Page 49 of Karma Kitty Christmas
Having this many people in his life to create for felt like an embarrassment of riches, and as the kids settled down to nuggets and cubed watermelon, Isaac felt himself beaming, for no reason at all, into Luca’s eyes.
“You look happy,” Luca said, drawing near.
“It’s been a really good summer,” Isaac said on a sigh. “It’s going to….” Some of his happiness faded. “Have I warned you yet? About how bad the first six weeks suck?”
Luca frowned and shook his head. “You said it would be busy—”
“It’s exhausting,” Isaac said with a small smile. “I… I know I complain about Todd a lot, but going back to school—it’shardon a relationship. It’s falling asleep before dinner and bitching about the coffee coming too slow in the morning, forgetting your lunch, living on Advil and caffeine, trying to control the kids in the street for playing too loud, the goddamned sunshine is getting on my nerves, and my bathroom is a science-experiment disaster.Everybodycries during the first six weeks, even the straight men.Noneof us are okay during the first six weeks. And Roxy and I play movies during week six while we do our grades, and we both take strategic mental health days so we don’t lose our minds, but… but you’ve got to know how bad it’s going to get. I-I just hope you can hold on through it,” he said with a small smile. “I really,reallylike where we are now.”
Luca returned the small smile, the expression on his face telling Isaac he’d heard,reallyheard, what Isaac was trying to say.
“Do I get a reward if I make it through the next six weeks?” he asked, teasing a little but also oddly serious.
Isaac blinked. “I… I don’t know. What sort of reward do you want?”
Luca shook his head. “I’ll think about it. It’ll be, like, one of those awful days you claim you’re going to have, if I get reallypissed off, I’ll think to myself, ‘Oh my God, my boyfriend owes meso much,’ and then I’ll plan what it’s going to be that you owe me.”
Isaac had to smile, because from anybodybutLuca, it sounded like a threat. But from Luca, it sounded like a promise that he’d still be there after six weeks.
And that made him stop smiling.
“Just promise me,” he said softly, “that… that if I get too frazzled, or too awful, you’ll say, ‘Isaac, honey, take a breath.’ Don’t… don’t yell.” He knew he sounded wounded, but he couldn’t help it. “Don’t get all cold. Don’t stop calling or stop coming by and not tell me why. It’s okay if you say, ‘Listen, buddy, you’re getting a little intense, and I’m going to give you your space,’ but don’t—.”
“Hey….” And in spite of the heat and the fact that they were both covered with the stickiness of sleepy children marinating in fruit juice, Luca pulled him into his arms then and spoke softly into his hair. “Baby. Baby, trust me, okay?”
Isaac heard the whimper and hated himself for it. It was just… just….
“Todd disappeared, didn’t he?” Luca asked.
“He used to schedule his business trips in late August, early September,” Isaac said. “He’d never call. I didn’t even know he was going until I got home and found the Post-it on the refrigerator. I… I get it. But it—”
“What a fucking coward!” Luca burst out, and Isaac whimpered again.
“No yelling,” he begged.
“Not even at Todd,” Luca soothed. “Baby, I promise. Look—you’ve seen me and Allegra in action, okay? We’ll back you, I swear. You do all the cooking and planning ’cause you seem to like doing it, but let us do some, okay? You’ve got a housecleaning service—let us help keep up in between. I get it’sgoing to be rough, Isaac. I may only have seen a taste of it in May, but you’re not alone this time. Have some faith in us, okay?”
Isaac nodded against Luca’s chest. “Okay,” he whispered. “Okay.”
They couldn’t cling like that, not in the swelter of August, but later that night, after Roxy and the kids had gone home (to a grateful Brian, who had been working hard on a project and had happily met his deadline with everybody out of the house), and everybody had taken a cool shower, and the air conditioning had finally made a dent in the ambient eighty-five-degree outside temperature, Isaac stared at Luca in the moonlight as he slept.
“Whatcha thinking?” Luca mumbled, so not quite asleep. “Tell me so I can get some rest.”
“I’m thinking if we make it through to October, I’ll have to knit you something.”
The corners of Luca’s mouth turned up. “A watch cap,” he said. “Something warm that doesn’t itch. Any color that makes you happy.”
“Even magenta?” Isaac teased.
“Especially magenta,” Luca murmured. “Everyone will ask, ‘Hey, did your boyfriend make you that?’ and I’ll say, ‘How jealous areyou?’”
Isaac chuffed out a breath of sleepy laughter. As he felt himself drop off, he heard his own voice say it, the words he’d held on to since July.
“I love you, Luca. Even if you’re gone in October, I’ll still love you. You’re like a gift.”
And he fell asleep, planning a green and magenta and blue hat more beautiful than stars.
September Mornings
