His domain, his rules…
Most customers at the café assume the human behind the counter owns the place. Humans center themselves all the time, so of course they make that assumption. And technically, the café does belong to Nina. But really, Boo holds dominion over the space.
A Maine Coon in appearance, a familiar by trade. Boo contents himself to share the cozy coffee shop with the regulars. Come in with no intent to harm, Boo allows those people to stay. Might even welcome them. Many of the people passing through the café come in all sorts of interesting flavors. And Boo likes good flavors.
But come into his café with intent to harm… Well.
BOO AT THE CAFE is available to read for free until the 1st of February, when another story will be posted. For readers who would prefer to read on a device of preference, or who would like their own personal eBook of this story, you can find it here.
***
Boo at the Café
A Café Story
Boo sprawled across his too small stool and observed his domain. He was sure his witch would chuckle at him thinking of this place as his domain. But it was. And while he might be a familiar, and therefore a tad more than an ordinary Maine Coon, he still had ordinary cat instincts.
And this was his domain. His place.
His favorite musician wasn’t in that day, more’s the pity, because Boo missed the steady and soothing rhythm of Jamar’s playing. But Nina had agreed to play quiet jazz over the new speaker system she’d had installed a month ago, and the jazz made Boo’s head bop around. The music seemed to go over well with the other patrons, too. Business was good.
Boo had attempted to ease some of his witch’s worries about opening this place when she’d first opened the doors. He’d known it would do well. But frankly, even he hadn’t known it would be this popular. A place so many regulars would find their way to and enjoy.
By the big front window, which looked out onto the street, Nina’s romantic interest sat sipping his coffee and scrolling through his phone, but his gaze kept jumping up to check on Nina. Boo approved of Rhys Witherby. He was a good man. A wizard, so that was a point against him. Most wizards made Boo’s fur prickle, like static electricity, and he didn’t like that feeling at all. But Rhys didn’t do that to him, so that helped with the wizard issue.
Rhys also hunted vampires—the ones causing trouble, not the ones just trying to get on with their undead lives without killing people—and that was a point in his favor.
His brother was a drawback, however. Dangerous wizard turned vampire who stank of blood and burnt ozone. Boo wouldn’t trust Virgil if his last life depended on it.
Normally, he’d have encouraged Nina not to see Rhys because of who his brother was, but Nina and Rhys were a good match. Their scents blended nicely, which was amazing since Rhys was a wizard. The combination should have made Boo’s nose twitch. It did not.
If they could get past their own hesitance, they might even make a nice couple. But there was still a lot of them dancing around each other.
Ah well. Boo couldn’t solve everyone’s problems.
At the back of the café, Frank sat at his computer, at that moment staring into space, but Boo could smell the stories filling him. It was remarkable what a muse could do. She only had to visit once to set Frank back on track. Boo wouldn’t have minded if she’d stopped by again. It was fun watching her work.
Agnes Waters wasn’t in yet today, though Boo expected her to arrive soon. Agnes spent a few days every week here now, and that routine was soothing. He liked Agnes a lot. He still wasn’t sure what Agnes was, outside of ancient beyond imagining, but he liked her. She had a quirky sense of humor and took no nonsense. She also hadn’t gone right in and tried to pet him like a cat without his permission. Some people were less respectful and had the scars to prove it.
Boo couldn’t actually scar any of Nina’s customers, or they’d have to have a talk. But he had hissed at more than one presumptuous human. When he allowed scritches, scritches were welcome. Until he allowed it, however, humans needed to keep their fingers to themselves or risk Boo drawing blood.
At a table near the wall that opened into the adjoining bookstore, Diana the Huntress sat sipping her cappuccino and flipping through a fashion magazine today. She’d adopted the look of a sleek and sophisticated woman for her appearances in the café. But Boo had recognized her immediately. She was the Huntress after all. And he was a hunter. Like minds and all that.
Well. He might not have been much of a hunter over the past year. He didn’t have to hunt and keep rodents out of the café as much as he’d have expected. Nina set a little spell around the place to keep the rodents away since it was bad for business in a place that served food. Which was fair enough. But he sort of missed having something to hunt. She wouldn’t let him go after the occasional bird that landed on the sidewalk. Bit mean that, but she was his witch, so he allowed it.
Nina had taken longer to realize Diana was the goddess of the hunt than he had. As a witch, Nina didn’t have his sense of smell. So far, having a goddess as a regular at the café hadn’t caused any issues. And when the occasional god or goddess walked in while Diana was here, they tended to ignore each other. Or in the case of Norse goddess Skadi, who was going by the name January now, got along like a house on fire.
Boo chuckled. House on fire. That was funny, given the reason Diana and January had met here.
People—mostly humans but one or two shifters in the mix—moved between the bookstore and the café. The quiet hum of conversation added a nice note to the jazz on the speakers. Outside, traffic inched by, thick and heavy today. The sun was shining. The air outside on the way to hot. Boo disliked when it got too hot. His fur coat was built for cold temperatures. Not that he objected to being warm. Laying in front of the heaters or the fireplace in he and Nina’s home was delightful. He had to be careful not to singe his fur when he got too close to the flames in the fireplace. But that was different. Not the same as the humid heat that tended to blanket this city in the summer. Only drawback to the place.
Otherwise, he liked their new home very much. And the café was airconditioned.
The bell over the front door leading out to the sidewalk dinged. An older man and a young boy walked in. Boo braced himself for the little boy’s head pat. He might hiss at grown adult humans patting him without permission, but Boo learned long ago that little kids did not have the sense of a gnat when it came to cats and would continue to pat him despite his warning hisses. He didn’t want to hurt the small humans—everyone yelled when that happened—so he’d learned that the less he reacted, the quicker the situation passed.
This time, however, the small human asked permission before attempting to scratch Boo. And, unlike adults who asked Nina instead of him because they assumed he was an ordinary cat, the little human asked him directly.
“May I pet you, Mr. Cat?”
Boo presented his head for the scratches and the little boy’s gentle strokes made him purr. How nice someone showed the proper respect. Boo blinked a few times and opened his eyes to stare at the small human, realization slow because he was out of practice.
Huh. The boy would grow up to be a witch, if he didn’t get distracted by other things. A witch capable of having a familiar too, if Boo read the energy signature of his magic right—which Boo always did.
How delightful. He hadn’t met a budding witch child in years. He purred louder and the boy smiled.
“I think he likes you,” Nina said to the boy as she handed the boy’s grown up a steaming mug of coffee and a small to-go cup of milk.
“I hope I get one like him,” the little boy said.
It was on the tip of Boo’s tongue to tell the boy he was likely to earn a familiar in his future. He had the right sort of witchy feel about him, the sort of thing that familiars liked in their witches. But he couldn’t say that out loud in front of all the humans, so he just purred louder and made a little mewing sound that he hoped was sufficiently cat-like to fool the boy’s adult.
It must have been, because the boy smiled at him and said, “Thank you. I’m glad to hear it. Have a good day, Mr. Cat!”
The boy’s grownup said, “He loves animals,” to Nina, but was giving the little boy a funny look.
That would probably happen a lot over the coming years. Hopefully the boy’s adults were the good kind of adults for a witchy child and not the type who made their witch offspring conceal their talents. Boo hated to see that. He understood. The human world could be quite intolerant. But it was irritating when a witch wasn’t given familial support. All the more reason for that witch to get a familiar.
He sniffed and licked his paw, cleaning it thoroughly as he watched his—and Nina’s—café.
A few minutes later, Agnes Waters walked in from the bookstore. She was carrying a new book under her arm—part of the routine—and sat down at her usual table without bothering to come to the counter. She had Nina well trained to bring her a tea the moment she arrived, which Nina did. An Earl Grey today because they’d gotten in a really good quality Earl Grey this week, a new one Nina was trying, and Agnes was very particular about her tea so she was a good test case for the new brand.
Her nod of approval made Nina punch the air in triumph, which made Agnes chuckle.
Boo laid his head on his front paws and studied Agnes as she opened her book and started reading, occasionally sipping her tea, which she never left to get cold. She was smiling faintly. Absorbed in her new book.
After the boy witch earlier, Boo wondered…
Hopping off the stool… Well, more sliding to the floor because he wasn’t a kitten, and who wanted to hop these days. Sliding off the stool, he ambled across the café, weaving through people as they moved around. Most gave him room, but some were so deep in thought, he had to divert from his path to ensure he didn’t get stepped on. Which was irritating. But also, he didn’t want Agnes to get suspicious.
He was almost to her, when she moved the empty chair at her small round table closer and gave the seat a pat. He jumped up onto the wooden chair and stuck his head out for Agnes’s scratches. She didn’t even look up from her book, just started rubbing his head and scratching around his ears.
After a few moments, he began to purr.
And a few minutes later, he sat back in the seat, away from her pets, and huffed.
Her smiled widened, though she never lifted her gaze from her book. “Nice try,” she said to him. “But this isn’t my first rodeo, Boo.”
Obviously. He should have known he wouldn’t be able to just read her and figure out what she was through a touch. She’d petted him before and all he’d felt then was contentment.
But it was worth a try.
He stretched and after allowing Agnes to give him a final rub around the ears, he slid off the chair and did a circuit around the café, checking on the regulars.
Diana made the universal cat “psst psst psst” noise that drew his notice, so he stopped by her table. She smiled down at him and gave him a nice long pet on his spine, scratching near his tail. His fur stood up a little with static because that’s what happened with gods. Then she gave him a sound pat and went back to her magazine. The static electricity crackled around him until he gave his body a full shake to release it. God magic was strange.
When he reached Frank at the back of the café, Frank seemed to be between thoughts, his attention on the middle distance without actually seeing what he was staring at. Fortunately, there was no customer in that middle distance to worry that Frank was staring at them. He sat at his usual table with one of the harder wooden chairs instead of a deep, cushioned seat. But it was positioned near a table that had a cushioned seat.
Boo jumped up onto the hard armrest of the cushioned chair and bumped his head against Frank’s arm. Frank blinked a few times, then moved his chair and arms a bit so Boo could jump onto his lap. While Frank stroked his head and spine absently as he continued to think, Boo used the excuse of his new position to read a little of Frank’s new novel. Frank wrote crime fiction, and the human motivations for murder never ceased to impress Boo. Humans had a wide capacity for murder. In fiction, but also in real life.
The paragraphs Boo could see on the computer screen were good. Frank was a good writer. He didn’t like for people to see his work before he was finished, though. But since Boo wasn’t a people, he assumed he was an exception to Frank’s rule. Also, Frank likely didn’t realize Boo could read since Boo was a cat and Frank was just an ordinary human.
Boo let out a soft purr of encouragement for Frank, then jumped off his lap and continued his circuit.
Not far from Frank’s table, another customer drew Boo’s attention. He wandered over, sniffing the air. Not a shifter but there was the smell of a dragon about her. But she wasn’t the dragon. That was her romantic partner. Boo hadn’t come across the dragon in the café on his circuit, so the woman was here alone.
He slid under her table then sat on the other side of her chair—one of the wooden ones that wasn’t for settling in for a long, relaxing stay (unless you were Frank or Agnes)—and stared up at her. The woman glanced down at him, stared into his eyes for a moment, then smiled.
“Cat recognizing a cat burglar?” she murmured and reached down to let him sniff her hand.
Sure enough, there was that sparkle of electricity on her skin that was magic. And it was a unique magic. A cat burglar with specific magic for unlocking things. How fun. Boo generally just went where he wanted to go, too. But his particular skills were a bit different.
He bumped her hand with his head, got an appropriate head pet and a satisfying scratch under the chin, on his neck. Just enough he could be certain she wasn’t here to steal anything. So long as the café wasn’t her target, or the bookstore, Boo didn’t concern himself much with her thieving activities.
Once satisfied, he continued his circuit. When he was almost back to the counter, the bell over the door jangled and one of his favorite humans walked in. The musician Jamar. Jamar smelled like woodsmoke and music. And also like his jobs, one at a recording studio and one at the music store around the corner. But mostly Jamar smelled of woodsmoke and music.
More than the satisfying scent, Jamar’s guitar music made Boo want to sing. He couldn’t resist sitting with Jamar whenever he was in the café. He did however, give the young man time to get a coffee and settle into his seat in a corner near the front of the café, at one of the two tables that fitted between the register counter and the front window.
Boo considered returning to his stool while he let Jamar settle in before joining him at his table, but the bell over the door rang again.
Boo glanced over to see someone—something—walking into his café. Boo’s hackles rose, and a low growl rose from his stomach, vibrating in his chest, almost soundless as he stared at the newcomer.
Not a customer. Or at least, that wasn’t the primary purpose.
The alien’s primary purpose was chaos.
Not in Boo’s café.
Boo ambled up to the alien as it stood in the doorway surveying the café, a smirk on its face. It had disguised itself as a human man, but the stench of space lizard was strong. How it thought it could fool half the planet with that disguise, Boo didn’t know. Maybe it only studied humans and realized their sense of smell was less than optimal. Humans had many fine traits, but their sense of smell was not one of their greatest talents.
But humans weren’t the only occupants of this planet. Some of the non-humans even looked like humans.
The space lizard had made a classic blunder.
Especially coming into Boo’s café to scout for potential conquest. Boo recognized the type. Early insert, placed in the midst of a fresh planet’s population to gather information about the planetary defenses before the upcoming invasion and conquest. All the aliens landing here to try and conquer the Earth had that same look. No matter the species. Something in the eyes, or whatever they were using to look like eyes, glittered with undisguised triumph. As if they’d already conquered the planet. The ones who were just here to visit, tourists if you will, never bothered anyone and didn’t have that look. Boo barely bothered to acknowledge those visitors.
This one was different. It was not here as a tourist.
When he reached the lizard disguised as an ordinary human, Boo began to weave around its legs. The alien startled and looked down at him, but too late to realize he was already caught. Boo wove through his legs in a figure-eight formation—that’s what Nina called it, but he thought of it as a mobius strip of catergy. His witch did not find that particular joke as amusing as he did.
Boo wove the pattern tighter, faster, as the alien growled down at him and tried to kick him away. Even on a bad day, Boo was hard to nudge. He was no small kitten to be sent skittering, and he barely acknowledge the attempted shove. He tightened his pattern, until the alien had to brace a hand on the glass door to prevent itself from falling over.
Boo stopped once he’d completed the pattern the requisite number of times, then moved to sit a few feet away, licking his paw. He hoped he could get that space lizard scent off his fur. Burnt ozone and dry paper, with that undercurrent of reptile that Boo couldn’t entirely describe to Nina in words she understood. There was a…bumpiness to it. A rough texture to the scent.
He actually liked the smell of Earth lizards. And dragons, who had a mix of lizard and sulfur underneath their primary scents.
The alien lizard’s smell made his nose twitch. He licked the fur over his leg, working on removing the stench, as the space lizard tried to take a step forward.
And fell on its face.
Boo turned his head to lick his side. Yuck. That smell was clinging to his fur.
The alien growled at him and tried to stand. Only to fall down again.
Boo was peripherally aware of Nina looking in their direction, but the rest of the café glanced at the fallen man and then turned back to their coffees. From their point of view, the man had just tripped. And the one person who would absolutely have come out to offer help to the man—Nina—remained behind the counter because his witch was very smart.
The alien lizard growled at Boo and started to crawl toward him. There was a weapon in the lizard’s hand, something that had grown out of a dangling chain wrapped around its human-looking wrist. Boo waited for the alien to get close, then swatted the gun, adding a little something extra in the move. Tiny bit of magic he’d learned over the years.
The weapon, whatever it had been, dissolved into goo under the alien.
Boo gave the alien a swat across the face, leaving a few delicate lines behind. The lines opened up. A clear liquid seeped out.
Boo returned to licking his fur, the hair along his sides starting to smell better now, but the lizard alien was smelling worse. The alien reached for the slices on its cheek, touched the clear liquid and frowned at it where the liquid glistened on its fingertips.
The alien snarled at Boo.
Boo began to purr. A loud, rumbling, vibrating purr.
The alien gasped and covered its ears. A keening sound rose from its human-looking mouth. Its body trembled.
And then it dissolved into bubbles.
Boo flicked one of the shimmering, iridescent spheres with a single claw, watching it pop, releasing a scent that was a cross between burnt ozone and lavender. A human sitting nearby coughed and sneezed, as if the smell had triggered the reaction, but after giving his head a shake, the human went back to reading the book he had open on his lap.
Boo batted at a few more bubbles and would have played longer, but Nina joined him then and whispered, “What was that?”
He released a quiet hissing cough of a sound that he hoped she’d interpret as, “Later. But it’s all good now.” It was hard for them to talk with all the humans around. Nina wanted the place to appear normal, so he rarely even whispered to her if it wasn’t an emergency. Since this hadn’t been, he settled with a more cat-like vocalization. He could explain the alien lizard after closing time.
She frowned at him, popped one of the bubbles that floated past her head, then returned behind the counter and washed her hands before assisting the next customer who’d walked in from the bookstore.
Later, Boo would tell her about the alien, and the handprint the alien had left on the front door. They could use the residue from the creature’s print to create a species-specific spell to keep alien space lizards looking to conquer the Earth out of the café going forward. But for now, it was enough for Nina to know the café was safe.
After finishing with his cleaning, he headed toward Jamar, who had moved from warm up scales to softly strumming a few chords. When Nina spotted him moving toward the musician, she turned off the quiet background jazz. Boo jumped up onto the arm of Jamar’s wide, padded, couch-like chair. Jamar sat on the edge of the cushioned seat so there was room for his guitar and for Boo.
As Jamar started playing one of his original songs, one of Boo’s favorite. Boo swayed to the beat, purring along to the tune. One day, he thought Jamar might find the words to go with the music, but until then, Boo just created his own cat lyrics. And now that the café was safe and secure, Boo settled in for a long jam session with Jamar.
Content that all was right in his world.
***
Thanks for reading BOO AT THE CAFE! I hope you enjoyed it. A part of me pictures Boo as the background narrator of all the Cafe stories so this was a good chance to show the place from his point of view. *grin*
If you’d like your own personal eBook copy of this story, you can find it for sale here. You can also peruse the previous Café stories that are individually available for sale here.
If you've missed any of the previous stories and would like to catch up, the STORIES FROM THE CAFE collections are the easiest way to read six months' worth of stories at once.
VOLUME ONE is out now! And VOLUME TWO releases on January 21st! If you're reading this before that date, you can either preorder the book, or check back on the 21st to get your copy!
Volume One contains all the stories from the first half of 2025, and Volume Two contains all the stories from the second half of 2025. Both collections come in multiple formats so you can read however you prefer!
Thanks again for reading BOO AT THE CAFE! Don’t forget to check back on February 1st for the next Free story from The Café!
BOO AT THE CAFE Copyright © 2026 Kat Simons
All Rights Reserved. No part of this story may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
This story is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously, and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.