Page 69 of Karma Kitty Christmas
And then he took in his lover’s pleased expression as his fingers worked nimbly on what Luca knew wasn’t a simple project atall, and he realized that, much like it hadn’t been a sweater that Isaac hadn’t wanted to make, this wasn’t merely a hat that hedidwant to finish.
Isaac’s love was all in the present now, Luca realized. The ghost of his ex, while perhaps always a flicker of light andshadow in Isaac’s heart, was now a ghost of the past, and not of the here and now.
The baby at Allegra’s breast broke off feeding and emitted a tiny cry as Allegra put her little body against her shoulder and started to pat. That teeny little person emitted the most amazing burp, and the adults in the room laughed.
“Blessings,” Luca said softly, “come in all forms.”
The First Noelle
“HEY, MR.B!” Marcelle’s voice cut urgently into Isaac’s dream.
“Hmm?” Isaac mumbled.
“Dude, that teacher is coming—the one who let you take the cat! She’s about to come in. Isn’t she your boss or something?”
“Oh shit,” Isaac muttered, blinking hard. “Did I fall asleep?”
“Yeah, dude. You put in the movie for fifth period, and this issixth!”
Thatmade Isaac sit up. “Oh my God—Marcelle! You let me sleep through fifth period? I had grades and hats and—”
“All given,” Marcelle said promptly. “You had me set up the gifts, right? Well, they all saw you sleeping, and since I had the grades, I called them up just like you would and gave them their gifts and their grades. It was fine. But it’s the middle of sixth period now, and you need to wake up!”
Isaac wiped drool off his face, took a swig of the soda Luca had packed for him that morning, and tried to get his shit together. Marcelle was one of three TAs this year, and Isaac was grateful, because the last three weeks since Thanksgiving—when Noelle had come into their lives—had beenhard. Nobody was getting any sleep. Not Allegra, not Luca, and not Isaac.
Colic was abeast, and everybody had taken their turn walking the baby across the floor, but even with three people, sleep was a rare commodity. Isaac had managed to finish his Christmas knitting (and had bought adorable tchotchkes and candy bars for the kids who weren’t getting hats or fingerless gloves), but this was the last day before Christmas vacation, and he couldn’t remember the past hour of teaching. His respect for Roxy and Brian had gone up a thousand percent, and he wasstarting todreamabout knitting since he got so little time toactuallyknit.
But one of the things he’d finished—and was damned proud of it—had pretty much wiped out the last of the brown yarn, as well as the scraps of contrasting yarn he’d had left after doing the student projects.
And it would, hopefully, buy him some goodwill from the woman who had been his nemesis, but who had, as the new semester progressed, worked her way more and more into his good graces by asking after his cat.
Euclid the stoner kitten had continued to be a force of good in Isaac’s home. In spite of the many,manyhuge changes that had rocked Isaac’s life since May, walking into the house to be greeted by that insistent orange force of tranquility and evil was still a furry miracle that Isaac didn’t take for granted.
Opening his home for Euclid meant opening his home for Allegra.
It meant opening his heart for Luca, and opening his life for family.
Having this coworker, who used to seem disdainful of everything Isaacwas, greet him with a smile and ask him about hiscatwas along the same miraculous lines of… well, of being able to say, “My late husband used to love sunsets.”
Toddhadloved sunsets. It was why he’d made sure the porch had a swing, where Isaac had gotten into the habit of sitting and knitting. Todd had sat with him, and they’d quietly watched the sunset for years of their marriage.
Those moments, quiet, accepting, meditative, had been some of the best moments of Isaac’s life at the time.
But… at the time, he hadn’t spent twenty minutes crocheting garlands with pom-poms out of scrap yarn to soak in catnip so his cat could have an amazingly sparkly afternoon. At the time, he hadn’t come home to Luca, doing his best cookingwith spaghetti and meat sauce and garlic bread because it was Friday and he’d gotten home early and wanted Isaac to start his weekend off doing something besides cooking. At the time, he hadn’t fallen asleep on the couch with a suddenly somnolent baby on his shoulder, tired to his bones, only to wake up and find that his boyfriend had fallen asleep next to him and the baby’s mother was taking a picture of the three of them because “you look like adorable hell.”
Todd had loved sunsets. Isaac could love that about his late husband. He could also love Euclid and Allegra and Noelle.
And Luca.
Especially Luca, who had brought all of them into his life. Well, Euclid had sort of brought himself, but Luca loved Isaac’s idiot cat as much as Isaac did, so itfeltlike they’d arrived together.
So Isaac had come to all sorts of peace in the last six months, and part of that peace meant forgiving Paula for being a passive-aggressive twat when he’d first started teaching. He had no idea where she came from. Had she been raised religious and spent the last ten years getting over it? Had she simply not realized he was gay and hadn’t realized how she sounded? Or hadhebeen bitter and defensive and unaware of how much that affected the people around him whoweren’tRoxy? However she had beenthen, she was becoming a friendnow, and the contrast betweenthenandnowin his life was so severe that he thought a little bit of knitting forgiveness was a small price to pay for improvement.
But he couldn’t very well give her the gift he’d planned while he was still rumpled and drooling after falling asleep at his desk and letting his student TA do all his adulting for him.
“How do I look?” he asked Marcelle, wiping the last of the sleep from his eyes.
“Like a new parent who just fell asleep on his desk,” Marcelle said astutely. “But she might not see it.”
