Page 21 of A Love Like Christmas Time
To Kieran’s credit, he quickly cleans the space in front of him. “All right, all right, I’m sorry. Now anyway, I just realized I haven’t introduced him formally yet.”
“I’ve met him.”
“But you don’t know his name yet.” Kieran rolls his eyes, tapping his fingers against the counter impatiently.
“Okay, I’m listening.”
“Caleb, this is Vanny. Short for… drumroll, please.”
He glances around excitedly, and Bobby taps his index fingers against the counter to appease him.
“Thank you, Bobby. His name is Dick Van Dyke, named after the one and only Richard Wayne van Dyke.”
“Only you,” I mutter as I pour frothed milk into his espresso. “Only you would go for that kind of name.”
I blink. Is he serious?
“I quite like it,” Bobby says with a grin and lets Dick smell his hand. “And he isn’t wrong. The guyisa legend. Ask anyone in this town and they’ll know who he is. Can’t say the same for the actor Henry’s dog is named after.”
“Which is a gap in education and a travesty.” Kieran sighs. “Let’s be real, if you’ve never laid eyes on human Jensen Ackles, you’re missing out.”
He fixes me with a cold stare, and I roll my eyes. I’m not going to call a dog ‘Dick.’ I’ll think of a nickname that doesn’t allude to male genitalia. “They also know Benedict Cumberbatch, doesn’t mean you have to name a dog after him.”
“Speaking of names…” Kieran watches the exchange between Bobby and me with wide eyes. “How come Caleb calls you Bobby, but Henry calls you by your last name?”
“Because Henry is stubborn as hell.” Bobby laughs and takes a sip of his coffee.
I walk to the other end of the counter to get two apple crumble rolls out of the glass showcase, putting them on two plates, only listening to them with half an ear. Delicious as these rolls are, they have a tendency to fall apart. It’s taking all of my focus to put them on the plates in one piece.
“I’ve known Henry since before he ate solid food. I think calling me by my last name stuck, the same way calling a teacher by their last name would stick, you know?”
“That makes sense.” Kieran glances at me as I set down the two plates in front of them. Then he tilts his head, drawing hiseyebrows together confused. “But wait. I thought Caleb grew up here too?”
“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Bobby barks out laughing. I shoot him a warning glare, but what can I say? He’s always been pretty immune to those. “I mean, he sure did a lot of growing up, but he first came here when he was, what, eighteen?” He looks at me, raising one of his bushy eyebrows. But I keep my face schooled. “Yeah, pretty sure he was eighteen.”
I subtly shake my head and cross my arms in front of my chest. It’s a story I’m not too fond of revisiting. One that, despite therapy, manages to pick old wounds open. Bobby’s eyes soften, and he gives me a small nod.
“Wait, how did you two meet?” His eyes jump between Bobby and me. “Where did you live before—”
“That’s a story for another day,” Bobby cuts in, to my relief.
“So, what am I supposed to call you?” Kieran absentmindedly strokes the dog’s head. He curled himself into a ball in his lap, his head nudged into Kieran’s elbow crease.
“Whatever you want, son,” Bobby replies amusingly, and takes a sip of his coffee. He reaches for his fork to dig into the pastry.
“Daddy?”
I almost choke on my spit. Kieran watches him with wide, innocent-looking eyes. Yet the twitching corner of his mouth reveals that he knows exactly what he’s doing.
Bobby grimaces, as if he’s torn between bursting into laughter and giving him a hard slap to the back of his head to make him come to his senses. Ultimately, he does neither of those.
Instead, he turns to Kieran, gives him a slow once-over, head to toe, then arrogantly lifts an eyebrow and leans closer to him.
“You couldn’t handle me,” he says in a low voice, and I wish the ground would open up to swallow me, because I one-hundred percent didnotwant to hear that. Much less havea picture of the stout man in his fifties wearing a leather harness pop up in my mind, but here we are.
“Bobby, Bobby, Bobby,” Kieran says with a mischievous grin. “You underestimate me.” But when he sees my face, he bursts into laughter. “I’m kidding, Caleb. Don’t look at me like that.”
“I did not look at you like anything,” I reply, and get back to making coffee.
