinner table was not one of my favorite things to do, and as such, all I could do was to flick my ears and nod rapidly.

"Suppose she needs her beauty treatments like anyone else," I offered, hoping that this wouldn't lead to any more hose + butt - implying jokes.

"Perhaps so," Mistwillow agreed as he picked up his enviable coffee mug and took a hearty sip.

The tiger picked up a napkin and quickly wiped his muzzle before he looked back to me again, intently.

"Pardon me, though," he spoke, and reached across the table with his right paw, "it must be a little bit strange talking to someone when you can only think that you're talking to someone called Lord Mistwillow."

The tiger chuckled, and he wasn't too far off, I must admit, and I gave him a small smile.

"Yeah, uhh...yeah, "I felt a bit silly for it, being a grown man and all, but I suppose that everyone felt a bit special when talking with a Lord.

"So...hello, Rory, I am Colin," his paw was there, hovering over the table, and I took it, quickly, and gave it a hearty squeeze, being the big lion that I was, and definitely not limp-wristed as someone might imply, and I felt the tiger's paw in mine, and gave him a smile and a nod.

"Hello...," I still must have sounded a bit hollow, but the tiger seemed to be pleased enough, after he had returned to his earlier posture with his paws flat over the tabletop.

The tiger winked.

"And before you think that you can make some bucks leaking that to the press, don't bother, it reads in my Wikipedia page," he spoke, dead-pan, and made me frown for all three seconds before his smile broadened and I realized that he was joking, and I smiled too.

"Hahah," I patted the tabletop with my own previously tiger-paw-shaking paw, "yeah, sounds like something that Mason, my workmate, would look up from the net."

The tiger's ears flicked.

"Ahh...the wolf boy, right?" he chuckled, "he had a...he also had that foreign friend who brought a Norwegian copy of one of my books, wasn't that him?"

"That's Haakon," I spoke automatically, being sufficiently haunted by the lynx boy's memory myself.

"Ahh, right," Colin-willow nodded, "that's it. He was the only one who hung around after getting his autographs and wasn't zealously driven away by the wolf."

I chuckled at the memory of the bodyguard frat wolf, and felt a twinge of fondness for the bleary-eyed Mason, whatever he was, he was still rather cute in his own way, if you thought about it from the right angle.

The tiger stretched out his paws a little and flexed his fingers, perhaps needing the exercise after tapping ideas down on that touch screen. I still felt oddly like trying to take a peek, but resisted...for now.

"Well, there was a lot of furs there," I tried to enthuse the tiger about the modest success of the signing session.

"I would say so as well," he smiled, "it's perhaps the best part of my work, too...seeing those who have read it and have enjoyed it...felt things after reading it. Being the subject of their curiosity because of that is of course inevitable but...yes, being on tour is nice. This is my biggest yet...that's why it's been split, too. I'm staying here now for the next couple of weeks."

I nodded, recalling the book tour plans from his earlier visit, though the fact that he was staying in town was something new for me, too.

"Well, it's a nice city," I smiled.

"It is, yes," the tiger returned my smile. "While it might not be New York or Chicago or San Francisco, it's still nice enough, there are shopping ventures and parks and an art gallery...and anyway, in my line of work, it doesn't really even matter much where I am, physically, as long as I am in the mood for writing."

I chuckled.

"Yeah, I don't suppose you have to actually live in a medieval castle to write about knights and squires," I joked, obviously lamely, but the tiger smiled seemingly amused for my bad comment.

"Quite so!" the Colin-tiger smirked. "All I need is something to write my thoughts down, and I am good. That's why I don't mind staying wherever I am, as long as I get some time to gather my thoughts. I can work on the planes but it really is always the best to settle down for a little while and let my thoughts wander. It brings much more satisfying results in the end, too."

I nodded, genuinely curious now, since of course I, like many students of my kind, had harbored hopes of maybe one day writing something REALLY good. Gaining such close insight was a pleasure for me, too, even if I had realized rather early on that I simply wasn't perhaps quite creative enough to put my vague ideas on paper in a form that would sell a hundred thousand copies. Maybe I was too much of a cub back then, anyway, immature and high on college freedom, but I definitely could have done a better job with those secret computer files only I was ever allowed to read.

You can't read them, by the way!

"Hopefully you'll have a peaceful two weeks," I suggested, offering my word on the matter, even if I felt a bit lame for it.

"I think I will," he had his sandwich now, and I watched with rapt attention how those thick pieces of white, well-fried, spiced chicken disappeared into the tiger's hungry maw and were thoroughly chewed by him.

The tiger washed it down with some coffee and again neatly dapped his chin, and then smiled.

"Especially since Ms. Lopez is flying to Atlanta tomorrow and I am left to my own means," he continued his earlier statement, now smirking happily.

I chuckled and flicked my ears broadly, liking the image of the leopard in a plane flying far away from the tiger she seemed to be intent on pestering at every turn.

"Woo," I enthused in a mock sotto tone, much to the tiger's smirking amusement.

"It's mostly because we don't have any further signings here, and she has other represented authors as well, and now she's going to Atlanta with some wolf who wrote his autobiographical account on working at the car manufacturing plants in Detroit for 40 years or something like that. Greasy Heart it was called, I think, perhaps I remember it right."

I shook my head in quick disbelief at the literary agent's gall.

"We'd put that to the Demented Ramblings section on the bookstore if we had a shelf named such," I offered my own jokey comment on the issue.

The tiger laughed.

"Quite right, quite right!"

I heard steps from behind me, and the waitess re-appeared, holding her little notepad and looking down to me very intently.

"May I take your order, please?"

*

Thanks for reading the chapter. Stay tuned for even more adventures next Friday!

If you have any comments, don't' be shy! I enjoy all the feedback I receive. Also remember that all votes, faves and watches help others to find these stories to read and enjoy as well.

Cheerio