Second Spring ? Paul Lahote

Paul Elijah Lahote

"My mom wants to meet you."

Christopher had been unusually quiet all morning. Normally he'd either be talking a mile a minute from the moment he came in or he'd be working on his summer reading, occasionally commenting out loud or stopping to scribble something on a notebook. This morning however he seemed filled with another sort of restless energy. He'd been absent when he greeted me, he was constantly fiddling with anything he could get his hands and he couldn't seem to focus his eyes. All while worrying his lip in a most distracting manner.

"What?" I asked.

"My mom wants to meet you," he repeated. "I guess it makes sense with how much time we've been spending together. And I wasn't going to say anything because I didn't think we were the kind of friends that meet each other's parents but I guess seeing as you're the kind of friend that starts keeping soy milk in his work refrigerator because I'm lactose intolerant might be the kind of friend that is willing to sit through some awkward dinner with my parents and my sister and possibly my sister's boyfriend, I don't know what my mom's plan is. You don't have to of course but -"

"Of course I'll come to dinner at your parent's place."

He stared at my with wide eyes and parted lips. "Really?" he asked after a few beats of silence.

In an attempt at indifference, I shrugged. "Yeah. I'm not one to turn down free food and like you said, it makes perfect sense for them to want to meet the person you're spending all this time with."

His confused expression changed into a smile so bright he lit up the entire workshop before jumping off the workbench he was sitting on and threw his arms around me. "Thank you! You're the best!"

My own arms closed around his back and I took the opportunity to bury my face in his neck, feeling his warmth and inhaling his scent. "It's really not a big deal," I mumbled, as much of a reminder to myself as an assurance for him.

I know it's a super short one but 1) I've been struggling to get words on the paper and even worse to keep them there rather than just editing them away and 2) I think I want to do the next chapter from Christopher's perspective.