Reese (Pack of Misfits #2) - Raven Kennedy Page 0,11

to my nest. But even my rat realizes that’s not going to happen, so I climb back down the bed and start searching.

I scurry into the clothes hamper first, scouring through jean pockets. Most of his clothes have the sharp scent of oil clinging to them, but it’s an underlying theme to his own masculine scent of natural sweat and something woodsy, so I don’t even mind it. In fact, I find that I like it. But what really gets me going is when I find some coins and bolts in his pockets.

I drag those babies out and leave them in a tidy pile in the center of his room as I search the rest of the place. Beneath his bed, I find a paperclip and an old comb. Those go right into the pile too.

I scour the rest of the floor, but there’s nothing else to find, and I’ve already looked on top of the bed and nightstand, but then my gaze swings up to the dresser. The very tall, very slippery-surfaced dresser.

I groan. My rat titters.

Rat!—

Bitch clicks the “ignore” button on me so fast I get a case of STFU whiplash.

Not cool.

Scuttling over with a damn skip in her step, my rat forces me to climb up the dresser. Feet precariously balanced on the barred handles, I make my painstaking way up.

From drawer to drawer, I have to stretch my body as high as it will go in order to hook my feet onto the bars and hoist myself up, and...wow. I have gained some weight back because I am winded.

I’m also really friggen high up, and when I chance a peek down, the height makes me a little dizzy. I whip my head back up, now super invested in reaching the top.

When I get to the second to last drawer, I look up and see that the top drawer is open slightly. Dammit. As if this weren’t hard enough.

I try to reach the handle, but with the angle of the drawer, I can’t quite get to it. I try to talk my rat into climbing back down, but of course, she ignores me.

I walk the length of the handle, trying to figure this out, and then spot a crack in the wood at the side of the drawer. I can work with that.

Hooking my claw into it, I lift myself up, my back legs scrabbling and scratching against the wood as I four-feet it by hooking my back claws into the same crack, and then clamber up and over the side of the drawer. I fall inside, into a sea of cotton-soft mundies.

To my delight, the man undies are a jumbled mess.

They aren’t folded or rolled or placed in the drawer in any sort of organized way. Which means the entire drawer is basically just like a cozy, squishy, surprisingly nice-smelling bed.

I just want to curl up and take a nap in here. My rat dive-bombs into it like she’s swimming in a pool, tunnels through one, and pops back up with a pair wrapped around our body.

Pleased, my rat starts climbing out. Oh, okay. I guess we’re stealing a pair of boxers. Lovely.

She’s seemingly satisfied with this unexpected acquisition and has no desire to reach the top of the dresser anymore, which means now we have to climb back down. I toss down the pair of boxers to the floor, since I can’t really climb with them wrapped around me, and then I start the trek back down.

The climb is harrowing.

Not only is it difficult to climb down the rungs of the dresser’s handles because I basically have to base jump from one to another, but I’m also really out of shape from being stuck in a stupid crate for so long. I almost fall to my demise at least three times, but fortunately, I make it all the way back down to the floor without dying. Go me.

Trotting over to my pile of veritable treasure, I cock my head at the odds and ends as my rat works out how best to carry everything back to our nest.

There’s no way I can fit everything in my mouth. Even I’m not that good. Eyeing the pair of boxers, I decide to do a little engineering.

I grab it and slide it over and then start transferring all of my goodies on top. Then I fold the fabric over, bundle the edges, and stuff it in my mouth.

It’ll be like my very own knapsack. A ratsack? A knaprat?