Page 42 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Allegra met Luca’s eyes, and he waggled his eyebrows, making her laugh.
“Good,” she said. “It’s about time. Isaac, I love living with you, but if you hurt my brother, I’ll hide your body in the backyard and nobody will suspect me.”
Isaac actually glanced up from his knitting, and to Luca’s surprise, he seemed to take her very seriously. “Your brother’s the greatest,” he said softly. “I wouldn’t want to hurt him in a thousand years.”
“Good,” she said. “No, seriously—good. Because I’ll never finish this blanket without you, and that would be a real shame.”
“God, you’re sarcastic,” Isaac told her. “Where have you been all my life?”
“Asleep in your downstairs bedroom,” she retorted, and then she bent and kissed Luca on the cheek again. “Be good to each other,” she said softly, and that was that.
She disappeared down the hall, and Luca cleared his throat with authority. Isaac glanced up from the crocheted square in his hand and gave a gentle smile.
“Let me finish this off, okay?”
Luca nodded. “Course.” Hewasfeeling impatient, but he also knew what it was like to be in the middle of a project. If you didn’t come to a decent stopping place, that shit could bother you all night.
A few moments later, Isaac set the little square in the bag of them that was starting to overflow and came to sit next to Luca, leaning his head on Luca’s chest.
“Mmm….” Luca wrapped his arm securely around his shoulders. “That’s a lot of little tiny squares you and my sister have there. When do you start sewing them all together?”
Isaac chuckled. “Well, we’ve got twenty more to go, so, God willing and with your grandmother’s help, tomorrow.”
“Nice!” Luca paused, thinking about the pattern. “You’ve been keeping them in different bags, right? So, like, a palette?”
“Yeah,” Isaac said. “I scanned the drawing and enlarged it—especially for your nonna. But I figured I’d finish the squares tomorrow, and your sister and Sophia can start sewing them intostrips. They need to keep the strips numbered so we can sew the strips together when they’re done.”
“Wow.” Luca was impressed. “You think that will work?”
Isaac grunted. “I think we’re going to have to rip out and replace at least ten squares, but I may be a little bit pessimistic, because high school student is my default. Your sister and Nonna are smarter than high school students.”
Luca muffled a chuckle behind his hand in deference to his sister, who was hopefully getting some shuteye. “Well, I’ll give a little prayer to the knitting and crocheting gods that you guys can make this work.” He paused, hit by something Isaac had said. “Hey—do you ever hear from your kids over summer break? That Marcelle kid who designed the winning blanket—think he’d want in on that action?”
Isaac pulled back from him and stared at him in surprise.
“What?” Luca felt his face flush. “What’d I say? Did I break some rule of teacher decorum or—”
Isaac captured his mouth then, fully, passionately, the kiss going until Luca fell back against the cushions of the couch, completely bemused.
“What was that?” he asked in wonder.
“For caring about my students,” Isaac murmured. “For remembering Marcelle’s name. For thinking to ask him. Yes—if you think your nonna wouldn’t mind. I keep my student number phone at work, but Roxy has Marcelle and his friend Sheryl come over to babysit once a week now. She could call him up. I think he’dlovethat. Thank you.”
Luca smiled weakly and searched his face, hating to bring the name up right now, but needing confirmation.
“Todd didn’t ask, did he? About your job. About your kids.”
“No,” Isaac said, but he kept eye contact. He wouldn’t have that one day in early May when Luca had caught him staring at a pile of hated yarn. “He…. I’ve been thinking about him. Ithink… I think his whole world was stunted. Made small, you know? He… like you.” Isaac looked away now, but maybe that’s because Luca had told him about his parents in a quiet moment, a moment of vulnerability. “You said your parents cut you off. And that was awful. And his parents did too—but more than that. They told himGodcouldn’t love him. And, you know, some people don’t like authority anyway.” He gave a modest smile. “I was never a fan. But Toddneededthat. Heneededto know that good things happened if you followed the rules. So his whole life was like… like penance for breaking, you know, thisonerule.”
Luca nodded slightly, still not getting it, but he didn’t want to interrupt.
“So,” Isaac continued, “he… he worked so hard on making his worldexactly right. But you can’t do that with a big world. You have to keep it small. So he couldn’t control my high school, or my students. He couldn’tmakeme stop working there. So he just didn’t ask.”
And Luca got it then. Why the kiss. Why the big deal. “I… I willalwaysmake room in my world for you, Isaac,” he promised fervently. “If you feel squeezed out, you only have to say so.”
Isaac nodded worriedly. “And I’ll try so hard to make room in my world for you,” he said, smoothing his fingers nervously along Luca’s cheeks. “I’m anxious, you know? I feel like I’ve spent all this time fussing about me beingme. I want to be able to care for you too.”
Luca chuckled, remembering Isaac’s effusive, polite thank-yous to Jimmy Bob, and how he’d sat in the shade the week before, drinking lemonade and listening to Luca and Jimmy Bob bitch about the pool they were installing and how they wished they’d given the job to somebody who made that their specialty.
