Short Story - Cat Café
So, the writing group was all pretty depressed this time. Some called it Springtime blues, others imposter’s syndrome, for me - utter failure (but I digress).
Because of this, we decided on a prompt that we ABSOLUTELY WERE NOT ALLOWED to take in a tongue-in-cheek, cynical, or twisted way. This is straight romance fluff in 500 words.
Prompt: You find yourself strangely attracted to a stranger at your local coffee shop. Before you can go over, they approach you and say, “Is it just me, or is there something between us?”
Cat Café
The meowing must be getting to her.
Cici steeples her fingers, grinding them into her temples in ovular swipes while praying to the Egyptian goddess, Bastet, for aid and succor. She’d had a cat head. She must have understood cat things. Like why the aging Tabby is acting like she’s in heat even though she was spayed at two months old.
“Hush!” Cici tries, shooing her best animal friend off the counter, only to have another jump up in her place. Whoever convinced Cici to open a Cat Café was obviously a sadist. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Cats. Cookies. Coffee. That’s what good dreams are made of. Cici took it a step further and added cream puffs, so she should have been ahead of the game. Instead, here she is, hair half yanked from her ponytail and credit card reader on the fritz. It must be all the Main Coon fur threading through every bubble of oxygen.
The jingle of the bell over the Café door signals another incoming customer. Cici singes herself on the coffee burner before turning in welcome…and then goes utterly stiff. Across the floor, less than twenty feet away, is a man. A fantasy man. An “I have never met you, but my knees are now puddling at my ankles” kind of man.
The “Hello” she tries to give comes out more like a “Heyahummana” as her hand flaps uselessly on her wrist.
Goddess help her, one of the man’s perfectly sculpted, Herculean eyebrows lifts in amusement, and that’s it. She’s going to die right here. Call the coroner, this is all over.
Tabby decides at that moment to reinstate her dominance by sinking her claws into Cici’s overpriced jeans and inching her way up like a tree-climber, each grip of her ascending paws like pickaxes in Cici’s skin. Her eyebrow twitches, too, but in less of a suave way. More like a JesusFuckingChristCat tic with a stuttering smile to cover her sudden urge to shriek.
The devastating man’s other eyebrow joins the first, leveling up his amusement as his face blooms into a slow smile. With dimples. Gods help her, dimples!
Sauntering over, he’s already slipping out his wallet as Tabby continues to climb Mount Cici with a tenacity befitting Sisyphus. When Tabby is about thigh high, he looks at the menu. When she’s belly high – Cici involuntarily twitching and wincing and making pathetic little meeps – he peruses the pastry case. When the devil cat is breast high, Cici hisses in a curse, and the man finally seems to notice she’s being mauled.
She’s never been less angry to have a man stare, wide eyed, at her chest. The devil cat lists her head to the side and moans at him like she’s dying.
“I, um” – the handsome stranger chuckles with a stunning grin – “is it just me, or is there something between us?”
Prying the creature from her prone body, Cici prays it’s chemistry and not just the cat.
