Page 16 of Karma Kitty Christmas
“That’s what we’ll be for now. I’ll teach you yarn, and you teach me….”
“Acceptance,” Luca said, thinking about all the things Isaac needed to overcome for them to be a couple.
Isaac opened his eyes, and Luca got a glimpse of how intense they could be when he focused. “You… you’re a lot smarter than you pretend to be,” he said, cocking his head.
Luca gave him a lazy grin. “Dumb and hung. You’re not the only one who’s spent time being stupid and getting laid.”
Isaac’s laughter—both wickedandunderstanding—burbled up. “Good,” he said, turning back to his sandwich with gusto. “One of the things Roxy and I have learned over the years is we cannotstandthe kid without flaws. Straight A students are great. Straight A kissbutts are theworst.”
“Let me guess,” Luca said, going back to his own sandwich with relief. “You guys are the C and B students’ best friends.”
Isaac’s attractive mouth made an attractive moue. “I have actually grownreallyfond of some kids who never did end up passing my class. Some teachers take that personally, but youlook at kids, and some of them have so much going on in their own lives. Foster homes, abusive parents, good parents who can’t make ends meet, boyfriend or girlfriend trauma, gang pressure, cyberbullying—so much bad shit. And I get them a grand total of four hours a week, with twenty to forty other students—ifthey can show up that often, because sometimes they just fucking can’t. The fact that theydoshow up, do the occasional assignment, and are civil and kind and often funny—that shows more character than most teachers give them credit for. My department head, for one, assumes they’re doing it because they hate her. I mean, not thatIhaven’t bailed on some meetings becauseIhate her, but these kids, they’ve got too much going on to think that much about her at all. If they show up and say, ‘I’m sorry I’m failing—you’re a nice guy but this semester is theworst,’ that’s… that’s some consideration right there. A lot of kids say, ‘Fuckin’ class, fuckin’ teacher, fuck off.’”
“Still not personal?” Luca hazarded.
“Still not personal,” Isaac confirmed before taking another bite. He let out a blissful breath. “You,” he said, wiping his mouth on a napkin, “are really easy to talk to. You have to do me a favor and not tell your nonna how much I swear.”
Luca’s laughter surprised even him. “I promise,” he said, after he’d covered his mouth and made sure he hadn’t done anything embarrassing with his food when he’d opened it.
But inside he was thinking that this—this was it. This was the day he determined that, as much of a mess as Isaac was, he could wait. There was just… just…so much potentialthere.
Isaac was apparently his own basket of yarn. Some of it was a little bit frayed and angry, and like most people, some of it turned brown and sad with age, but with a little work and some care, he had all the potential in the world.
BACK ATIsaac’s house, the first thing they did was put away the yarn, and Luca derived a lot of satisfaction from watching Isaac, hands on hips, admiring his seventh box.
“Isn’t it pretty?” he asked, with no irony whatsoever, and Luca glanced from the big clear plastic box with all of that “potential” inside to Isaac’s shining eyes and agreed that it was beautiful.
Then they sat back down on the couch, and Isaac—patient and funny—taught Luca how to move his big work-roughened hands with gentle poetry so he could make things with a hook and colorful string.
When he left, he had a sturdy canvas bag with his yarn, his hook, and a little pouch with scissors and big-eyed metal needles in it, and strict instructions to keep working on it in the quiet hours so he had questions for Isaac next weekend.
“Yeah?” Luca asked. “Next weekend?”
Isaac’s fair complexion washed a sweet pink as they were standing at the door. “Uhm… if you still want to—”
And Luca made his move, swooped in, and kissed him on the cheek. “Of course I want to,” he said. “You want to plan for lunch next week too?”
Isaac stared at him with big eyes, touched his cheek like a teenager, and nodded wordlessly.
“Awesome.”
And then Luca left, whistling, with plans to bring his work in the evenings too so he and Isaac could sit and yarn and watch the neighborhood as the sun went down.
Unexpected Purrings
ISAAC WASsitting at his desk, grading papers and listening to Green Day—and reflecting woefully that “Holiday” was a great song, and nobody seemed to have learned anything in the twenty or so years since its release.
Roxy had come in and was using his TA’s desk to do the same thing, while both of them hummed along, enjoying the breeze and the sunshine coming in from the open door. Next week the temperature was going to be in the nineties or hundreds, but this week, it was topping out at eighty-five, and before three o’clock, life was downright pleasant.
And that’s what they were doing when a half-grown orange tomcat wandered in, sat down about three feet from Isaac’s left shoe, and meowed imperiously for his attention.
Isaac stared. “Well, hello,” he said.
“Meow.”
“Can I, uhm, help you with something?”
“Meow?”
