Love is Always Write Anthology Bonus Volume

Daniel's cheek from ear to jaw. The skin around it looked puffy and red. Daniel pressed his hand over it, eyes stormy.
    "Daniel, what the hell happened?" His heart in his mouth, Jacob grabbed Daniel's wrist to pull his hand away and inspect the damage. But then his eyes were caught by a very familiar-looking set of parallel scratches down Daniel's wrist. Jacob's panic began to subside. "Mrs. Dankowski's cat?"
    "You didn't warn me."
    "I told you it was a nasty cat."
    "You didn't tell me it was the spawn of Satan."
    Jacob couldn't help grinning. "You heard my stories."
    "I thought you were exaggerating."
    Jacob kissed Daniel's unwounded cheek. "Let me go see if we have any ice in the freezer. It will make that feel better."
    Daniel followed after him to the kitchen. He took the towel-wrapped ice cubes that Jacob held out and pressed them to his cheek. "I'll be scarred for life," he muttered.
    Jacob pushed the towel aside momentarily to take a look. "I don't think it's that deep."
    "I meant mentally. I'm going to develop a mad fear of cats. I'm going to see them lurking everywhere. Pretty soon I'll be holed up in one cat-free room gibbering to myself."
    "What did the spawn of Satan do this time?"
    "It's all your fault." Daniel brushed past Jacob to reach into the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of beer for each of them. "You've been too nice to tell the old bat to go elsewhere when she needs a hand. So when little Beelzebub gets into trouble the first thing she does is show up on our doorstep. And where were you, huh?"
    Jacob slipped the opener under his bottle cap and popped the lid. The first swallow went down smooth and easy. He set his bottle on the counter to take Daniel's and open it for him. "I was out working to keep you in beer actually."
    "Oh yeah. Right."
    Was there a hint of bitterness in Daniel's voice? Jacob said quickly, "Not that your job doesn't help too. It's not your fault waiting tables doesn't bring in much. I know you'll land an advertising position soon. Your art class teacher said..."
    Daniel reached out and put the curve of his beer bottle against Jacob's mouth. "Hush. I'm not worried about it. You can go on supporting me in the manner to which I've become accustomed for a bit yet."
    "Okay." Jacob still wasn't sure if that was real indifference in Daniel's voice or a facade, but he was more than willing to let the subject drop.
    Daniel took a long pull on his beer. "Ah. The person who invented beer should be knighted, or maybe given a sainthood."
    "They were probably a pagan. You were telling me about the cat."
    "Oh, yeah. So Mrs. D was all upset and begging me to help her."
    "So of course you said yes."
    "Well, you weren't here."
    "We've already established that it was my fault. Get on with it."
    "So we went down to her place. The damned cat had been in a dresser drawer, and when Mrs. D opened it, the cat squeezed over the back of the drawer into the space behind it."
    "So you just have to take out the drawer." Jacob had done far worse for this cat.
    "You'd think. Except when Mrs. D went to do that the cat stuck its head back over the back of the drawer and got stuck somehow with its neck between the back and the divider. We couldn't pull the drawer forward without decapitating it. We couldn't push it back because the cat was behind it with its paws in the rails."
    Jacob couldn't help snorting.
    "Oh yeah, it's funny when it's not you."
    "What did you do?"
    "Well I figured we could just knock the back off the drawer, and that would free the little monster's head. So I reached in there with a hammer and tapped it off the sides. Mrs. D was screaming in my ear not to hurt the cat. The cat was yowling so at least I knew I wasn't strangling it. I hit my thumb. The back fell off and the cat wiggled out, savaged my hand and shot off out the bedroom door."
    "Um, your face. Was that Mrs. D?"
    "Hell, no. She was delighted. We're both such lovely young men. She has two lovely nieces too. They will be visiting for several weeks at Easter. We should all have dinner together."
    "Oh, God. I hope you headed her off."
    "I tried." Daniel took the towel away from his cheek and tried to see his wound in the shiny surface of the toaster.
    Jacob pulled him away. "You're still beautiful." He shoved the towel back into place. "Keep that there. Cat scratches swell like a son of a bitch. What do you mean, 'tried'?"
    "I couldn't get a word in edgewise. She told me you'd never let her feed you because it wasn't proper