JusJoJan: Day 8 – mongrel

“Don’t tell me you’re adding another mongrel to your herd,” Jeremiah said as he settled back into the chair at his sister’s table. He didn’t think a group of dogs would be called a herd, but his sister had added a cat, a bunny, and even a duck to the grouping. Corrin would probably have a word for whatever that would be called. Other than his sister having too soft a heart when it came to animals in need. “You already had to move out of the apartment because of all these ones.” And he thought she may have added more since then.

“That’s not what I said, Jer,” she said, and he was pretty sure that was a smile making her lips twitch. “Adrian said we’re going to have to have a long talk before I bring any other animals home.”

“Oh, boy,” Jeremiah said, “how loud is that talk going to be. You think we’ll hear you from my place?”

She laughed but reached out to slap his arm. “We’re not that bad. And I didn’t say anything about more animals. I asked how you’d feel about being an uncle.”

He gestured with an arm to where one of the dogs and a cat curled together in a corner of the kitchen. “I thought I was already their uncle.”

She laughed again, but he thought he caught tears in her eyes. What the hell was that? His sister rarely cried. “Stop being a jerk.” She slapped something down on the table in front of him. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

He looked down and it only took a moment for it to register just what he was looking at. “Seriously?” When she nodded and drew in a long  breath, he shifted his chair around the round table so he was next to her. “You okay?”

“Yeah. It wasn’t completely unexpected this time. I’m more settled into my job now.” She frowned at that. “Though as soon as I tell Uncle James, he’ll probably put me on desk duty doing nothing but paperwork.”

He stood and so did she then he moved to give her a hug. He was taller than his big sister now, but not by too much, so he barely had to lean over to embrace her. “I think I like the sound of Uncle Jeremiah.”

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This is my post for Day 8 of Just Jot It January with the prompt of “mongrel”. Still getting to know my characters from Playing with Fire. And this references something from an earlier  story in my Flames series(Playing with Fire is the first in the second spin-off series from the original one).