Chapter 41: Starlight
Kayden
I blinked, my heart pounding hard in my chest as the sound came again; it was a low purring. At first I had thought a wild animal had found us but when I looked around, there was nothing of such.
The high-pitched desperate sound had come from a kitten from the left side of the pier. It was screaming desperately for help as it was inside the water.
"Rhys! Look that’s a cat!" I shouted. "It’s drowning."
Rhys looked at where I had pointed. He gasped as a small sodden ball of fur was struggling against the current, its tiny paws splashing uselessly as a wave threatened to pull it under the pilling.
Through the light that shone from the lamp, I could tell its breed. It was a Maine Coon kitten that was soaked to the bone; you could see the tufted ears and the heavy paws that looked far too big for its small body.
Rhys immediately removed his jacket and jumped into the lake after the kitten. He swam with one hand toward it and then grabbed the kitten into his arms then swam back towards the pier.
He stretched forth his hand for me to take and I pulled him up. When he finally flipped onto the wooden planks, he was shivering violently, his teeth already chattering, and before he could look at me, his eyes were on the kitten in his arms.
"Bring my jacket and wrap it around it," he requested.
I said nothing and picked his jacket on the floor and placed it on the shivering Maine Coon kitten. It let out a weak mewl and tucked its head into the jacket.
""Is it breathing?" I asked and Rhys nodded in response. "How the hell did a kitten find its way to the lake and jump into?" I looked around thinking that someone must have lost it or maybe it lost its way home and then jumped into the lake. "Do you think it’s lost?" I asked Rhys.
Rhys shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the kitten who slowly raised its head from the jacket wrapped around it. "It’s late so it’s likely it lost its way, someone..." he paused and looked behind but there was no one else on the pier except from us. "Or it’s just a wandering cat."
"Poor baby," I pouted as I rubbed its head. "I truly hope it’s a stray cat cause this poor fur-baby doesn’t deserve to be left out in this cold."
"What do we do?" I asked still rubbing the kitten’s head and it seemingly enjoyed it as it purred in response.
"I don’t know," Rhys muttered, "But we’re not leaving the kitten here. It wouldn’t last thirty minutes out here. We have to take it with us."
I nodded in agreement. "Alright, we go back to the hotel then," I said and stood up.
Rhys also did the same, holding the kitten gently in his arms.
The ride back to the hotel was spent on checking on the cat to see if it wasn’t shivering anymore and Rhys pressing it to his chest to generate more heat.
When we reached the hotel, we had to sneak the kitten in. Sneaking a shivering, soaking-wet Maine Coon through the lobby of a high-end hotel was probably the most athletic thing we’d done all week.
Rhys hid the bundle under his damp coat, walking with a stiff, "I’m-definitely-not-carrying-contraband" gait while I ran interference, blocking the view of the night concierge, and luckily for us, there was nobody since it was past midnight and we managed to enter into the elevator with no one spotting us.
The second the door to our suite clicked shut, we both let out a breath we’d been holding since the taxi.
"We made it so let’s head to the bathroom now," Rhys simply said, shivering as he rushed towards the bathroom door.
He had ridden to the hotel wearing nothing but his shirt that was soaking wet. It was the first thing he got rid of immediately we entered the bathroom.
We spent the next thirty minutes huddled on the marble floor caring for the kitten. I used every spare towel in the room while Rhys braved the hair dryer on its lowest setting to dry its fur.
As the fur dried, the kitten transformed from a sad, "drowned rat" into a massive brown, tan, and cream cloud of fur.
"Wait," I murmured, gently checking as I brushed her fur with my fingers. "Rhys, look. It’s a girl."
"A girl," Rhys repeated, sitting back against the tub, his wet hair plastered to his forehead. He looked exhausted, but his gaze was fixed on the kitten. "She is so beautiful," he commented, placing a hand on her head. "And soft like you," he added.
"Don’t call me that," I scoffed and rolled my eyes, giving her one last dry before hanging the towel. She was no longer shivering; instead, she began curiously pacing the bathroom.
My heart did a strange little flip. I’d always loved cats, but hockey never left me the time. Looking at her, those reasons didn’t seem to matter anymore.
"Can we keep her? This poor baby deserves a home."
"Kayden," Rhys shifted in the bathtub. "We are very busy. The series is crazy this year and we would barely have time for a cat. A kitten isn’t exactly a standard piece of hockey equipment that we can take around."
I felt my smile falter, a frown tugging at my lips. "She was drowning, Rhys. She has no one. No collar, no microchip—I checked. If we leave her at a shelter here, she’s just another stray. I think there is a reason she found us. She is..." I paused, wondering why I was bent on keeping the kitten; a shelter home would be the best place to take her because of our busy schedules but then I remembered something and clapped my hands excitedly.
"We can hire a cat sitter , Rhys!"
Rhys stared at the kitten then he looked at me, his eyes softening. "It seems you like her."
I nodded.
"Fine," he whispered. "We’ll both take care of her and once this season gets serious, we hire a sitter like you proposed."
I clapped my hands excitedly and crouched towards the kitten. "Hello there fur-baby, you are ours now," I said and my eyes widened when I realized what I had just said.
Me and Rhys were nothing to each other yet I was acting like he was my boyfriend and we just had our first adopted child. "I... I just said that out of excitement."
Rhys chuckled and waved a hand at me. "It’s okay. I mean having a fur-baby is cute so I am totally fine with it."
I stared at him wondering if I was talking to the wrong Rhys but when I remembered what he had said at the pier about having a different side, I wondered if this was the other side he wanted to show me. The other side that was softer and gentler.
"What should we name her?" He asked, bringing me out of my thoughts.
I blinked and turned back to the kitten, stroking her tufted ears, watching her green eyes blink sleepily at me. "You saved her, Rhys, so you name her."
"We both saved her, Kayden," he responded and then snapped his fingers in excitement. "Since we found her under the stars, how about we call her Starlight?"
"Starlight? It’s perfect," I muttered.