Chapter 27: Cloud

“Can I just put the box on the living room table, mom?”

“Sure, go ahead. Can you help your dad with the plates as well?”

“Yep!” Sam swiftly removes her shoes and heads towards the adjacent room.

Following Sam’s example I start taking off my heels.

“Oh, you really don’t have to take of your shoes if you don’t want to.” Sam’s mom interrupts me.

“I don’t mind.” I smile. “I would feel pretty awkward being the only one with shoes on.”

“Ah yes, I understand. My name is Lucy by the way, but “Sam’s Mom” is fine with me as well.” She gives me a wink.

“Nice to meet you! I’m Amicia, but you already knew that.”

“Sam likes to talk about what’s happening in her life, so when she met a cute girl we were the first to hear of it.”

Her comment makes me blush a little. “I-I noticed.”

Lucy leads me towards the living room where Sam and her dad are setting the table.

“So you are the person who stole my baby girl’s heart?” Her dad smiles at me when I enter the room.

“Dad, please.” Sam disapprovingly shakes her head.

“Alright, alright, I won’t tease her that much.”

My blush still hasn’t gone away and these comments aren’t helping at all. “T-thank you for letting me join you for dinner.”

“Don’t worry, any friend of Sam is free to visit whenever they want, girlfriends included.”

“Oh my god, mom! You too?” 

“I mean, she is your girlfriend right?”

“Well…” Sam looks over to me and I give her an enthusiastic nod which makes her blush quite a bit. “She is.”

“Welcome to the family then, Amicia.” Lucy surprises me with a hug. I can’t help but cry a little about how happy I am right now. Just last week I barely had anything that could be called a family. And now I have two.

“Sorry, my wife is a bit of a hugger.” Sam’s dad apologizes.

“D-don’t worry.” My voice is a bit raspy because of my emotions. “I am too.” I smile, while a couple of tears run of my cheeks.

“Oh, sweet girl, why are you crying?” Lucy says with concern in her voice.

I look over to Sam and the same concern is visible on her face as well.

“I-it’s just that… I think you’re amazing parents… My parents… Let’s just... I don’t see them anymore…”

“Oh my…” Sam’s mom hugs me even closer.

“Some parents should not be allowed to have children, like really.” I hear Sam’s dad getting pretty angry.

“Dad…”

“C’mon Sam, that poor girl is basically traumatized because her parents. If you can even call them that.” 

Somewhere along the line I apparently started sobbing uncontrollably. I thought I pushed away my feelings for long enough so I wouldn’t care anymore. I guess I didn’t. And now it’s just all coming out at once.

“Honey, can you get her some tissues?” Lucy calls out to her husband and I hear Sam running towards her room.

Lucy releases me from her hug and starts wiping away my tears.

“Shhh… It’s all fine now, you are safe here. Aww, would look at that.” Lucy gives a smile to whatever is behind me.

“Amicia.” I feel something soft touch my cheek. “You can hug him if you want.” Sam is standing there with the biggest teddy bear I’ve ever seen in my life. But instead of the bear I go for Sam herself.

“Looks like you are her teddy now sweetie.”

Sam drops her teddy and answers my hug, rubbing my back with her hand, calming me down quite a bit.

She stands there holding me for a couple of minutes before she continues “Are you okay?”

I nod, not yet being able to speak without breaking my voice.

“Want to eat a bit? You must be starving. Mister Teddy can sit next to you if you like. I nod again and wipe my tears away. “T-thanks. I’m sorry for c-crying.” my voice cracks.

Sam tightens her hug. “Hey, don’t be sorry. Sometimes you need to cry to let it all out. Bottling up your emotions isn’t healthy.” She swipes a bit of hair away that had fallen in front of my eyes. Finally she gives me a quick kiss on my cheek before letting me go.

“I’ll sit to the other side of you so you are squished between me and Teddy.”

She takes her teddy bear from the floor and places it at the dinner table. Which is surprisingly big for a family of three.

“We often have guests over so we opted for a bigger table.” Sam’s dad smiles, probably having seen my confusion. “My name is Carlos by the way.”

“N-nice to meet you too, sir.”

He waves his hand. “No need for formalities with me either.”

I nod shyly and sit down next to Mr. Teddy just when Sam places down the last piece of cutlery. She gently rubs my back and sits down next to me as well.

“Let’s dig in.” Sam’s mom smiles and starts opening the packaged food from the box.

It doesn’t take long for our food to find a way to our plates, and luckily it’s still quite hot. These boxes are made for delivering and keeping hot food hot after all.

“I personally like to put the sweet and sour sauce on top of my chicken, and the curry on my rice. It gives it a nice taste combination.”

“I’ll try it as well then.” I mimic Sam’s movements and start pouring the sauces on my food.

This actually tastes pretty darn good.

“Woah. It’s so good!” I call out, still munching on a bit of food.

“I told ya.” She grins.

It’s clear Sam’s parents are also enjoying their food quite a lot.

“Miss Zhou has the best Chinese restaurant in the city, without a doubt!” Carlos states. And honestly, I have to agree with him on that one. The other ones I’ve tried were definitely not bad at all, but this is on a whole different level. We continue to eat our food until all plates are empty, but there’s still plenty of food left in the boxes as well.

“We will just eat those tomorrow for lunch or something. Chinese restaurant always give enough food to eat for two days.” Carlos laughs.

“Girls, you can go and relax a little, we will load the dishwasher.” Lucy starts clearing away the plates.

“Thanks mom.” Sam smiles

“Are you sure mi… Lucy?”

“Yes, definitely! Just go rest a bit sweetie, you look exhausted.”

I didn’t notice it up until now but I am in fact pretty tired. The emotional meltdown totally drained my energy.

“Let’s go to my room for a bit.” Sam calls me over.

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do in there.” Sam’s dad calls out.

“Dad!”

I giggle at Sam’s reaction and follow her to the hallway and into her bedroom, taking Mr. Teddy along with me.

Sam’s room is definitely not what I expected, although it does have some equipment to train her body, her room is hot pink and has a load of plushies all over her room and in her 2-person bed.

“Wooow. Pink. Plushies!”

“I know I’m not exactly feminine, but I like cute stuff okay.” She pouts.

“That’s perfectly okay! I like your room a lot!” I walk over to a pile of plushies, crouch and start feeling their fur. “Sooo soft.”

When it’s clear I’m not making fun of her, Sam comes to my side an crouches down with me.

“These are the softest ones.” She picks up a couple of seal plushies and hands one over to me.

“Waaaah. It’s like I’m touching a cloud.”

“I know right.” Sam smiles and quickly looks away before turning her gaze back to me.

She touches the other plushie’s nose against my lips and looks into my eyes with a blush on her face. She lowers the seal and leans in quietly as excitement fills my chest. I squeeze the seal in my hands a little in anticipation, close my eyes and softly come forward until our lips meet. Sam leans a bit more into the kiss and softly pushes my back in the pile of plushies, my heart is going absolutely crazy. Her lips feel so warm, and almost just as soft as the plushie I just touched. Melting me into this little puddle of catgirl. Even though the kiss isn’t intense, it is still completely drawing my breath away. It almost seems like an eternity before Sam pulls back.

“S-sorry for that, I couldn’t hold myself back.” She whispers.

“Don’t be sorry. I liked it. A lot.” I whisper back at her and giggle.

She smiles “That’s good. Want to cuddle a bit in my bed?”

I nod. “That sounds great.”

We get up and quickly hop onto Sam’s bed, from one pile of plushies to the other. She puts her arm around me as I rest my head next to her neck. She’s gently brushing through my hair as I slowly drift more and more to sleep.

Soooo comforrrtable.

When I open my eyes a few hours later, Sam is still awake.

“Hey there kitten, you were definitely purring.” She smiles.

Oh F~