Sex Kittens and Horn Dawgs Fall in Love by Maryrose Wood Page A

bones healed and the lack of a common spoken language started to be somewhat of a drag, and anyway her return plane ticket from Kathmandu was about to expire and she was seriously jonesing for American comfort food like macaroni and cheese. So it was time to say farewell.
    “When you’ve saved each other’s lives, the karmic debt is powerful,” Dervish says as we retrieve our wet coats and Matthew’s umbrella. Matthew seems dazed. “It creates a strong, strong energy between you.” She looks nostalgic. “Makes things pretty steamy, if you know what I mean!”
    I wish I did know, but the only steam rising between me and my Darling Dazed Dawg is coming from a manhole cover on Lexington Avenue, streaming up in dirty gray puffs as we cross the street. The rain has slowed to a drizzle and everything is wet, wet, wet. Jacob has his sitar case wrapped in a plastic garment bag.
    “See?” Jacob says as we duck under the awning of the King’s Palace Hotel, on the east side of Lex. “I told you she was cool. She’s an heiress or something. I think her grandfather invented Kleenex.”
    “You sound great when you play, Jacob,” I say. “What was that ‘dit dit da’ thing you were saying?”
    “That’s just counting,” he says. “Indian music has, like, a lot of beats.”
    “What kind of car does your father drive?” asks Matthew. He’s craning his neck, looking down Lex. The King’s Palace is where my dad is supposed to pick me up, but traffic looks gridlocked.
    “A Camry,” I say. “He’ll be here. You guys don’t have to wait.”
    “Nonsense! And leave a fair damsel in the rain?” says the noble Sir Jacob, shaking the drops out of his platinum dreads like a wet white poodle.
    “Course we’ll wait,” says Matthew, leaning out into the drizzle. He’s been strangely quiet since we left Dervish’s house.
    The doorman of the hotel has been standing behind us this whole time, in his red and black uniform and big bearskin hat, just like the famously silent and stony-faced guards at Buckingham Palace. But this is New York City, where everyone has something to say.
    “What poifect gentlemen!” he growls, his New Yawk accent thick as the incense at Dervish’s house. “You must be a special young lady to have two such gallant chevaliers!”
    I want to point out to him that, technically, chevaliers would be on horseback, which neither Matthew nor Jacob are, but just then a white Camry with New Jersey plates pulls up in front of the hotel and honks.
Beeeeeeep!
Beep beep!
That’s my dad.
    “Hey, sugar!” he calls out, rolling down his window. “Climb in, we’re running late!” The trunk of the Camry pops open. I throw in my overnight bag and stretch high on tippy-toe to close the trunk. My dad gets out of the car to help, but Matthew is already beside me, easily slamming the trunk down.
    “Dad, this is Matthew Dwyer. Matthew, this is my dad.” This unlikely combination of words sounds fake even as I’m saying it.
    “You’re the one with the science project, right?” says Dad, shaking Matthew’s hand. “Super.” Dad never used to say super till he met Laura. “The three of us are supposed to have a meeting or something?”
    “An interview, yes,” says Matthew. “When would be convenient?”
    “Lunch next week? I’ll check my calendar and we’ll pick a day. Oh, you have school . . .” My dad’s voice trails off.
    “It’s for a science project. It’s fine, Dad. We’re allowed to meet you for lunch, they won’t mind.” I’m starting to drip. “Can we talk about this later? When we’re not, like, in a monsoon?”
    “How do you do, sir? I’m Jacob!” Jacob calls loudly from under the awning. “Forgive my appalling lack of manners, but I have to protect my instrument!”
    “Oh, howdy there,” says Dad, confused by the presence of a second teenage boy when he thought there was only one. The thing about my dad is, he expects to be confused by my life, so he doesn’t make that