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I awoke with a start, a powerful sense that something was awry hanging over me like a pall. I opened one eye then the other, and yawned cavernously. I stretched my limbs and glanced up at the bed. As a rule, I like to sleep at the foot of Odelia’s bed, but ever since she bought herself one of those box spring contraptions I’m having a hard time navigating my approach shot. The thing is, you hit a box spring, and the box spring hits you right back. More than once I’ve landed on my tush on the floor, wondering what the hell happened.

How humans manage to land on the bed and stay there is a mystery to me.

I blinked against the invading light that peeped through the curtains and wondered once more what had awakened me. As far as I knew Odelia was still sound asleep, as she should be. I’m her official wake-up call, after all, and since I’d just woken up myself, it stood to reason my human was still in bed.

So why this sense that something was wrong? And then it hit me. The music. Odelia likes to wake up to the tunes of light pop music. Rihanna or Dua Lipa or Ariana Grande. At the moment some cowboy was crooning about being kicked in the gut by the woman he loved and lost. That didn’t sound like Odelia. That sounded more like…

An awful sense of foreboding jarred my teeth like a kick to the butt.

Oh, no.

Not again.

I took the leap and landed on the bed. And what I saw there turned my blood to ice.

Chase.

Chase Kingsley.

The burly cop was lying in Odelia’s bed. His long, curly brown hair draped across Odelia’s pillow. His muscular body covered by Odelia’s comforter. His handsome face buried in Odelia’s Betty Boop pajama top.

I stared at the cop.

Suddenly, he opened one eye and stared back at me!

Man stared at cat.

Cat stared at man.

It was a moment fraught with extreme emotion, not to mention tension.

Then he yawned and stretched and slapped the empty space next to him.

He frowned in confusion.“You have any idea where…” He glanced at me and smiled a wry smile. “Why am I talking to a damn cat? Of course you don’t know where Odelia is. And even if you did, you wouldn’t be able to tell me, would you, little buddy?”

He patted me roughly on the head—more a prod than a pat—and swung his feet to the floor. As usual, he was dressed in nothing but a tank top and a pair of boxers, his brawny arms all biceps and triceps and who-knows-what-else-ceps. Chase Kingsley’s body is all muscular bumps in all kinds of places and the kind of washboard stomach human females go all goo-goo-ga-ga over, drooling at the mouth, their spine and knees turning to jelly.

You see, Chase is my human’s boyfriend, and apparently boyfriends are supposed to sleep in the beds of their girlfriends. No idea why, though according to Harriet, the cat who lives next door with Odelia’s mom and dad, it might have something to do with babies.

No idea what, exactly, but I have a sneaking suspicion I’m going to find out in the near future if this keeps up. Chase has been ‘sleeping over’ four nights in a row now, and judging from Odelia’s furtive glances in my direction, the cop just might become a fixture.

I don’t mind admitting I don’t like it. I liked things the way they were: just me, Odelia, and my best buddy Dooley, who also lives next door. The three of us, happy as clams.

And now this, this, this… intruder!

Blake Shelton was still wailing away in the background—he’s Chase’s favorite warbler. The former Sexiest Man Alive is the Hunkiest Man Alive’s favorite singer. Of course he is.

Chase threw the curtains wide and sunlight streamed into the room. Then he disappeared into the bathroom and moments later the shower turned on and steam started pouring into the bedroom.

I heaved a ragged sigh and directed a nasty look at Chase’s phone, where Mr. Shelton was now gibbering on and on about a hillbilly bone, whatever that was. From pure frustration my skin broke out in hives and I raised my hind paw to scratch that itch.

Suddenly, and without warning, another itch broke out, this time behind my left ear, and I raised my hind paw a little higher to address that itch, too. It was no use, though, as seemingly all across my voluminous body my skin erupted in an annoying cascade of itches and for the next five minutes, while Mr. Hunk’s voice burst into song in the bathroom next door, I busied myself fighting a regular forest fire of itchiness all over my feline bod.

“Max!” suddenly a voice called out from the door.

I glanced over. It was Dooley, my best friend and wingman. Whereas I am of big-boned stock, with blorange fur, Dooley is a gray ragamuffin and considerably slighter. At the moment he was looking troubled. Now the thing you need to know about Dooley is that he always looks troubled. He is what you would call a worrier. But right now he was looking even more worried and troubled than usual.

“I know,” I said. “I don’t like it either.”

“It’s terrible!” he cried. “How long has this been going on?”