Page 50 of Karma Kitty Christmas
THE THINGabout Sacramento, Luca thought, was that September could be as gawdawful hot as August.
Except it stayed dark longer, so he could stay in bed while Isaac ran around and tried to do all the things before he ran out of the house with wet hair, no lid on his travel cup of coffee, and at least one sheaf of papers hereally neededstill on the couch where he’d left it when he’d fallen asleep the night before.
Yeah, the first four weeks (so far) of school were everything Isaac had promised they’d be, but harder.
Poor Isaac.
Allegra had started cooking two days a week—no ask, just cooking. Sometimes it was something great and healthy. Sometimes it was frozen manicotti covered with sauce from a jar and big handfuls of shredded cheese. Isaac was always distractedly grateful, sometimes at ten o’clock at night because he’d been supervising a game or a club or something and then attended a PTA meeting before he came home to eat for the first time all day.
On the days he was going to be gone until late, Luca would hang in the house with Allegra, not only to keep her company, but also to help her pick up the living room and sort the junk mail off the kitchen table and generally do the big cleaning things that Isaac would spend all weekend doing if they didn’t pick up the slack.
Luca could see what he’d been talking about, that hot, sticky day in August—but he could also see what he hadn’t.
That Isaac hadn’t needed to worry about his relationship—he’d needed his relationship to support him!
A little bit of work—picking up the living room, sorting the junk mail, making sure the trash got taken out, or even Allegra’s most half-assed cooking—reaped big rewards.
The first week Luca had taken the trash out, Isaac had literally sunk to his knees in the bedroom and given him the best blow job of gratitude Luca could ever recall receiving. He hadn’t even known such things existed, but apparently a teacher in the first six weeks of school had a lot more energy to expend toward sex if his partner and roommate didn’t make him do all the other work. It was amazing—Luca needed to writethatlittle bit of wisdom on the inside of his eyelids so he never forgot.
And this morning, Luca was going toreallyup his game.
He rolled out of bed while Isaac was in the shower, crept down the stairs, and tried to remember his list.
Okay—first thing, make coffee. He’d seen Isaac make it before for the two of them, special little French press and all—voila. Coffee was working.
Second thing, fix lunch. He’d seen Isaac do this sometimes by shoving a cup of noodles in his lunch bag, throwing a yogurt in afterward, and then running out the door.
Luca had shopped for this one. First he made a nice sandwich in two parts and used a sandwich container to separate the pickles, tomatoes, and lettuce from the slathered bread and lunchmeat. Then a yogurt, a container of sliced apples, two big bottles of soda (one for Roxy), a bag of cookies, and two bags of chips. He’d worry about Isaac actually eating all that, but he knew that often the things like the cookies or the chips or even the yogurt or cottage cheese got given to a student who had forgotten their lunch. Today was Chess Club during lunch and an IEP meeting after school, so that food was going somewhere, Luca was positive.
Then, while Isaac was running down the stairs, muttering to himself, Luca pulled the bagel out of the toaster and spreada smear over one side and avocado on the other, then handed it to Isaac to eat while Luca pulled his travel mug out of the dishwasher and added coffee to it, with an unhealthy dollop of cream and sugar.
Isaac stared at him, his mouth full of bagel, his eyes wide. “Wha’ di’ ’oo do?” he asked before swallowing. “What is all this?”
“You were looking a little ragged there,” Luca said kindly. “I thought I’d, you know, help out this morning. Sorry it took me so long to figure out what you needed.”
To his horror, Isaac’s eyes got shiny. “I yelled at Allegra yesterday,” he said in a small voice.
Luca snorted. “Yelling” had been an overstatement. Isaac had gone to sit down on the couch, and Allegra’s yarn work wasn’t onlyonthe couch, it wasall overthe couch, and he’d said, “Allegra, can we just… you know!”
And Luca’s sister had said, “Tell me to get my shit off the couch, Isaac. You gotta right to your own furniture.” She’d been sitting in one of the armchairs,facingall the yarn on the couch, and she’d struggled to her feet, because her “emerging volleyball,” as Isaac had called it in August, was now an “emerging beachball” in mid-September.
“No, no, no,” Isaac had said, sounding horrified. “My bad. I’m sorry. Here, I can just, you know….” And he shooed her to sit back down while he bustled around the couch, reducing the area she was using to the corner so he could sit and pick up his own work, which he seemed to be keeping secret from LucaandAllegra, which was funny since he worked on it while they were both watching him, but he wouldn’t tell them what it was going to be.
The blanket had been completed—and it was quite stunning, Luca thought. He’d wanted to hang it up in the nursery, but Isaac and Allegra had both said no, it would be sturdy enough to be loved to tatters, and that’s how they thoughta good yarn object should be treated. He’d taken pictures, though, and Isaac had shown them to his students, and there was interest in doing another blanket design in the spring, maybe this time giving the blanket to charity. Isaac and Roxy were already floating ideas, which was great, and Luca suddenly got that the tangle of September in school was like the tangle of yarn in Isaac’s stash. It was all about the great potential everybody had to create somethingbetterwith the materials at hand.
The fact that Isaac respected that for Luca’s sister as she tried to create more of her own yarn things made Allegra absolutely adore him.
And not just Allegra.
Luca had heard that whispered confession of love that sticky night in August. He’d wantedso badlyto respond, to tell Isaac that he wasn’t alone, that Luca loved him too.
But he’d seen that night how these weeks—they were a test of the Isaac emotional support system. Isaac had been let down so badly before. He needed to make sure Luca wouldn’t run, and Allegra wouldn’t emotionally ghost him, and these people he’d let into his life—into his home—wouldn’t simply disappear because Isaac was too damned much work.
Isaac’sjob, well, that was a lot of work. Luca could see how good teachers burned out in a minimal amount of time. But Isaac? Isaac had beensograteful for the smallest bits of support. The week before, he’d muttered about how heknewhe had some more of the yarn he was working with—a really lovely purple—and how he’d have to go into the stash that weekend and search.
Allegra had found it while doing her own search of the stash (it was sort of a mutual stash, now that she kept adding to it) and set it on his knitting basket, and he’d been so happy he’d almost cried.
Such a small thing. Such huge dividends.
