Katrina pulled into her parking space and sighed, resting her forehead against the steering wheel. There was no way around it, life sucked right now. Back-to-back twelve-hour days were enough to drive anybody insane, but she had been working schedules like that for the last six months. When her boss came to her and told her she was his "most trusted cook," she assumed that meant she was getting a raise. Ha. He might as well have called her "one of the family" for how much he meant it.
With a sigh, the red-furred ferret got out of her beat-up old hatchback and walked up to her apartment. At least she had somebody to come home to. Not a partner, but a sympathetic ear at least. Bonnie might be a raging stoner who never got up before noon, but she paid her share of the rent on time and cleaned up after herself. As far as Katrina was concerned, that was about all she could ask for in a roommate.
"I'm home," she called, hanging her purse by the door.
"Welcome back from the front, soldier!" Bonnie replied. Katrina rounded the corner and saw her there on the couch, bong perched between her legs. The living room always smelled like weed, but the ferret didn't mind much. After three years of cohabitating, she barely noticed anymore. "How was it today?"
"Shitty," Katrina grumbled, flopping down on the couch next to the plump dragoness. "Blake and Tay both called out, and halfway through the shift, Ji decided he had more important things to do. I think I got to sit down for about five minutes all damn day. My paws are fucking killing me, it feels like somebody shoved a sword through my back, and if I have to look at a pizza one more time I think I'll kill somebody."
Bonnie tutted, setting the bong on the coffee table and pulling the much smaller Katrina into a hug. The ferret blushed, thankful it was difficult to notice with her fur. Bonnie's deep purple scales felt cool and soothing against her body, relaxing after an endless day of work. There were a great many reasons she was grateful the dragoness wore as little clothing as she did around the house. High on the list was the fact that her hugs felt better than anybody else's in the world.
"We need to get you out of that place," the dragoness admonished. "They're gonna work you into an early grave! Did you check out any of those links I sent you?"
"No," Katrina replied miserably. She kept telling herself she'd look at them tomorrow, but every tomorrow just brought new stresses to run her ragged. "I haven't had time yet, not with this schedule."
"Are they ever going to replace Trevor?" Bonnie grumbled. "You've been working your hours and his for months now." Katrina shrugged and Bonnie sighed.
"What am I ever going to do with you, furface?" Bonnie asked, picking the bong back up. "You can't be working this hard all the damn time, you're gonna have a heart attack. How much coffee did you drink today?"
"Three cups," Katrina lied. Bonnie shot her a look.
"Sure. And how much coffee did you
actually
drink?"
Katrina grumbled, nothing got past the dragoness. "Seven cups," she confessed. "And three cigarettes."
Bonnie rolled her eyes and pulled the ferret up onto her lap. Katrina squeaked but didn't resist, allowing the much larger dragoness to reposition her freely. She might have had a tiny crush on the violet-scaled Bonnie. Okay, maybe a giant crush. But they had a good thing going! She didn't want to go too far too fast and screw everything up. What if Bonnie didn't feel the same way?
"Tri, you need to fucking relax," Bonnie said, running her long talons through the fur on Katrina's back. "I swear I can see the knots in your muscles from here."
"I'm fine," Katrina protested, but Bonnie cut her off.