Page 40 of Karma Kitty Christmas
And the day before, he’d ordered a bedspread to match them. Bright, with a glorious blue and some purple and green and peach and magenta and yellow. Todd would have hated the room now, he knew, but as he started to shop for artwork on the walls—which at the moment sported a modern art piece in black, white, and red—he realized Todd’s dislike for something was not a factor in his choices—any more than Todd’slikefor something would have been, actually.
Isaac wasn’t trying to please Todd anymore—nor was he hoping to please Luca (although Luca seemed delighted by color much like Isaac was). Isaac was wanting to pleaseIsaac, and oh! This man in his arms was such a pleasure!
“If it sounds perfect,” Luca murmured, “what’s this for?”
Gently, he wiped away the tears that had gathered under Isaac’s lashes as he’d gotten lost in the moment, in Luca’s body, in the sun and the cool and….
“Joy,” he said, finally daring to put a name to it. “This has been areallygood summer vacation.”
Luca nodded, and he seemed to get it. Gently, he kissed Isaac’s temple. “Wait—there’s more coming. Don’t make a dirty pun out of it. You’ll only hate yourself. Now go sit inside in the A/C with Allegra. Me and Jimmy Bob are going to cool off, and then I’ll meet you at home.”
“WHY ISN’TJimmy Bob married?” Isaac asked later that evening as he put together a sandwich bar for dinner. Todd would have insisted on fish or something—but Luca and Allegra seemed to feel that working in the kitchen was completely unnecessary after 2:00 p.m. in the summer. He’d gotten good at frying up chicken in the morning, or putting together sandwich bars or baked potato bars or—when he was feeling fancy—pasta bars, for which the sauces or toppings had all been prepped in the cool of the morning and Isaac had as little to do in the evening as possible.
Isaac still spent much of Sunday in the kitchen so he could pre-make all his ingredients, as well as feed Roxy and her husband a couple of days a week. He understood that right now, her entire life was about mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, and he would show up on her doorstep on Monday morning with little meal bags, and she would honest to Godweepon him.
And then she’d let the kids run outside and splash in the kiddie pool in the not-quite-apocalyptic morning sunshine, and the two of them would dish.
But that, he realized, was his choice. Even cooking for Allegra and Luca was his choice—and they let him know all the time.
There were no assumptions about who wassupposedto cook. Isaac cooked because he liked it, and the people in his life appreciated it—and him.
Luca glanced up from slicing tomatoes and grinned. “Too many furry things,” he said, popping half a tomato slice in his mouth. “Apparently not every woman wants five cats. Don’t tell the Republicans—it’ll make ’em hate us more.”
Isaac set out sliced sourdough and wheat rolls and snickered.
“I’m a gay teacher—if only I was pregnant, they’d just shoot me in the street and take credit for trash pickup,” he said acidly before sobering. “But that’s too bad. My department head—”
“The one who let you keep Euclid?” Luca prompted, and it occurred to Isaac that his own acid humor was balanced by Luca’s absolute sunny belief in the best of people.Isaacwould have called her “Queen of the Toolbox” himself, but not Luca.
“Yeah, her. Anyway, she was almost in tears because she couldn’t bring another cat home. Apparently she’ll be evicted. I’m absolutely in awe of people who can keep adopting strays and feeding them and cleaning up after them. I mean, look at him.” He gestured toward Euclid, who was stretched out on his backon the tablebecause it had the best sunspot. “He’s absolutely incorrigible.”
“And yet,” Luca pointed out, “I don’t see you trying to move him.”
“Well,” Isaac sniffed, “we were eating in the living room anyway.”
And that was another thing. Sometimes they ate at the island in the kitchen—usually during lunch. Sometimes they ate at the kitchen table, particularly when Isaac had cooked something more involved. And sometimes they ate on TV trays Luca had brought in one day after spotting them at a garage sale. They were sturdy, smoothly shaped, nicely sanded wood, and Isaac, who at first had worried a little about the carpet, or the informality or his furniture, had come around on one of thosereallyhot days when the west side of the house—the kitchen and living room side of the house—had become an absolute inferno in spite of wooden blinds and a foil window cover. Luca had promised that when the swimming pool was done and his crew could breathe again, he’d put up an extra layer of insulation over that side of the house and then stucco it again.
Isaac had never even thought of such a thing, but hehadcome to appreciate eating in the cooler part of the house on the TV trays. They didn’t even watch TV all the time—they just turned off all the lights and let the ceiling fan and the air conditioning keep them as cool as possible.
There was something to be said for informal dining.Tomorrowhe and Luca and Allegra would clean off the table and set it nicely and welcome Sophia and Geordie into their home—
Isaac’s brain scritched like a record needle skipping a groove.
His home. Right?
But it’s so big!
But seriously. Allegra was temporary—
But he didn’t want her to leave!
And Luca was tentative—
But he had so many hopes for the two of them!
And Todd had bought this stupid house that Isaac had hated because it was big and ostentatious and lonely—
But it didn’t feel that way now.
