by A. F. Henley
Once again his father took over the conversation for him. "So." He slapped both hands on the table and rose. "Were those new tires I saw on the truck?"
Randy breathed a sigh of relief, holding his father's gaze. Thank you. "Yeah, snow tires. One of my neighbors ended up having a spare set in his garage. He put them on for me when he was looking at the radiator."
"The truck was giving you trouble?"
"A little," Randy admitted. "But it was my own stupidity that brought it on. Nothing to worry about, though. We got it all fixed up. Well... my neighbor did."
His father stood and nodded towards the door. "We should give those new slicks a bit of a torque. They loosen up sometimes after they first go on. Feel like showing your old man your new set of rims?"
The night air was deliciously fresh and cool after the stuffy kitchen, but they could have walked into a burning inferno and Randy would have still preferred it to continuing the conversation with his mother. Above them, the moon poured light over frost-tinged surfaces, coloring everything with a blue blush. Stars glinted like pinpoints jabbed through velvet.
Randy's father rocked back on his heels, his sights on the heavens. "Sure is dark out here, isn't it?"
"Mm-hmm," Randy agreed. "It's great for sleeping."
"So you're sleeping better now?"
"I think so."
When his dad dropped an arm around his shoulder, Randy barely resisted the urge to bury his face against the man like he was six years old all over again.
"You really doing okay?"
Four words, nothing more, but they broke Randy's resolve like crystal on concrete. He turned into his father's chest, closed his eyes, and fought tears. The mention of Avery, maybe; his mom, as always; even the disagreements with Vaughn were as good a reason as any to blame. The solitude, the frustrations, the fact that everyone and their brother seemed to disapprove of him for reasons he couldn't understand—the list of things to weep over went on and on and on. Maybe he'd just been listening to too many wolves baying at the moon. Maybe he was jealous over their ability to throw back their heads and let it all come pouring out of them.
Maybe he just needed a drink.
"Randy?"
"I'm fine," Randy mumbled, taking a final smell of his father's leather jacket before pulling away. "I missed you guys, is all. Don't worry about me, okay? I'm doing all right taking care of myself."
Randy almost winced at the déjà vu of the words. It upset him that he had to keep telling everyone that he was capable of self-care, almost as much as it upset him that he had to keep shutting down the little voice that suggested that if it was so damn true, there should be no reason he had to keep saying it. It would be obvious.
"Don't you let your mother get to you," his father said. "She means well."
Randy snorted. "She really doesn't, and you know it. What she means to do is get me back to the city so she can have as much control over my life as she does over everyone else's and then devote her time to finding me a suitable partner who will, if nothing else, agree to find a way to give her grandchildren. Intelligent, attractive, well-behaved ones, preferably."
"I doubt that." His father lifted his eyes to the sky and pointed, directing Randy's gaze to a shooting star that fizzled out so quickly, Randy almost missed it. "I'm sure she'd much rather have you advancing through the ranks of the legal rat race so that you too one day can hold your scepter on the throne of the American Judicial System and she can brag to all her friends about how she inspired you."
They both gave the other time to make a silent wish.
"Did you see Avery, too?" Randy asked, turning his eyes toward his father and taking too much comfort in the way his father's jaw tightened.
His father stepped away and peered into the bed of Randy's truck. "I did not. He's damn lucky, too. I still owe that rat a beating." He reached into the truck bed, pulled out a tire iron, and smacked it into his palm with a wink. "Aha!"
He waited for Randy's chuckle, then knelt down beside the tire and began to snug up a bolt. "So what was wrong with the truck?"
"I let the radiator freeze up. There was no coolant in it, I guess."
"Oh? Neighbor guy tell you this?"
Randy snorted a laugh, tugged open the driver's door, and reached over the seat to disengage the glove compartment and grab his newly acquired flashlight. Shivering, he moved in the direction of his father and aimed the light at the tire. "Yeah, he did. He had a few things to say, actually. All of which you would have been very proud to hear someone say in your absence, I'm sure."
When Randy's father looked up, he looked as if he wanted to frown and smile at the same time. "Who is he?"
"Vaughn." Randy nodded down the street. "Vaughn O'Connell, to be exact. His son saw me having trouble with the car, so he got his dad to come have a look at it for me."
"And?"
"And I told you, the rad was frozen."
"No, I mean this O'Connell. He a nice guy?"
Randy shrugged and had to retrain the light back on the tire. "He's a local. They have their own way."
His father stood, rubbing palms to dislodge dirt, and retrieved the tire iron. "And this son of his?"
"Lyle."
"Uh-huh. Lyle. He a nice guy?"
A rush of heat began to bloom up Randy's neck. "Dad! He's only eighteen."
"So it is the old man."
"The old man that what?"
His dad walked to the other side of the truck and gave Randy a quick smile before he bent down and started tightening bolts again. "That you like."
"Bah!" The sound echoed louder than Randy had intended it to. He lowered his voice and frowned. "I most certainly do not. The guy can be an overbearing jerk."
His father didn't say anything. He just stood, dropped the tire iron back in the bed of the truck, tucked his hands into his pockets, and started walking toward the house.
Randy shivered against a gust of wind, snapped off the flashlight and dropped it on the seat. "Besides," he added, slamming the truck door, "he's not that old."
He pretended not to notice the smirk on his father's face when they met up with each other at the porch. "Up for a drink?" his dad asked.
"Always." Randy waited while his dad opened the front door, and eyed his father as he stepped past. "And I wasn't kidding. The guy can be a self-important ass. All 'do this' and 'do that' and 'don't talk to me unless I speak to you' kind of guy. Trust me, there is nothing there."
"Mm hm," his father nodded, toeing off his shoes. "Make mine a brandy, will you?" He was still grinning as he headed down the hallway. "I'll let your mother know we're back in."
*~*~*
The kitchen was blessedly quiet; nothing moved but the hands on the clock. A novel sat on the table, but it was long forgotten. Even as he'd tried to read the words, his mind had been a million miles away. Ghosts of Thanksgivings past haunted him. They snickered along with their cousin, Future, who was making a fairly strong case in Randy's head that Randy was going to be alone forever.
His mother had retired several hours prior, leaving him ample time to sit with his father and discuss everything from the fiscal future of Facebook to the political platform against homosexuality in Russia. Brandy and wine had slipped down their throats as if they were water, and when his father had finally risen out of the kitchen chair to head to the guest room he had been more than wobbly.
Randy should have followed—should have, in fact, been asleep for a couple of hours by that point. Instead, he'd watched as eleven became twelve, and he'd watched again as twelve had dragged the day that was into the day it was about to become.
It took more effort than it should have to shift his eyes from the clock to the glass doors that led to the deck. With the lights extinguished, no reflections marred his view. That was a good thing, really. The last thing Randy wanted to do was lament while staring into his own bulldog-pout expression. Besides, the view was surprisingly charming.
The finest snow Randy had ever seen h
ad started to fall, and though it was gone the moment it touched the ground, it looked nice in the sky. Whether the resulting haze was the diffusion of light against the billions of miniscule flakes or a fog lifting as temperatures cooled, Randy couldn't say, but he imagined the fog-shrouded snow as the perfect setting for something fantastical: snow queens or Jack Frost, walking snowmen or tipsy elves. Unicorns, even, if such a beast would dare to wander in cold weather.
Randy huffed a mostly silent laugh and reached for the almost empty bottle of wine, but it wasn't until he had lifted it in the air, looking through the bottle more than at it, that Randy caught a reflection of yellow light beyond it. His mind instantly sought out advancing headlights for several seconds before realization reminded him that nothing but trees and hills lay beyond the backyard's perimeter. It only took another second to shake himself free of alcohol-induced fuzziness and stand, then another to close the two steps between his chair and the sliding glass door. In that instant, though, Randy finally understood what he was seeing.
It had advanced as far as the deck, but did not come any closer—a wolf, though it took a bit of peering to identify the shape. At first glance, Randy had thought it to be a bear, considering the size of it. But the sharper angles were obvious, the legs too long and slim, and its snout too defined to be a grizzly. Randy's hand slid up the doorframe and across the wall, seeking the switch for the exterior light without drawing any attention to his movement.
"Don't run," Randy whispered, clicking the light as slowly as possible, as if the sound of the switch would be more of an alarm than the light that suddenly flooded the yard. The wolf flinched, raised its head to look at the light, and crouched closer to the ground. "Please, don't run."
He should have been screaming at it to get out and be gone. He should have been standing back and assessing the strength of the glass in the door. But self-preservation didn't even cross Randy's mind. He was too awestruck.
The wolf was literally the largest wild creature he'd ever seen that close. His previous Google and Wiki and sites-of-interest quests had led him to more information on wolf, the animal, than they had to Wolf, the community, so Randy was familiar with the details of an average wolf. While this particular specimen had the requisite gray mottled fur, its coat already thick with winter lining, and the large head, stance, and form of a standard wolf, it was far bigger than Randy knew to be normal. The length of its spine, head to haunch, was at minimum sixty inches. It was at least four feet tall from ground to shoulder. Randy had the oddest feeling that if the wolf could stand upright, it would tower over him by several inches.
"Hey there," Randy murmured through the glass, and raised both eyebrows when the ears of the wolf flickered as if, impossibly, it had heard Randy's words. His eyes widened as the wolf rested a paw on the stairs that led up to the deck. He gasped when, with a single leap, the wolf landed on it.
They stared at each other, Randy in his warm kitchen, eyes as big as they could get, and the wolf gathering a slow but steady layer of snow on its fur. It tilted its head first one way, and then the next, and moved forward again—only two steps across the deck, but its legs were long and its interest obvious. Even with limited movement, the two strides of the wolf closed the space between it and Randy to half its previous distance. Then it sat, squatting on the deck and wrapping its thick tail around its paws.
Randy couldn't think of anything to say but, "You're gorgeous." Its eyes were mesmerizing: dark amber, brilliant gold, intelligent and alert.
Without thinking, Randy dropped his hand to the locking mechanism on the handle of the door, catching himself just before he flicked it. Where the hell had that stupid idea come from? That would be a mistake best not examined through action. Yes, the wolf's tail was still. No, its teeth weren't bared. And while no expert, Randy was sure that the direct stare and erect ears were displays of interest, as opposed to aggression. Although... he paused and thought... he could have that completely backwards, too. It could mean, 'You look good, too—good enough to eat, in fact.'
"What are you doing out there, pretty boy?" Randy asked. Not that he could tell sex with the tail wrapped as it was. Not that he was sure he'd be able to tell if it wasn't. His research hadn't gone that far. But he did know that in the wild, females were rarely that big. If size truly was a gender indicator, this baby was most definitely male.
The wolf lifted its nose and tested the air, nostrils quivering.
"God. You're beauti—"
Something clambered across the hardwood in one of the rooms above him. With a start, Randy looked up at the ceiling. He cocked his head and listened for the sound of someone calling for assistance. Instead, he heard stumbling footfalls and his father mumbling against his mother's quiet reprimand. Randy smiled. He was going to get in shit for letting his dad drink so much, but too bad. His father deserved a night off once in a while, too.
With the grin still on his face, Randy turned back to the deck. The wolf was gone. Nothing but the round spot of wet wood in the middle of the snow dusting remained.
That felt like more of a shame than it should have, and as the snow began to fill in the empty spot, trading the wolf's heat for cold, so too did the temperature inside the house feel like it slipped a few degrees. Randy turned to peer at the thermostat and then decided against nudging it any higher. Oil was expensive and he was more than sure that his shivers had more to do with the booze than the cold.
He flicked off the light and peered into the yard. "Good night, furry dude."
*~*~*
Randy stared at the bottle of Crown Royal on the counter, still not entirely convinced he was going to bring it over. It was a good one, at least that was what the salesman had told him. Whiskey of any kind, least of all the Canadian variety, had never been Randy's choice of beverage, so he'd had to take the man's word on it. The bottle was nice, shaped in what took Randy too long to realize was supposed to be a crown-like design, and amber liquid winked through the cut glass and created interesting patterns on the kitchen counter. A yellow jug of extended life antifreeze (a.k.a., coolant) sat beside it, boasting a patented formula that guaranteed to be dependable, durable, and performance enhancing in all types of extreme weather. It was also a good one. The teenager behind the counter at the auto supply store had said so.
Randy had said his goodbyes to his father and thankful farewells to his mother, agreed to call more, promised to at least think about sending Avery a note (Dear Avery, go fuck yourself with a hammer—sideways), and made hasty plans for Christmas that he fully intended to get out of. Then he'd donned his weather-appropriate down-filled coat and a pair of insulated hiking boots, climbed into his well-stocked truck, and managed to not even glance at the O'Connell household as he'd driven past. He'd killed a couple of hours in the shopping center at Dayton, watching Thanksgiving decorations get replaced by snowflakes and elves, and spent far too much on a gingerbread latte with enough caffeine and sugar to induce an early heart attack.
He'd been home by early evening, and spent another couple of hours changing bed sheets and picking up the stray items that always seemed to manifest when one had house guests, until there was simply nothing else that he could do to put off the inevitable. It's one thing, he thought, still staring at his peace offerings, to promise one's self that you were going to be the better person; it was another thing entirely to actually force yourself to do it.
He stalked Vaughn's house through his upstairs window, praying that he would see Vaughn's truck pull out so that he could skulk over undetected and drop the gifts at the door with a quick note. Sorry to have missed you (yeah, right), just a little something to say thanks (and buy your acceptance). Hope you enjoy it (actually, I don't really care; I just hope it works).
He tried not to listen to the devil in his head telling him that knowing his luck, Vaughn didn't even drink whiskey. Or worse, had personal demons that caused him to despise that brand and flavor of alcohol most of all. Actually, if things went the way most things went whe
n it involved him and the O'Connells, Randy had no doubt that he'd show up with his gift and find out that Vaughn considered drinking to be a mortal sin. One of those mortal sins that were high up on the list, right up there with the one that read 'Thou shalt not drive without snow tires.'
The relief Randy felt when he saw taillights spark up in Vaughn's driveway was unreasonable. With his palms pressed to the glass and his breath fogging it in a perfect circle, Randy watched the truck move hesitantly to the end of the lane, kicking up puffs of powdered snow with each move of the pristine tires that he would have had on his vehicle since October. The truck swung out in a long, wide arc and began to inch cautiously towards town. Without another moment's hesitation, Randy snagged a fleece jacket and seized the two jugs from the counter.
The wind that blew through the trees was bitter enough to steal his breath. He steeled himself against the blast, huddled into an indeterminable shape, and skipped-ran across his lawn and toward Vaughn's.
The difference in temperature from the road to Vaughn's driveway could be likened to walking through a doorway. Swooping branches of pines embraced Vaughn's property, effectively shutting out the bite of the wind. Where Randy's lot had been cleared to leave it open in the front, Vaughn's entire lot was spotted with trees. It was as if a giant hand had descended from the sky and planted the sprawling ranch between them. From there the house had melded into its surroundings and become part of it.
A natural wood deck ran the full front of the home, and browning ivy had trailed up in several different spots, clinging contentedly to the wood grain. Tall grasses, long since robbed of their color, brushed dry tendrils against weather-polished pine siding. Cedar shakes hung in varying states of coloration from black to green as they fearlessly absorbed the worst that Aeolus and Zeus could toss at them. Yet even with all the trees and foliage, the stone driveway and yard were well kept, tediously emptied of weeds and unwanted growth. The property had the overall aura of a gentleman's cottage—if one chose not to look at the six or so vehicles in various stages of degradation that lined the driveway beside the massive barn.
