Page 3 of Karma Kitty Christmas
He knew Mr. Browning still visited his grandmother, which made him like the man even more, and his grandma told him that they used to “yarn” on the porch together sometimes, but Luca had never seen that. What he’d seen in the last six months as he’d been working on the house to get it ready to sell had been Mr. Browning himself, a soft-handed miracle, a quiet, self-contained rainbow maker using deft movements and brightly colored fiber to make useful, beautiful things—mostly for other people—and infusing the world with a sort of silent happiness by the act of creation.
Luca really needed that quiet happiness this evening.
But the minute Mr. Browning sat down, Luca knew there was something wrong.
The man was chilling in the shade on his white-cushioned porch swing in a pair of Dockers and a button-down that looked oddly formal for a man in his late thirties. He often dressed like that, Luca knew, because those were his teaching clothes, but the effect was still… old. Stuffy. Stodgy. Which didn’t match what his grandmother said about the man at all.
But it wasn’t his clothes that struck Luca wrong. It was the project in his lap.
For one thing, it wasn’t… bright. Luca was used to seeing him work with bright colors—solids or variegated miracles, woolly rainbows—and loving them. Stopping often to appreciate their effect against each other and smile.
But this project was… well, brown.
Not that Luca objected to brown—some people looked quite fetching in it. But this guy—that bright yarn stash seemed to be where all his excitement lay, and now it had been dampened to… well, brown. Plain brown.
It didn’t sit well with Luca, although it wasn’t his place to say anything. God forbid he try to change the man’s yarn choice, right?
But the sixth time he watched Mr. Browning glance down at the project in his hands and then crumple his face like he was about to cry, something in Luca broke.
“Heya, Mr. Browning—can I help you with something?”
The man glanced up in surprise, swiveling his head wildly like he’d gotten caught picking his nose or something. His gaze landed on Luca, and he stopped abruptly and chuckled to himself, taking an earbud out as he did so.
“Oh my goodness, Luca. Youstartledme.” He gave a quick brilliant grin. “I thought I was at school for a minute. You don’t need to call me Mr. Browning, you know—my name is Isaac.”
Oh wow. This was like winning the lottery or something.
Luca grinned. “Really? See, my grandma, she only talks about ‘Mr. Browning’—I don’t think she ever mentioned your first name!”
Isaac’s laughter was really a balm to the soul. “See,that’sweird. Grandparents are a gray area, right? First name, or is that too formal, or do you just call them ‘Grandma’ and ‘Grandpa’ because that’s how the peopleyourage know them?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m rambling. Anyway, yes, you can call me Isaac, but if you don’t mind, I’ll keep calling your grandmother Mrs. Giordano, or things will get weird.”
Luca chuckled with him. “Yeah, I can definitely see that. Okay, so, uhm, Isaac.” He sobered. “What seems to be the problem? I… I gotta admit, I’ve watched you come out here and yarn for a lot of days, and I’ve never seen you so unhappy.”
Luca had just finished hauling most of the kitchen cabinets out of the house and loading as many as he could fit into his truck. He’d be back the next day with one of his guys, working for bennies and not much else, to load the rest and then to bring back the flooring in one of the company vans. But right now he was pretty much done for the night. With a quiet sigh, he moved toward the four-foot plank fence and leaned against it, taking in Isaac’s tidy if boring yard, and the white-painted farm-style house, two stories, with at least two master suites and probably two more smaller rooms, as well as a downstairs guest bathroom. It was far too big for two men—he’d always thought that—but now, with only Mr., uhm, Isaac living there, it seemedwaytoo large.
And Isaac, sitting cross-legged in his school clothes while staring glumly at the pile ofbrownin his hands, seemed even less substantial than he had all winter.
As though Isaac could see that himself, he glanced at the yarn, on what Luca’s grandmother called a circular needle, and then set it down and sighed.
“I really don’t want to finish this sweater,” he admitted baldly.
Luca peered at the little bit of round knitting on the needle. “It doesn’t hardly look like you started it,” he said, hoping he hadn’t cursed the man in his native tongue or something.
Isaac assessed the project again and nodded unhappily. “I know, right? I….” He grimaced. “I started it for Todd originally. And it was justglaringat me, nagging me, in Todd’s voice. ‘You cannot possibly afford more yarn, Isaac, if you don’t finish the project you started!’” He grunted. “Bastard.”
Luca stared at him. “Really?”
To his amazement, a low flush came up on Isaac’s cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled, starting to stand up. “I-I should go inside. That was terrible of me—I shouldn’t say things like that.”
Luca was suddenlystarvingfor his company. “Why not? Do you feel them?”
Isaac nodded and then seemed appalled. “I shouldn’t!” He clapped his hand over his mouth. “I shouldn’t say anything bad,” he muttered, almost to himself. “I should be grateful for everything he did for me, take the house, take the inheritance, and just shut my mouth and—”
“And knit ugly sweaters? No offense, Isaac, but that’s like taking lemons and making liquid bullshit with them. My God, if you’ve got the house and the money, shouldn’t you be able to knit whatever the hell you want?”
Isaac stared at him, his enormous hazel eyes stunned. And for a moment, it was as though two people were at war inside this one unassuming man—Luca could almostseethem vying for control, and he wondered which one would win.
He was rooting for the guy who was like his grandmother and wanted to knit and crochetallthe yarn, and who deserved at least ten boxes of Schrödinger’s Hats.
