The Smell of Lilies

Chapter 11

Thank you for reading and voting :) The picture attached is just an idea of what Kel looks like. Enjoy!

"You have to scoop up more than you think," Brandon explained, clutching a hunk of white stuff. "Because it compacts."

After Brandon's shift at the Old Book Baron, he decided to take her to the local park for some snow lessons.

Kel scooped up two handfuls of snow from the ground and patted them together, making a clump.

"Good," Brandon said. He chucked his at a stop sign.

"It's hard," she noted. 

Brandon huffed out a breath of air. "Very good, Kel," he chided.

"Hey, cut me some slack. I've never done this before."

When he stooped down to pick up some more snow she chucked the snowball towards his head. It landed in his hair with a splat. He looked up with a dry smirk.

"I have always wanted to do that!" Kel chimed.

"At least you have good aim. Some of my friends from college can't even throw right."

"Are you insinuating that since I'm a woman, I can't throw?"

"Not at all. Just making an observation."

They silently started building a snowman together. He took care of the two bottom body pieces, the biggest parts in other words, while she started the head.

"Where did you go to college?" she asked innocently.

"Loyola U. of Chicago," he said flatly.

"Wow, pretty prestigious."

"Are you insinuating that it seems quite unlikely that I could ever get into a school like that?" he teased.

"No, not at all," she said back. "What did you study?"

"I got my bachelor's degree in English there."

"So did you want to do something with it? How'd you get to working at a bakery?" she pondered, getting frustrated with her snowman's head and finally decided to start over.

"I did actually. Originally, I wanted to teach, but you need at least a master's degree for that." 

He didn't continue. Kel looked up and saw that he was busy with his snowman body. He didn't answer her second question.

"Any reason you didn't continue?" she asked.

He pursed his lips but didn't look up. "I guess I just got busy."

"With what?"

'You ask a lot of questions."

She gave him an incredulous look and then set her snow head down. 

She was the one to pretty much describe her sob story of a life to him last night, or this morning technically. Didn't she at least get some insight on his life?

"Are you going to answer them?" she pressed gently.

Brandon stood up, kicked the ball of snow he had been rolling into chunks and leaned against a tree next to them. He took in a deep breath as he brushed the snow flakes off of his sleeves.

"I met Heidie my last year at L.U.C. She was into that kind of stuff, pastries and cooking. She taught me a lot and I was good at it. Really good. We stayed together for a long time. When I was twenty-six she opened up the bakery I told you I worked at. We were pretty serious so I helped her out with expenses and stuff like that, and I ended up working with her there. I thought I really liked it and found what was to be a decent life. I mean, I guess I did like it. But only to an extent.