Living Room

There's only one place to go. If you want to not seem like you're trying to get something, trying to interact with the girls on purpose, you had the three common areas. The kitchen, the "dining room", and the living room. The dining room wasn't really a dining room, so much as a table that took up a corner of the living room. So you could either hang out in the kitchen or you could actually look inconspicuous.

You walk out of your room, walking to the couch and turning on the tv. You find some channel with some innocuous piece of programming. Part of you felt like cutting the cord might make sense, but there's nothing quite like sitting in front of a tv and just letting the channel flow past you as you scrolled through your phone.

The cat comes up, sitting on you. As you do, you feel something. The cat has lowered the zipper of your pants. _Man, I thought he'd be indiscriminate, but I didn't think he'd even target me. _You pull your zipper up, and the cat doesn't fight you on this, he mostly seems to work by making it seem like an accident. He just lays there, acting like a normal cat, letting you rub his back as he sits on your lap. Hopefully he'd have a bit more patience with the others.

Speaking of patience, that's the thing that tests you next. It figures that the one time you actually want to see people, you don't. Everybody seems to have found something they are doing in their rooms. Finally, somebody enters the room.

Olivia walks in, going to the kitchen to grab a beer. It was about 6, so she was probably done with a good amount of her freelancing, so it wasn't too shocking. As she walks by, she sees the cat.

"Uh, what's that? You didn't get a cat without talking to any of us did you?"

Oh shit. You hadn't even thought of that. What if one of them was allergic? What if they questioned why there was now a cat but no litterbox, water, or cat food. Suddenly, a cat just showed up and you didn't even think to make it seem believable. It's not like you could play dumb and say you didn't know what cat she was talking about, you had to improvise.

"Oh, uh, it was sort of last minute. My coworker asked me to take care of this cat while he is on vacation for a week. It's a real pain to just leave some food for him, as he's a bit of a food hog, he'd eat it all in a day and starve the other six. So I said sure, I could take him into my house if he gave me the stuff I needed to take care of him." I paused, an adequate amount to make it seem believable. "You don't think that the others will get upset will you?"

Olivia sighs, looking at you with disdain. "You're a real idiot you know that? I had a cat when I was young, but lord only knows how the others will take this. I'm not covering up for you, so you can strike whatever childhood fantasy of hiding it you may have come up with just now. The second I go back to my room, I'm telling Erica." _Ooh, that might not be good, if they start complaining about the cat after a few minutes and the others haven't even seen it, it might get him kicked out to a pet hotel. _You have to think fast.

"Are you really going to walk by a cat without petting him? His name is Regis. He's not a bad guy, why don't you get to know him?"

She looks at you like you're crazy for a second. But as you sit there, the newly named Regis stretches, and you can see her expression soften. "Fine, but we watch the news instead of whatever drivel you have on there now." You agree, changing the channel to the local news as she sits down on the three seat couch on the opposite side.

Regis stands up, stretching, before walking over to Olivia. As he sits down, Olivia smirks. "Man, even the cat wants nothing to do with you. Do you think human failure can be smelled with a cat's sense of smell? Or maybe he just prefers women? If it's the latter, he's a smart cat."

The cat flops on her lap, giving her access to his belly. The two of you sit there, as you briefly turn to watch the news. Nothing big, nothing too sad. But you know that you need her to get comfortable, to let everything work out. So you shut up, as Regis does his best to look adorable. To get her to let her guard down.