“Oh yeah, he’s fine,” King explained. “Faucet’s busted. Water’s spraying all over the place.” Barely pausing, King looked at me and said, “Sorry, buddy, gotta cancel on dinner tonight. Hopefully you can scrounge something up on your own.” As he talked, King started walking toward the front door. “Maybe try that deli next to your hotel. They might have some cold sandwiches or something.”
Was he seriously not only intentionally leaving me alone with Christopher but trying to angle a dinner invitation for me by implying I had no way to get a hot meal for myself? What the fuck was he up to? And didn’t he know that two could play the game?
“Faucet’s broken?” I said, catching King before he could make his escape.
“Uh, yeah.”
“So water’s spraying all over the kitchen. Flooding it, I suppose,” I observed as I carefully settled the kitten on my lap. Christopher stood in silence, his head moving back and forth like he was watching a tennis game.
“Yeah, that’s right. A lot of potential for water damage,” King said, his hand on the knob of the now open door.
“Oh, that’s bad,” I agreed. “But you did tell him to just turn the water off beneath the sink, right?”
King gave me a dark look promising retribution and then muttered something he purposefully kept too soft for us to hear as he closed the door behind him.
There was a pregnant pause as Christopher and I seemed to come to the same realization at the same time.
It was just me and him.
“I really should get going,” I said, but as I began to stand, Christopher hurried to my side and urged me to sit again by putting his hand on my shoulder. Despite not having known him well four years ago, I felt like I was being given a glimpse into the old Christopher.
The one I hadn’t had enough time to get to know.
I reminded myself that I wasn’t supposed to get to know the young man. Not only was there more than ten years between us, but his normally overprotective uncle also happened to be the man who signed my paychecks.
“Let me just clean this up,” Christopher said as he motioned to the cut on my head. “I want to make sure there’s no glass in it,” he added. Instead of just the couple of bandages I was expecting to see him holding, he had what looked like a tackle box in his hand.
Rather than sitting next to me on the couch, he pulled an ottoman forward and used that, putting us face-to-face. Our eyes met briefly, but Christopher quickly dropped his eyes. I dropped my own and studied the kitten, who had calmed considerably and was trying to stand on my thigh. The poor thing wobbled considerably as it began walking across my lap.
“Oh, fuck, Christopher,” I whispered as I realized I’d ended up hurting the kitten somehow after all.
“He’s okay, Rush,” Christopher said at the same time that one of his hands covered mine where it was resting on my knee. The combination of his touch and the use of my name had me looking up. Christopher paused as that weird energy thing happened between us again. I knew exactly what it was, but I wasn’t sure Christopher did. He eased his hand back once again and dropped his eyes. When he’d first sat down, he hadn’t seemed nervous or stressed, but something had changed.
“He, um, he’s got a neurological disorder,” Christopher said as he carefully reached one hand out and petted the little cat. “The vet said he probably got injured when he was just a baby. He’s not in any pain… he just can’t react as quickly to things, and obviously his balance is off.”
I looked down at the cat and tried very hard to ignore Christopher’s hand as it stroked over the cat, which was now starting to settle down for a nap.
In my lap.
Precariously close to the goods.
“If you hadn’t grabbed him like that when you fell…” Christopher whispered. He couldn’t finish the sentence, and there was no missing the way his eyes watered.
“What’s his name?” I asked, more to give Christopher a chance to recover from the emotions the potential loss of or injury to his pet had brought out.
“Pip.”
I smiled as I took in the tiny cat’s fragile body.
“I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness—” I began.
“—against all discouragement that could be,” Christopher finished. He paused as he seemed to digest the beauty of the sentence and then asked, “How did you know I named him after Pip in Great Expectations?”
I nodded at several boxes in the corner of the living room next to an empty bookshelf. Like the ones King and I had carried into the house, they were sealed up and had the word books written on them.