MC Part 2 #40
John rolled in at 8am. Logan was slogging slowly from the back door of his house to the steel outbuilding that housed the majority of the Manleigh Cheese operation. He looked up when he heard the car pulling into the driveway, and grunted low in his chest.
Donna had left him a note on the kitchen table late the night before.
“I cleaned up after I put you to bed.” The note said. “No more heavy carbohydrate dinners, washed down with wine, for you! See you tomorrow about 9am. D.”
Logan slept fitfully. He always did after weeping like a lost child. It wasn’t one of the things he liked about himself, and he regretted that he was almost as in love with good wine as he was with cheese. Almost.
It was enough that his family’s money, an inheritance from two generations back, allowed him to fulfill his life’s dream without stretching to accommodating a second dream. Maybe, some day in the future, Manleigh Cheese would be large enough that he could try another venture, but that wasn’t something he chose to focus on.
He stood in the yard, toes digging into the ground. Wearing the trendy finger shoes that had taken the world by storm was a guilty pleasure. They made him feel like some kind of really tall, two-legged cat, because he could knead the dirt under his feet.
There were secret nights (when no one, not even John, Donna, or Patti, was around) he spent indulging that fantasy. He kept his kitty ears in the back of his bedroom closet, on the highest shelf. One day, he’d have to explain it to Patti, and he didn’t look forward to it. He could imagine it going very badly.
“Hi, Patti! Meow!” He’d say, sporting his ears. “Want to scratch me under my chin?”
“You perverted weirdo!” She’d scream and run away, never to see him again.
God only knows what her father would think. It could be the ruin of the Manleigh Cheese/Thorson Dairy partnership! He hoped his distress wouldn’t show on his face as John approached.
“Wow, Logan! You’ve got a face like a cat’s ass this morning!” John called out. “What’s eating you?”
“Eh, nervous about tomorrow. Where’s the new Mrs. Frost?” Logan scrambled to divert the conversation away from anything cat-related.
“She headed home this morning. We haven’t quite figured everything out yet.”
Logan nodded at his old chum, and gave him a comradely punch to the deltoid when he was close enough to do so. John smiled, and Logan noticed the dark circles under his eyes.
“Did you sleep okay last night?”
John turned and looked up at his incredibly dense, socially inept, dearest friend. He opened his mouth to speak and words wouldn’t form, at least nothing that wasn’t overtly quarrelsome. He hadn’t made coffee in two days to keep his paranormal bride from bouncing off the walls with caffeine-enhanced perkiness. The lack of java was making civilized behavior very difficult.
“Okay, Logan. Two things. Number one: I’m a newlywed. Do newlyweds ever get any sleep? Number two: please tell me—for the love of God—there’s coffee left in the kitchen.”
“Oh. Sex.”
“Yes, Logan. Sex. What about the coffee?”
“Yes. Coffee.”
“Grand! I’ll meet you in the workshop just as soon as I drain your coffeemaker.” John spun on his heel and ran for the house.
Logan watched him go and silently wondered about the relationship between sex and coffee. The first pang of jealousy hit him on the heels of contemplating that combination.
“Everybody is having sex, except me.”