7. Dominic

I stepped back from the small kitchen area to allow Cielo to spring into action. It was odd seeing someone else working in my kitchen, but much like his constant chatter, I found I liked it. Without hesitation, he began digging through the fridge, muttering to himself under his breath as he searched.

“Are my supplies up to your standards?” I asked wryly.

“You’re better stocked, with a greater variety of food than your bathroom.”

I raised a brow. “I’m sorry, do you need something more to bathe with?”

“A little more wouldn’t hurt you.”

“Like what?”

“Some lotion would be nice. Do you know what cold air does to your skin when you’re out in it all the time?”

I sighed. “I’m not getting lotion.”

“Yes, we wouldn’t want to infringe on your manly status.”

I bit back my question about what he would know about that sort of thing. In some ways, I found I envied his ability to be completely comfortable with who he was. It required me to drive hours away to Portland in order for me to feel comfortable enough to allow someone to hit on me. Whereas Cielo had boldly made an offer on the first night to me, without knowing for sure that I would be interested. That sort of courage ran contrary to the scared man who’d originally huddled on my front porch, terrified of the cold and bears.

“So, you said you lived off leftovers a lot?” I asked.

He looked up from the stove. “Yeah. My parents were pretty busy when I was growing up. I guess that’s why they split up, neither of them really had time for each other. After my dad opened up a greenhouse on the other side of the state, he never really had time for us. It wasn’t until I was older that he really seemed to pay attention to me, but even then, I mostly just saw him when I worked at his greenhouse.”

“On the other side of the state?”

He shook his head. “When I got older, he had another one built near where my mom and I lived. He traveled between them to make sure everything was going according to his standards. Didn’t change much; even when I was working there I didn’t see him all that often.”

Cielo sounded as cheerful as ever, but I thought it sounded a little forced. My own parents had stayed together till the end and I couldn’t imagine what it had to have been like, growing up with a split family, and a father who seemed to have no interest in you.

“What about your mom?”

“She did her best…”

Silence lay over the kitchen, thick and heavy. It was then I realized I hadn’t paid a bit of attention to what Cielo had been doing. At one point, he’d dragged the few tomatoes I had in the fridge out and sliced them. He’d busied himself with what looked like a spin on a grilled cheese and the turkey, his back resolutely to me.

He sighed. “She was busy all the time, too. With my dad off doing his own thing, she worked a lot. She always wanted to be something more, so she was off trying to get her business off the ground. When she was home, she made sure to cook meals for me, leave them for me to get to whenever I was hungry. We lived in a trailer park because it was the only place she could afford with the money my father sent us. Every other bit of money she had went into her next business venture.”

I blinked. “What sort of business?”

“Anything she thought would work. One minute it was cosmetics, and then the next it was cloth for making dresses. She hopped around different things all the time and was never able to settle on any one thing. I guess I got that from her.”

“That doesn’t sound very good for you,” I said slowly.

He flipped the sandwich with a shrug. “It wasn’t all that bad. I’m really good at entertaining myself. I got good at staying out of the way and doing my own thing. That was when I started drawing. It used to make me feel good and I’d forget all about everything that was going on while I was drawing. I guess I can’t complain, it’s what got me out of home and to New York.”

“That sounds lonely.”

He turned to give me a crooked grin. “The man who lives in the middle of an orchard, shunning all human contact except for when he goes into town, is going to talk about being lonely?”

I blinked, not sure what to say and letting the comment pass without a reply. In truth, I would have never considered myself lonely before. I was the sort who enjoyed my solitude, and if every now and then I wished I had someone to spend the time with, wasn’t that normal? I’d been surrounded by people for so much of my youth, I thought it right that I should be able to enjoy my solitude.

But that was quite different to being a child who was constantly left on his own. Was it any wonder Cielo seemed to thrive on human contact, when he’d spent most of his childhood on his own? It might have helped him to hone the very talent that helped him get away in the end, but that didn’t make it any less depressing to hear. As much as being around people all the time would have driven me crazy, I thought it was heartbreaking to hear of a child who had to grow up without his parents around.

Cielo chuckled. “She really was one of the most absentminded people you’ve ever met, too. One time, when I was about nine or so, she took me with her to this client’s house to try to get some backing for her latest idea. I did my own thing away from everyone else, my mom had told me how important it was that she get this sale, and she hadn’t been able to find a sitter. Thing was, she forgot all about me when she left. I guess she was thinking about all the sales she was going to get with a little more backing, she didn’t even think to make sure she hadn’t forgotten something. The potential client had to call her back to get me.”

My mouth tightened. “She didn’t even think to look in the backseat for her own child?”

“That was just how my mom was… and is. My dad used to complain about it all the time, even after they were divorced. She was always dreaming about the next best thing, and my dad was always worried about what was right in front of him. I guess they weren’t ever going to work out.”

The last was added with a note of sadness, and I felt my heart break a little for him. My own parents had had their differences, but they’d never once veered anywhere close to separating. I was sure there were more issues between them than I’d ever seen, but mostly, I’d seen how much they loved one another, and me. They had done their best to raise their son in the way they thought best, and even if I didn’t always agree with their methods, I’d grown up knowing they would always be there for me.

“I can imagine you’d want to get away from that,” I said.

Cielo flipped the sandwiches out of the pan and began slicing. “Yeah, it wasn’t really the best thing, and I knew it even then. So I got out, where I could be a bit more myself and maybe see more of the world. I always saw the world through the lens of the TV, and I wanted to get out and see it for myself. When I got to New York, I was so excited to be out in the world and free to do what I wanted. I didn’t realize how hard it would be to do it on my own. It wasn’t until I met Erin, Izzy, and Russ that I started to really realize my dream.”

I was glad his back was to me as he brought up his much vaunted ‘friends.’ I hadn’t touched the subject, not even to ask if he had heard from them. There’d been plenty of talk on his end, all of it meant as complimentary as possible. I, however, wasn’t quite as sold on their goodness as Cielo obviously was. His friends, which he called ‘a little flighty but very worldly’ sounded more like disrespectful assholes to me. The evidence started piling up from the moment I realized his ‘friends’ had been screwing around rather than meeting up with him as they’d planned. Anything else I heard after that only created a mountain of evidence that made them look even worse in my mind.

“So, you went to New York to find your own family, make your own life,” I said.

He nodded, turning with two plates of food in hand. “It wasn’t very much fun on my own. But my friends… they’ve shown me so much, and they’ve really helped me to develop my talent into something real and good. If I didn’t have them, I don’t know where I’d be.”

Considering the person I had begun to glimpse under the vain veneer, I wondered if Cielo might have done better to never have met his friends. There was a genuine and kind person beneath all his ‘worldliness’ and ‘aesthetic.’ For all his fussing and whining while working, he had never faltered in the labor, even as his body wanted to just lay down and sleep. He was quick with a story, and he loved to be around people, shining whenever I showed him direct attention. There was a terrifically kind and earnest person in him, and I wondered if he even knew it himself.

I bit into the sandwich, grunting in surprise. “This is good!”

He laughed. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to talk with your mouth full?”

I wiggled my wedge of sandwich. “This is really good, though.”

“I’m glad you like it. It’s nothing special, you had some good cheddar in there and it’s just a grilled cheese and turkey with some tomato in it. Simple but tasty, it helps when you’re working with quality ingredients. I’m betting you get your meat and cheese from somewhere around here and not out of plastic containers at a store.”

“There’s a farm not far down the way. We trade back and forth. It helps when the owner is obsessed with apples.”

“You could always break down and make your own cheese instead of relying on them to make it. That way, you could have all sorts of different cheeses, whatever ones you can throw together.”

“You know how to do that?”

“Russ went through an artisanal kick a few months ago. So I learned how to make cheese, wine, and weirdly, cured meats. You haven’t lived until you’ve had homemade mozzarella on your pizza, with dough made from scratch. Everyone else loved it, but don’t tell them it wasn’t gluten-free; Erin would have a fit.”

I chuckled. “I’ll do my absolute best to not tell her if I see her.”

“While they were helping me make my talent worthwhile, I was usually the one cooking for them. Even when Russ went through that phase, I was usually the one making it all. It’s almost as much fun as drawing in my opinion. Plus, it’s nice to see people enjoying your cooking.”

The thing that amazed me the most, was just how much substance there was to Cielo. Every layer that I found, if I dared to scratch a little deeper, ended with me finding a new piece of the man. It was in such sharp contrast to the expectations my own upbringing had given me. If I was considered practical, then my father was even worse than that. Robert Stone was a man who barely tolerated his wife’s love of flowers growing alongside the house, and outright refused to buy clothing for his family that didn’t have an immediate and solely practical use.

That upbringing had gone a long way toward shaping my worldview. Namely, I was taught that something pretty often didn’t have any real-world value. Hard work, honesty, pragmatism, those were the key values to a happy, sustainable life. My father had worked his whole life in the saw mill before it had gone under, and he had never swerved from his values.

Cielo tapped his sandwich. “You know what’s really good with this sort of thing?”

I could see the mischievous grin on his face, and I hesitated to ask. “What?”

“Raspberry jam, homemade is best,” he said.

I grimaced. “I’m sorry I asked.”

He laughed. “You’re so salt and pepper, it’s funny.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“That you seem to think salt and pepper are the height of seasoning, or bacon fat. Don’t think I don’t know how you fry our eggs in the morning.”

“Bacon-fried eggs are delicious,” I retorted indignantly.

“They are, but there’s more flavors in the world than salt, pepper, and bacon grease.”

I sighed. “Is there anything else I should know about my boring taste?”

He winked. “Your taste isn’t boring, just simple. Nothing wrong with that, just like there’s nothing wrong with you taking the time to make your table have a little bit of elves and flowers on it. But I do have a question.”

I set my sandwich wedge down. “I’m sorry I even started this conversation.”

He grinned. “What’s with the green shirt in your closet, the one with the tags still on it?”

“You went in my closet?” I demanded.

“You sent me in there to get a better jacket since I was apparently looking too cold in mine,” he said.

That was true, but I hadn’t expected him to go poking about the rest of the clothing in there. The heavier jackets would have been in plain view, and that included the dark blue one that he had picked out for himself. The green shirt I had picked out on a whim one day, however, was far back, hidden from view just in case someone were to see the inside of my closet. I had never worn the thing, it was too bright, and it would have called attention to me to a degree I would have been uncomfortable with.

“I bought it because it reminded me of the fireflies,” I admitted.

“Fireflies?”

I sighed, wishing I’d never let the words pass my lips. Then again, if there was anyone who might understand my reasoning for buying the shirt, it would be Cielo.

“When I was little, I used to be really into going out on summer nights and seeing the fireflies. I loved the bright green and yellow color their lights made.”

“Green and yellow like the shirt.”

I nodded. “I used to take as long as I was allowed outside to gather them up. My mother always made me let them go when I was done, but I didn’t mind. I loved watching them light the whole jar up, it was like strange little galaxies in the jar. My father though, he, uh… he wasn’t really into that sort of thing.”

“Wasn’t a bug person?”

I shrugged. “He didn’t really see the point in something like collecting a bunch of bugs just to look at them.”

“Ah, so that’s where you get it from. Doesn’t seem very nice to tell a kid it isn’t worth it if they’re having fun.”

I frowned. “My father was a good man, and he worked hard to provide for his family.”

“And I’m not saying he was anything but an excellent father. But you know, if there’s anything I’ve learned, even the best people can be wrong sometimes. I think he was wrong.”

I wanted to point out that maybe Cielo’s judgment of people wasn’t the best, considering the shallow friends he seemed to value so much. But the thought was mean-spirited and spiteful, and I swallowed it down. I might not have known Cielo for very long, but I knew full well he didn’t mean anything harsh by his words. He didn’t seem to have a mean bone in his body, and I couldn’t help but believe he meant it in my defense.

He smiled. “Well, if you ask me, you should at least try it on one of these days. Drag it out, take the tags off and slap it on.”

“What’s the point? I’m not going to wear it outside or anything,” I said.

He shrugged. “And what’s the point of buying it if you weren’t going to wear it in the first place? Just put it on and enjoy what you bought, maybe you’ll find you like it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then you don’t. If you ask me though, I think you’ll like it. I bet that shirt would look really good on you.”

I didn’t want to admit it, but a flutter of warmth passed through me at his words. I wasn’t so sure he was right, but if he believed I would pull the shirt off, then I might be willing to believe him.

“Maybe I will,” I said slowly.

Cielo’s warm smile was enough to ease my nerves and make my pulse jump.