I was in total shock for the entire walk back to the apartment. Eric’s other friends were laughing and having a good time, but I was totally confused.

He’s my best friend, and for him to keep something like this from me really bothered me. I was even a little angry about it, considering how cheap he had been in the past!

But, I completely forgot what I was even angry about once he shared his “secret.”

Once he showed me why he was taking all of those pictures, his weird habit started to make a whole lot more sense. He started to pull out books that were plastered with page after page of different cat pictures that he’d taken over the last few months.

He’d point out certain books…

He kept pulling out book after book. With the look on his face, he might as well have pulled out winning lottery tickets. “Some people love cats,” he said with a huge smirk.

Finally, he reached the last book. It had a crisp $100 bill sticking out of it. He pulled it out, ran the bill under his nose and pretended to smell it.

“This one is the real money maker. It pays the rent…and a whole lot more.”

Everything was starting to make sense. Eric was self-publishing his own books in as little as 12 minutes and using the 100’s of cat pictures he had taken to publish books and stories.

I'm honestly not sure I would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes. I must have been lighting up, because Eric could see that it was all starting to make sense to me.

He just winked and said, “I knew you’d get the most use out of this…”