I nodded. “Very. They wouldn’t have survived long, especially with the cold coming.”
He ate a forkful of food and took his time chewing and swallowing. “Winter’s an unusual name, isn’t it?”
“It is.”
“He seems very nice,” Dad added. He was watching me. For what, I wasn’t sure.
I nodded as I ate some dinner. “This is very good, Mom. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, darling,” she said. “You both worked hard today by the sounds of it.”
“Winter’s an unusual name, don’t you think?” Dad said.
Back to this again . . .
“Yes. I told him that, though I’m sure he’s heard it before. He didn’t seem surprised.”
The way they both stared at me made me think perhapsI shouldn’t have said that. Either to Winter or that I shouldn’t have told my parents I’d said that. I wasn’t sure.
“Perhaps telling someone their name is weird isn’t polite,” Dad said gently.
“You just said his name was unusual.”
“But not to his face,” he said, then he sighed. “But you’re right. I did say it was unusual. And I shouldn’t have said that either. But anyway, he seems very nice. And he’s opening a bookstore. That’ll be great for the town.”
“I’m looking forward to it. I think he said he wants to open on December first. There’ll be a grand opening.”
“He’ll have his hands full with a new business and two very young kittens.”
I didn’t mention what Winter had said about shoving them down his shirt because I’d like to think he was joking. Sarcasm was often lost on me and I’d learned that people often used it carelessly. Winter had looked horrified when he’d mentioned the shirt-stuffing and he said he didn’t think that would be good for the kittens, so I trusted that he wasn’t about to try it.
“I named them,” I said. “The kittens. He said he’d never named anything and it was a great responsibility. Though I’m not sure that was true, given the fact we have customers with pets named Catrick Swayze and Droolius Caesar.”
“True.” Dad chuckled. “So what did you call them?”
“Merry and Bright,” I said with a smile. “It was on?—”
“On the box they were brought in,” Dad said, smiling. “I noticed that. Very cute names, Deac.”
“He’ll probably change them,” I allowed.
He studied me for a while. “And he mentioned that you’d quoted one of his favorite books. That’s pretty cool that he likes the same things you do. Especially your books. I didn’t think anyone knew about those Japanese books.”
“Those books are a study on the finalacceptance of death by Samurai. It’s not morbid as it is more a study of the human psyche.” I noticed Mom give him a curious look, and it was random that Dad would keep mentioning him. I didn’t do well with innuendo or hints. He knew this. “Are you trying to make a point?” I asked. “You keep talking about him. I saw many clients today.”
“No, no reason,” he said, though I wasn’t sure I believed that. “It’s just that he was very nice and he said you’d quoted a poem. I thought you were a bit shy around him, that’s all.”
Shy?
“How was I shy?”
He sighed and eventually gave me a warm smile. “I thought you might have liked him, that’s all. You seemed a little struck by him, and I was just curious. Maybe you and he could be friends, at least. You have some things in common, and he’s new to town and about your age.”
“He’s two years older than me,” I said. He’d given his driver’s license, so... “He’s twenty-eight.”
Dad smiled. “Anyway, I thought we could go to the grand opening of his bookstore. That sounds fun, don’t you think?”
A weird thrill ran through me. Excitement, but also an uneasy jittery feeling I wasn’t sure I liked or not. The thing was, I did like Winter. He was cute, and he cared for those two little kittens so much already. My parents knew I liked guys, but I hadn’t acted on it, not since my early years at college, and that had been an experience I wasn’t eager to experience again.
