Summer to Winter

Chapter Fourteen

Syden was really enjoying her time with Kal (and Henry) but felt a little strange that she had been talking to her new boss for almost three hours. He was really nice, not that Adam wasn't, but she felt an instant report with Henry. She had to work to get to that level of comfort with Adam. It took at least 6 months before the two of them were comfortable in close quarters with each other. By the end of her tenure with him, she had seen him with snot dripping from his nose and had every important date, password, address, phone number, email (you name it) memorized. She could tell what he wanted with a look and knew what he was thinking through his mumbles and chicken scratch notes. She was not expecting that kind of relationship with any of the cast that she was going to deal with for the next six months. She knew that this was temporary and hopefully something would come out of it at the end, but she wasn't holding her breath.

"Would you and Kal like a ride back to your house?"

Henry laughed, "Actually, that would be wonderful. I'm getting a little cold as well, I wasn't expecting to be out so late. I just want to say thanks again to Dave before we go."

She smiled, "He would like that. I'll meet you at the front door in a min."

Henry walked inside, shook hands with Dave and as he was saying thanks he looked outside and saw Sy hand her to go bag and some cash to a homeless lady sitting at the bus stop in front of the café.

Dave looked to see what Henry was staring at and said "She's been doing that for years... a heart of gold, that girl. It started because she didn't want to waste the half that she couldn't eat, then I think it just became habit for her. She started making me donate all of my order overage to the food coalition that she volunteers at as well. I get a tax right off and they get high quality restaurant meat and veggies every night. It's a win-win."

As Henry walked out to meet her, he felt himself growing fonder of her but knew he had to fight the feeling. It was quickly becoming evident that Henry was going to have a tough battle ahead of himself for the next 6 months.

Sy had just given her other half of dinner to the woman at the bus stop when she felt Henry's hand on the middle of her back. "Are you ready to go?"

She turned to him and said "Yep!" Sy looked back at the woman and said, "Have a good night, I'll see you soon."

As they walked to her car, she could feel him walking close to her, the heat from the skin on his bare arm radiating onto hers. They both walked to the driver's side as she clicked the button to unlock the doors. She opened the back door to grab her sweater, let Kal jump in and was surprised when Henry opened the driver's door for her at the same time. "What a gentleman, thank you!" As he settled into the passenger side, she mused "Guys don't do that anymore."

Henry raised his eyebrow, "Hmm, what's that?"

"You know, open doors, pull out chairs, blah blah blah. My older brothers used to take me out on bro/sis dates when I was younger to teach me how ladies were supposed to be treated. I remember a boy honked his horn instead of coming to the door once... they both stomped out there and said I would not be going on a date with him that night or ever again until he figured out how to treat a lady." She snorted, "The poor kid came to the door with a sad bunch of flowers the next time... So where am I going?"

Henry laughed, "I'm amazed the poor kid didn't shat his pants when he saw two boys coming at him from the house..." he started the directions back to his house. Sy pulled out, started driving and snickered "you haven't met my brothers, they are not very intimidating. They did have bat with them though, so that may have helped."

She drove along, following his directions and realized she was going towards a very familiar neighborhood. She took a deep breath and hoped for the best. It wasn't as bad as she thought it was going to be, but Henry happened to be renting a house down the street from where her ex lived. Well, that sucks... she thought.

They pulled up to Henry's house and hugged before Henry got out of the car. "Thanks for a great dinner and even better conversation. I feel like a normal human for once, you don't know how much I appreciate that."

She smiled, "Any time, sir." Kal gave her one last lick on the cheek and hopped out of the car.

He turned back as she pulled away and watched her drive off into the night. He smiled to himself and thought about how normal he felt. It was a nice feeling.