"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Home for Christmas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

He blinked, then set his coffee cup down. His pupils flicked wide,
staining his gray eyes black. “Oh. That sounds bad. What I really
want, I guess, is not to be alone on Christmas, but I don’t mean
that in a sexual way. Didn’t occur to me a kid would hear it like
that.”
“Hey,” said Matt. Could anybody be this naive?
“You could go straight to sleep if that’s what you want. What I
miss most is just the sense that someone else is in the apartment
while I’m falling asleep. I come from a big family, and living alone
just doesn’t feel right, especially on Christmas.”
“Do you know how stupid this is? I could have a disease, I could
be the thief of the century, I could smoke in bed and burn your
playhouse down. I could just be really annoying.”
“I don’t care,” he said.
She said, “Bud, you’re asking to get taken.” Desperation like his
was something she usually stayed away from.
“Jim. The name’s Jim.”
“And how am I supposed to know whether you’re one of these
Dahmer dudes, keep kids’ heads in your fridge?” She didn’t
seriously consider him a risk, but she would have felt better if she
could have gotten a fix on his dreams. She had met some real
psychos—their dreams gave them away—and when she closed
dream-eyes, they looked almost more like everybody else than
everybody else did.
He stared down at his coffee mug, his shoulders slumped. “I
guess there is no way to know anymore, is there?”
“Oh, what the hell,” she said.
He looked at her, a slow smile surfacing. “You mean it?”
“I’ve done some stupid things in my time. I tell you, though…”
she began, then touched her lips. She had been about to threaten
him. She never threatened people. Relax. Give the guy a Christmas
present of the appearance of trust. “Never mind. This was one great
dinner. Let’s go.”
He dropped a big tip on the table, then headed for the cash
register. She followed. “You have any… luggage or anything?”
“Not with me.” She thought of her belongings, stowed safely in
the basement two miles away.
“There’s a drugstore right next to my building. We could pick up
a toothbrush and whatever else you need there.”
Smiling, she shook her head in disbelief. “Okay.”
The drugstore was only three blocks from the restaurant; they
walked. Plainfield bought Matt an expensive boar-bristle
toothbrush, asking her what color she wanted. When she told him
purple, he found a purple one, then said, “You want a magazine? Go
take a look.” Shaking her head again, she headed over to the
magazine rack and watched him in the shoplifting mirror. He was
sneaking around the aisles of the store looking at things. Incredible.
He was going to play Santa, and buy her a present. Kee-rist. Maybe
she should get him something.
She looked at school supplies, found a pen and pencil set (the best