Felix returned a few moments later with an electric saw. “Come here,” he said to me.
I inched toward the tree. “I don’t want to do this.” I held my hands up, wiggling my gloved fingers. “Have you ever seen an eight-fingered pianist?”
“I won’t let you get hurt.”
Ah hell, I believed him.
I crouched down at the base of the tree beside Felix.
“Closer. On your knees,” Felix said.
“Hey.” I looked at him. “I say that.”
It was cold out, but the pink tinge on his cheeks was definitely not weather-related.
“I can hear you,” Alan stated from nearby.
“Pretend you didn’t,” I called back.
Felix cleared his throat and put the saw in my hands. “Here, like this.” He told Alan to come hold the tree, and then, with his hands guiding me, turned the hacksaw on.
The razor-sharp edge sliced through the living tree in no time, pulp smattering the surrounding snow and my trousers. The last bit of the trunk snapped free, and Felix reached around me to turn off the saw.
“Hey! I did it!” I exclaimed, getting to my feet.
Alan was still holding on to the tree’s upper portion. “You’re a regular Paul Bunyan.”
I handed the saw to Felix and said, “Your kid is really smart.”
“In more ways than one,” Felix agreed.
FELIX ANDAlan invited me over for a late lunch after the tree-downing. They lived on the opposite end of Lancaster from me, in one of those sleek contemporary two-story cabins. It had a warm, sort of rustic lighting and atmosphere on the inside, but with the addition of massive modern bay windows that overlooked their snowy forested property. The interior did an impressive job of tightrope walking between something you’d see in a decorating magazine and looking like a home that people actually lived in. And now that I saw the sort of place Felix maintained, I was kind of embarrassed he saw the wreck that I called mine.
Alan gave me a quick tour while Felix was starting lunch. But after being shown the living room, bathroom, his room, and just a peek at Felix’s room before Alan shut the door on me, he retired to a reclining chair in the living room with his laptop and headset. Seeing as how Felix was a great father, savvy businessman, and apparently quite adept at interior decorating, I wasn’t surprised he could also add cooking to his list of merits.
I mean, the guy was perfect.
Who the hell would divorce Felix Hansen?
I poked my head into the kitchen. “Mind me in here?”
Felix looked up from dicing potatoes. “No, come sit down.”
I took a seat at one of the barstools in front of the island. The view from his kitchen alone must have made Felix’s house worth a cool mil. “What’re we having?”
“Potato and leek soup.”
“Sounds delicious.”
“Alan done peopling?” Felix asked absently, setting the potatoes aside to stir a pot on the stove.
“If you mean, does he have his game on, yes.”
Felix laughed.
“Hey,” I said. “I want to ask you something, but feel free to say that this isn’t the proper time.”
He turned to stand sideways so he could watch me and the stovetop. “What?”
