Northern Lights

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.”