More Than Meets the Eye - Page 138

Baz didn’t have the words to express what it meant for Sami, who had such a loving family of his own, to embrace Baz’s broken one.For him to want to share his milestones with them like they were also his people, and for them not only to accept that, but to rejoice in it and celebrate Sami too… It was indescribable.

Even Aya came by.She arrived shortly after they did, bearing a graduation gift: a pen with Sami’s name engraved into it, like the one she had given Baz all those years ago.

Baz had known she would adore Sami if she only gave him a chance, and he had been right.One accidental run-in-turned-shared-meal at a Persian restaurant was all it had taken for her to admit that they made a good couple.Since then, she and Sami had smoothly sailed toward a friendship of their own.

Aya wasn’t the only one who approved; once the initial commotion had settled down, a certain black cat came out of hiding, slaloming around people’s legs without ever touching them to get to her one true love.

“Lu!”Sami picked up the demon from hell, cradling her like a baby.She purred like there was no place she’d rather be.“Hi, baby.My littleshaitan…”

None of them had seen Lucipurr instantly falling in love with any human coming, not even Eevee.But of course the chosen one had to be Baz’s boyfriend.That cat seriously had it in for him.

“Don’t encourage her.”Bad enough Baz had summoned a demon with the pun in her name.They did not need to invite the Arabic devil into the mix too.

“Hey, you’re the one who named her.”

“And I’ve been regretting it ever since.She’s powerful enough without being bilingual.”

“Fair enough,” Sami chuckled and pressed his forehead against Lucipurr’s.A crime everyone else would get four claws to the face for, yet Sami only got Lucipurr licking his beard and purring louder than a chainsaw.Unbelievable.

“I wish I could take you home with me,” Sami whispered.Lucipurr meowed like she, too, would love that.Except there was no way that would happen.

Naija couldn’t have been clearer about not wanting pets, at least not while they were still in their starter apartment, and Baz didn’t care to get attacked every time he visited his boyfriend either.

Besides, he liked having Sami at his apartment.He prettied up the place tremendously, and not just with his shining personality.More than once, he had turned up at Baz’s doorstep with a bucket of paint or boxes of fairy lights, or with the instruction to grab his keys because they were going furniture shopping.The hard leather couch had been the first to go, replaced by a gray, fabric one big enough that he and Sami could lie down on it together.

Now that his apartment started to feel like a home, it’d be a shame to never have Sami over again because he was too busy spoiling a cat.

“You know, you could adopt her if you wanted to.”That was Eevee, somehow suddenly next to them.

Why would she say that?She knew Naija had said no the last three times Sami had ‘casually’ dropped how much he loved Lucipurr.

“Eevee,” Baz hissed.Too late.Sami’s eyes were already glowing.

“You know Naija’s answer,” Baz reminded him.

Sami pushed his lower lip out.He rested his face against Lucipurr’s.Why was he wasting his puppy eyes on Baz when he should be convincing—oh, no.

“Absolutely not.I’m not gonna adopt her.”

Lucipurr was a menace thriving on chaos, and the cuddle privileges rarely extended to Baz.He refused to get maimed in his own home.

“You know you love her too!And I’ll be at your place all the time to spend time with her.”

“Is that a threat?”

“Look at her little face,” Sami said in his silly cat voice, making a point of squeezing his cheek against hers.Yeah, the face of the devil.Her dilated pupils and withdrawn claws would not fool Baz.

“She hates me.”

“She loves you!”

“No, she lovesyou.She hisses at me every time I come close.”To prove it, he offered out his hand—and this traitor of a cat, for the first time in her life, sniffed his fingers before rubbing her cheek along them.

“See!”Sami beamed.“She loves you.She just gets her social signals messed up sometimes and hisses when she doesn’t mean it.Much like someone else I know.”

The autism card, really?Just because Sami had been right about that—turned out, Baz was truly the last to find out; Eevee and Joel had said they long suspected something, and Baz’s provider had hit him with the same “You didn’t know?”Sami had—didn’t mean human neurology applied to cats.

“Who’s gonna look after her when you aren’t there?I have work, and you will, too, soon.”