While Alex was an essential worker and had to work at the diner, helping fulfill takeaway and delivery orders during the pandemic, her boyfriend, Tashi, worked from home. Working from home was nice for the coding horse; it meant he didn’t have to drive an hour to work and he could have slightly more flexible hours. He was always a little bit worried about the tigress when she had to venture out for work, but he was happy when she had her days off and could spend them with him since he was home most of the time now. They even had a deal going where Tashi would cook when Alex had to work and Alex would cook when she had her time off. The tigress would sometimes bring takeout back home for both of them if she knew Tashi had meeting marathons, so he could relax once he was off the clock.

Today was one of those days, the tigress had just gotten off her PM to AM shift at work and was being a lazy cat on the couch, while the horse sat at his computer in his office and knocked away at code and many, many, many team meetings. She made sure to bring back some nice food from their local Thai restaurant for them to have lunch together once the Clydesdale was off for his meal break. All the food was laid out nicely on their dining table, too, the tigress was quite excited to have lunch with her horse boyfriend, she wanted to do that before she had to go and sleep to replenish the energy lost during her graveyard shift.

Alex’s eyes sleepily watched the reality show she had on the TV as she waited for the hands of the wall clock to both be pointed to the 12 in the top center. She turned on the TV to try and distract herself from the clock so that time would go by faster. Once the second, minute, and hour hands finally aligned at the top of the clock, Alex’s eyes were peeled away from the TV and she peeked down the hallway to where Tashi’s study was. She was surprised to see that his door was still closed and she frowned. “He must still be in his meetings,” Alex said to herself as she turned back to watch the trashy reality show that she could not get enough of. Maybe he’d be done in a few minutes, then he’ll come out and they could have lunch together. The tigress had her eyes glued to the show, and episode after episode went by, but Tashi still hadn’t clopped out of his study yet. After three episodes, it was half-past one in the afternoon. Alex’s belly was grumbling, and their lunch definitely needed to be reheated if they were to eat it now. She let out a sigh every now and again as she stared at the hallway, waiting for the slightest hint of his door opening. She was like a sad little cat, waiting for someone to come back home to play with her.

Slightly frustrated, the tigress tugged on the hem of her red sweater and grumbled. She glanced down at her feet before she pulled them up from the floor to sit with her legs crossed together on the couch. That red turtleneck sweater was the only thing she had on, as it was a tradition in the tigress and horse’s household to not wear any pants. For Alex, it was because she was used to it, being from the bottomless district, and for Tashi, it was so he’d get used to his girlfriend’s lifestyle and for comfort; it wasn’t always easy to keep such heavy balls under clothing! Oh, and for easy access whenever they wanted to get up to something raunchy, too. But that was more of an unspoken benefit more than anything.

After another episode of quality television, it was 2 PM, and Alex wasn’t going to wait any longer. The striped cat stood up from the couch and ran out of the living room and into the hallway. Her paws pitter-pattered against the floor as she rushed over and stopped in front of the door to the horse’s coding room. She placed one hand on the doorknob, one against the door, and pressed her ear up against it to listen if her horsey was talking in a meeting. She could hear a meeting going on inside, but nothing from Tashi, so she gave the door a gentle knock, twisted the knob slowly, and peeked her head inside.

The horse was in the middle of a conference call, he had to do a lot of those now that remote work was still going on. The other participants of the call would be able to spot the tigress’s ears as they poked through the partially opened door in the background. Tashi’s ears flickered and he turned behind him when he heard the door opening up. He smiled at her and mouthed the word “meeting” to her before she turned his attention back to the screenful of people in front of him. The tigress noticed that the horse’s PC was turned towards the door, so she had to improvise a way to get into the room without any of his colleagues noticing that a pantsless tigress had entered the study. She retracted back behind the door slightly and quietly dropped to her knees and crawled her way inside. She gently kicked the door closed behind her and then crawled on all fours to the horse sat in his chair at his desk. She stopped beside his chair and sat down. To her surprise, the horse was feeling a bit daring and was not wearing any pants while he attended his corporate meeting. She snickered to herself and let her eyes wander for a few seconds before she reached a hand up to tap the equine on his thigh to get his attention.

Tashi raised his brows and looked down at the tigress on the floor who tapped his thigh. Alex brought her arm up, tapped on her wrist, and whispered, “It’s already past lunchtime… I’m hungry…” The horse had himself muted, so he just whispered back to the tiger. “You can eat without me, this meeting is dragging out very long…” the horse looked drained, he did not like meetings, but who did?

The striped feline shook her head and grabbed her boyfriend’s arm gently with her hands. “Nooooo… I want to have lunch with you…”

Tashi frowned at the tigress and glanced back at the meeting going on, his co-workers were still talking about something that didn’t even concern him. He had no idea why he had to be a part of the meeting. “It’ll be a while my little tiger,” he shook his head before he turned his attention to the tigress again. “Probably half-an-hour at least….” He sighed and dropped his arm off from his chair to scratch the tigress right in between those ears on her head. Alex’s ears flickered and she purred and chuffed as her boyfriend gave her some scratching attention on her noggin. “I can wait half-an-hour…. I really want to have lunch with you,” she pressed her head into the hand that continued to scratch her head. Tashi smiled at her, it was a bit of a worried smile since he didn’t want to see his little tiger hungry. But seeing how adamant she was about enjoying a meal with him made him feel all warm inside, and the energy that had been drained from him was quickly replenished. But then, his colleagues called out for him to join in on the discussion.

“Tashi? Are you there?”

The horse almost jumped out of his seat and quickly pressed the hotkey to unmute himself. The hand he had on the tigress’s head moved away to hover over his mouse just in case he had to quickly click something. Alex quickly opened her eyes and watched as his hand moved away with a slight hint of sadness in her eyes.

‘Just half an hour,’ Alex thought to herself and nodded. ‘I can even just sit here.’ And that’s exactly what she did. She sat there on the floor and waited patiently for the 30 minutes to pass. She toyed around with the carpet for a few seconds before she realized that 30 minutes was going to take forever to get through if she didn’t have anything to do. She looked left and right to see if there was anything she could occupy herself with; there wasn’t. She didn’t have her phone on her either. The tiger frowned and let out a soft little huff in disappointment, she then took in a deep breath through her nose once she realized she’d have to wait this one out. Then it hit her.

A faint scent, familiar, but she couldn’t quite make out what it was.

‘Sniff, sniff, sniff.’ The tigress’s nose took in the air from all around her as she turned her head left and right to try and pinpoint where that scent in the air was coming from. Her nose wiggled rapidly and she followed the trail like a cartoon character following the scent of an apple pie on a kitchen windowsill. She turned her head towards the horse who was chatting away with his workmates and the scent got stronger. Suddenly, her loud sniffing stopped and she grinned.