Mark was decisive in his words, arms crossed over his chest and eyes narrowed into slits. He'd never been so certain of anything in his life as much as he was of this, and nothing, including his fiancée's wide puppy-dog eyes, could make him change his mind.
Cassie knew this, though, she didn't particularly care. Healthy relationships were supposed to be built on compromises, and in her eyes, this was a classic one of those.
"If Ican let you hang up that ugly picture of your dead uncle, then you can let me adopt a sibling for Pumpkin."
(That was a valid compromise, right?)
Cardboard boxes and bubble wrapped belongings littered the floor around them, a disorganized mess of everything Cassie owned taking up the entire living room and most of the hallway outside. Since Cassie was the one who proposed, Mark took the liberty of asking her to move in with him. Granted, he didn't expect it to entail more than one cat moving in, as well.
It wasn't that Mark didn't like cats; on the contrary, actually. He usually loved them, because they were low maintenance and every one he'd encountered seemed to like him more than it's original owner. No, Mark never had a problem being around cats, but Pumpkin had made it very clear that he had a problem being around Mark.
Maybe it was a territory thing, or maybe Pumpkin was simply an asshole, but Mark wasn't sure that he could handle a household where half of the residents found pleasure in scratching his arms and pissing on his bed.
"I said no."
A loud scoff could be heard throughout practically the entire building, and he actually had to pretend like he wasn't a little bit scared.
"You said no?"
"Okay, first of all, it's not just a picture, Cass. He was in the army," Mark emphasized, not even sure why he was bothering to engage in this debate at all, as he was definitely going to lose. "Not only that, but he was a hero. He set off a grenade that killed opposing soldiers, or something. And second of all, hanging a picture on the wall isn't the same thing as getting yet another cat, and you know it."
Cassie looked at him as if he were insane, entirely ignoring the last part of his sentence. "Oh, great, let's display a war criminal above the fireplace, because that's normal."
