Chapter 14
“I like this house!” Griffin exclaimed after sliding down the old, naturally polished by all the hands that ran up and down it over the decades, banister for the third time.
“That makes me very happy. It’s been a long time since it had laughter and excitement in it,” Alison said.
“Why? Is it a sad house?” Griffin asked as he trekked up to the second floor landing to slide down the banister once more.
“I think it’s just quiet,” Alison said.
“You need some kids. Kids will make it so it’s not quiet,” Griffin said.
Alison smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “That’d be nice one day.”
“Griff? Honey, what are you doing?” Maeve asked as she walked out of the bathroom, leaving a steam trail behind her. Her hair was wrapped in a towel and she was wearing a heavy terry-cloth bathrobe Alison had given her.
“Watch, Mom!” he exclaimed then hopped up on the banister and slid, shrieking happily all the way down.
“Griffin!” she said, her mom voice in full force.
“No! It’s okay, I used to do it all the time. I’m glad someone else can enjoy it, too. Unless you don’t want him, to. But don’t stop him on my account,” Alison said.
“Are you sure? I don’t want him to disrespect someone’s property,” Maeve said.
“No, it’s fine. I told him about me sliding down it when I was kid, and next thing I know, he’s doing exactly that. Sorry if I shouldn’t have encouraged him.”
“No, not at all. If it’s okay with you, then…” Maeve said.
“It’s fine with me. This may be the banister’s last chance to make a child squeal with happiness. It’s not looking like I’ll ever have any.”
“Don’t count yourself out. You never know what will happen.”
“You’re right. But you and Griffin are welcome here for as long as you want to be here, and he can take full advantage of the banister.”
“Thanks for letting us stay with you, and for the bathrobe and the long, hot shower. You just don’t know what it does for the soul to take a hot shower and breathe easy for a while without feeling like you have to rush.”
“Oh, yes, I do. Sometimes it’s the only thing that saves me. And for the record, I don’t have much in my closet, but you’re welcome to borrow whatever you think might fit until you get a chance to get yourself some clothes, too.”
“You’re too nice,” Maeve said.
“Nah, just glad to help.”
“Griff, let’s get you in bed, baby. It’s getting late, and way past your bedtime,” Maeve said.
“Aw, Mom! I don’t want to go to sleep.”
“Too bad. It’s time for you to go to sleep.”
Alison smiled as Maeve took her completely charming wild-child upstairs to try to convince him to go to sleep.
She looked around the entrance way to her home and the stillness that permeated it in the last few moments since Griffin went upstairs.
The liveliness he brought to the house very loudly accentuated the quietness she’d unintentionally learned to live with.
She poured herself a glass of red dessert wine, and went into the living room, taking a seat on the sofa and reaching for the channel selector to see what movie she could find to watch.
She’d just tucked her legs under herself and covered herself with a hand crocheted afghan when someone knocked on the door — rather heavily.
Alison set her glass down on the large square coffee table in front of her and got up to answer the door. She looked through the peephole, then pulled the door open. “Feral?”
“Hey. I didn’t get a chance to say goodnight before you left,” Feral said.
“I thought about it, but I didn’t want to interrupt since you were talking to your, what is it, group, or unit, or team?” she asked.
“They could fit under any of those headings. But honestly, I’d rather you have interrupted me.”
She shook her head, dismissing the possibility.
Feral stepped right up to the door, as close as he could get without actually entering her house and looked right into her eyes. “Anything you have to say will always, without question, be more important to me than anything I’m discussing with anyone else.”
She watched him silently for a few seconds.
“Why didn’t you tell me goodbye?” he asked, his voice calm and non-threatening.
“Because I thought you were just being nice with everything you said before and I didn’t want to have to hear you fumble to get out of it. It was too nice a memory to have ruined.”
“You really thought that I was just being nice?” he asked.
Alison kind of lifted one shoulder in a shrug as she avoided meeting his gaze.
“Alison, honey, how am I going to convince you that every word I said was true?”
She was looking past him to the posts on her porch, holding up the porch roof. “I don’t know,” she said quietly.
He stood patiently, quietly, waiting for her to look at him again, but when she did she surprised him.
“Do you like sweet, red dessert wine?” she asked.
Feral kind of smirked and canted his head just ever so slightly. “I do.”
“Want to share a glass with me? I was about to watch a movie and have a glass of wine. But I don’t like real wine. I like very, very sweet dessert wines.”
“I’d like that very much,” Feral said.
Alison stepped back and opened her front door widely as she stepped to the side to allow him to enter. “Come in.”
“Thank you,” Feral said, looking around the foyer of her home as he did so.
He took in the old, original hardwood floors and the throw rugs that centered the living room and the dining room on the other side of the stairs.
He glanced past the stairs and decided the kitchen must be located in that direction, then up the stairs and smiled when he saw the old, yet pristinely kept stair runners in cream, gold and burgundy.
“Your home is beautiful, Alison. It’s like walking into a hug. ”
She looked back at him as she led him down the hallway and into the kitchen. “That may be the best description for a home that I’ve ever heard.”
“It fits. It’s cozy, and warm, and friendly,” he said as he looked around the pale yellow kitchen decorated with white daisies and the occasional delicate green stem for contrast.
She smiled as she took a wine glass out of her cabinets and filled it with chilled red dessert wine. “Here you go,” she said.
“You’re not having one?” he asked.
“It’s in the living room already.”
He nodded and followed her back down the hallway.
“There’s a bathroom there,” she said, pointing to a darkly stained wooden door.
“And my bedroom is the door on the left, right before the kitchen. This place was my parents, I think I told you that already. But it’s mine now, and every time I think about redecorating it, I just can’t seem to think of anything I like better than the way it is already.
I’ve replaced a throw rug or two, but I like things the way they are. It’s old fashioned, but I love it.”
“I think it’s called retro now, and people would pay a fortune to have the decor you do. Besides, if you love it, why change it?”
“I don’t know. Just thinking of a way to try to break out of my shell, the mold I seem to have fit myself into.”
“I like it as is. I can’t imagine it could be any better than it already is, but if you want something different, just do it. It’s yours, nobody is going to tell you that you can’t.”
She paused as she walked into the living room, looking around the room, trying to see it as he did, and lifted her hands in an ‘I just can’t decide kind of way’. “I’ve about decided I’m a creature of habit. I think if I did change it, it wouldn’t last very long before I changed it back.”
He grinned at her. “Good. I think it’s perfect.”
“So,” she said, as she reached for her glass of wine and took her seat on the sofa, “what do you want to watch?”
“Just not war, or battle. I’m so over war and military. I like peaceful, easy going, anything other than that.”
“Done,” she said, flipping the channel to her saved movies. She chose ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, and settled in, tucking her legs beneath herself again. She eyed him to see what he thought about her choice.
“Sweet Home Alabama, huh?” he asked, as he settled in.
“Sweet Home Alabama,” she said, pressing play.
“Hey, do you have somewhere I can safely store this for now?” he asked, indicating the firearm in the holster on his hip.
“I’m sure I do, but I don’t know where that would be.”
“You think it would be okay if I just slid it under the sofa for now?”
“Yes. Definitely don’t leave it out. Maeve and her son, Griffin, are staying with me. I wouldn’t want him to find it unattended.”
“If I leave the room, it’ll come with me.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a sip of her wine as he took off his entire holster and slid it with the gun inside it under the sofa where he sat.
As the movie started he sat beside her, lounging really, slouching on her sofa, sipping his wine with a slight smile on his lips that she didn’t think he was even aware was there.
“Have you seen this one?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m in the small percentage of the Variant who actually have memory of my life pre DNA experimentation and captivity, but I was still absent from society for a long time, so I probably missed it.”
“It’s one of my favorites. I always turn it on when I need a little something extra to make me feel all warm and fuzzy.”
“Then it’s the perfect choice,” he said.
An hour later, after the rest of the bottle of wine, and watching Feral laugh in all the right places, and seeing the emotion flit across his face in the just missed chances for the hero and heroine to get themselves together, Alison fell asleep wrapped in her mother’s crocheted afghan, with her head leaning against Feral’s shoulder.
Feral smiled as he realized she’d fallen asleep against him.
He lifted his leg and rested it against his opposite knee, then unlaced his boot and dropped it to the floor before he repeated the same with the other leg.
Then he tossed a throw pillow to his end of the sofa.