“Want to share a glass with me? I was about to watch a movie and have a glass of wine. But I don’t like real wine. I like very, very sweet dessert wines.”
“I’d like that very much,” Feral said.
Alison stepped back and opened her front door widely as she stepped to the side to allow him to enter. “Come in.”
“Thank you,” Feral said, looking around the foyer of her home as he did so. He took in the old, original hardwood floors and the throw rugs that centered the living room and the dining room on the other side of the stairs. He glanced past the stairs and decided the kitchen must be located in that direction, then up the stairs and smiled when he saw the old, yet pristinely kept stair runners in cream, gold and burgundy. “Your home is beautiful, Alison. It’s like walking into a hug.”
She looked back at him as she led him down the hallway and into the kitchen. “That may be the best description for a home that I’ve ever heard.”
“It fits. It’s cozy, and warm, and friendly,” he said as he looked around the pale yellow kitchen decorated with white daisies and the occasional delicate green stem for contrast.
She smiled as she took a wine glass out of her cabinets and filled it with chilled red dessert wine. “Here you go,” she said.
“You’re not having one?” he asked.
“It’s in the living room already.”
He nodded and followed her back down the hallway.
“There’s a bathroom there,” she said, pointing to a darkly stained wooden door. “And my bedroom is the door on the left, right before the kitchen. This place was my parents, I think I told you that already. But it’s mine now, and every time I think about redecorating it, I just can’t seem to think of anything I like betterthan the way it is already. I’ve replaced a throw rug or two, but I like things the way they are. It’s old fashioned, but I love it.”
“I think it’s called retro now, and people would pay a fortune to have the decor you do. Besides, if you love it, why change it?”
“I don’t know. Just thinking of a way to try to break out of my shell, the mold I seem to have fit myself into.”
“I like it as is. I can’t imagine it could be any better than it already is, but if you want something different, just do it. It’s yours, nobody is going to tell you that you can’t.”
She paused as she walked into the living room, looking around the room, trying to see it as he did, and lifted her hands in an ‘I just can’t decide kind of way’. “I’ve about decided I’m a creature of habit. I think if I did change it, it wouldn’t last very long before I changed it back.”
He grinned at her. “Good. I think it’s perfect.”
“So,” she said, as she reached for her glass of wine and took her seat on the sofa, “what do you want to watch?”
“Just not war, or battle. I’m so over war and military. I like peaceful, easy going, anything other than that.”
“Done,” she said, flipping the channel to her saved movies. She chose ‘Sweet Home Alabama’, and settled in, tucking her legs beneath herself again. She eyed him to see what he thought about her choice.
“Sweet Home Alabama, huh?” he asked, as he settled in.
“Sweet Home Alabama,” she said, pressing play.
“Hey, do you have somewhere I can safely store this for now?” he asked, indicating the firearm in the holster on his hip.
“I’m sure I do, but I don’t know where that would be.”
“You think it would be okay if I just slid it under the sofa for now?”
“Yes. Definitely don’t leave it out. Maeve and her son, Griffin, are staying with me. I wouldn’t want him to find it unattended.”
“If I leave the room, it’ll come with me.”
“Okay,” she said, taking a sip of her wine as he took off his entire holster and slid it with the gun inside it under the sofa where he sat.
As the movie started he sat beside her, lounging really, slouching on her sofa, sipping his wine with a slight smile on his lips that she didn’t think he was even aware was there.
“Have you seen this one?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m in the small percentage of the Variant who actually have memory of my life pre DNA experimentation and captivity, but I was still absent from society for a long time, so I probably missed it.”
