Page 37 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Isaac froze, and Luca could have kicked himself. And then, to his shock, he heard Isaac say in a small voice, “Eventually, yes.”
“Yes?” Nobody was more surprised than Luca himself.
Isaac turned in his arms. “Look at you, Luca. You’re beautiful, you’re kind, you’re funny, and you’re a hard worker with his own business. Which is important because it means you’ve got goals of your own and things that you love. You’re… you’reawesome. Did you think I’d draw a line? I’ve alreadydecided I want to live—do you think I’d go find somebody else when I found a guy who will hold me while I cry through a sad movie?”
Luca stared at him in bemusement… and excitement. “I was sort of hoping not,” he replied. “I just… I have to let you steer this ship, Isaac. I-I don’t have any damage here. You’re the one who knows how far, how fast you can go.”
“That’s an amazing metaphor,” Isaac said with a playful scowl. “Too bad I’m a math major.”
That made Luca laugh. “Yeah. I can tell you let that limit you.”
Isaac’s smile was boyish, delighted. “You’re doing fine,” he said softly. “I… I need to make sure, in my heart, I’m being fair to you. That you’re getting one hundred percent of me in a relationship, and not seventy-five percent Isaac and twenty-five percent Todd’s Husband.”
“You’ll get there,” Luca murmured, and unlike that afternoon, when he’d been talking to Jimmy Bob, he could see sunshine at the end of this tan and ecru dawn. Which reminded him…. “By the way, my buddy Jimmy Bob extended an invitation today. He wants you and Allegra to use his pool at least once a week this summer—and to pet his cats and play with his dogs. He’s got five of each, so hopefully he’ll be a cautionary tale on why Euclid should remain an only child.”
“Oh wow,” Isaac said, but he sounded excited. “That’s amazing! And yes, I’d be happy to go to the pool with Allegra.” He sobered a little. “And to pet all the creatures. That’s really generous of him. What prompted that?”
Luca grinned and dropped a kiss on the corner of his mouth, which was the nearest place he could reach from this position. “You made us sandwiches, Isaac. I mean, don’t leave a working man sandwiches unless you want a marriage proposal. In thiscase Jimmy Bob is straight and I’m a little possessive, so you got an offer of a pool instead.”
Isaac laughed in his arms and then—not surprisingly because a couch was only so big—had to stand up as he slid off the couch. He stretched, and Luca stood and rubbed his hands up and down Isaac’s stomach as Isaac stretched too, hands over his head. Then, unable to resist, Luca lowered his mouth to Isaac’s and tasted.
Isaac answered, moving his arms to wrap around Luca’s neck as they explored, took in each other’s breath, responses, moans.
After a few moments, Luca pulled back and grinned. “I could getsoused to kissing you.”
Isaac kissed him again, and for the moment they just stood, kissing, allowing their attraction to grow until it got urgent enough for Luca to pull away.
“You promise?” he asked, panting a little. “You promise this ship is heading to Fantasy Island?”
Isaac moaned a little. “I can’t imagine anywhere else we’d dock,” he muttered. Luca rested their foreheads together and then tore himself away.
“In that case,” he said with regret, “I’m going to take myself home so I can be back in the morning with doughnuts. You get some sleep, okay?”
Isaac nodded. “I’m the dumbest person in the world for not dragging you upstairsright now.”
“I’m even dumber for not doing the same thing.” Luca leaned forward, took his mouth again, and then started toward the door so he could put on the boots he’d been leaving on the porch. Isaac had gotten him a boot block and scrubbing brush and everything. “Soon, okay? You tell me when, Isaac, but boy, I gotta tell you, I’m wanting this with everything in my body.”
Isaac sighed. “Same,” he said. “Drive safe.”
Luca glanced up and grinned. “Like anangel,” he promised. “You can’t get rid of me that easy!”
And then he was gone, knowing he’d dream about more kisses for the rest of the night.
Epiphanies in July
ISAAC HADnever felt more like twenty than he did at Jimmy Bob’s pool.
He and Allegra went together during the weekdays, when the office was slow and Luca didn’t have enough for Allegra to do, or when she was too sick or too tired to move in the morning.
Isaac had been the one to call Luca that first week, when Luca had dropped her off four days running so she could collapse on the couch and sleep. Isaac would feed her, she’d thank him groggily, eat everything he put in front of her—usually on a TV tray—and then she’d wander off to bed. Saturday morning, he’d called Luca and told him that the two of them should go out, get some lunch, and bring some home to Allegra, because if anybody needed to sleep in, she did. And after that he considered himself the family mole. If she was too tired at night, he’d call Luca and tell him that he was going to have to answer his own phones for a day.
When Luca wasn’t able to make it to work on his grandparents’ house, Isaac started going in for her.
And when it was too slow—or when Jimmy Bob’s niece could be pulled from her summer vacation between college classes—Isaac would take her to the pool, with the animals, the shredded furniture, the never-ending supply of canned sparkling water and apples, and, oh my Godyes, the pool.
Isaac started to make food for Jimmy Bob too, which either he or Allegra would leave in the man’s fridge if they visited, using the key he had given Luca.
Something about lying out in that pool, in that comfortable, battered bachelor pad, with a couple of giant mixed-breeddogs who loved to swim, and two tiny Chihuahua rescues who preferred to hang out on the floaties with Isaac and Allegra, made Isaac remember his own idyllic days back in college. Somebody’s parents or apartment complex or rich unclealwayshad a pool. Or there were trips to the lake or the river—frolicking in water had been something they’d taken for granted back then, and something adults seemed to lose.
