That December chill chases Kurt through the bookstore's doorway. He shivers and tilts a steaming espresso to his lips, stares around with bright eyes.
The Bookcase—Kurt's been here more often than his own bedroom, strolling between towering shelves in search of that Chuck Palahniuk tale, that Steven Chbosky novel. Especially in this boring winter break, it's like a second home.
And, so acquainted with the store, he strides with steps decisive toward a crevice of the place, past the romance and the mystery and the science fiction, and finds the book.
He recently acknowledged this author and hurried through his stories with mirth and tears, excited and dismayed to reach the last.
The store is almost void of customers, a few shoppers here and there.
It's alone on the shelf, the last in stock and understandably so. Somebody else stands nearby, observing novels on the same shelf. Kurt crouches to retrieve his book, hands on the paperback cover along with somebody else's. Kurt's eyes trail up.
Somebody else gazes back with these wide hazel eyes. He instantly retracts his hand, proffering self-depreciating apologies and the last copy of the book.
This is where Kurt feels guilty. He wants the book, of course, but this is an unintentional form of reverse psychology, so much that Kurt wants to let him have the book and the entire store and his own left arm.
"No," Kurt's saying, "you can have it."
But the boy, now he's too refusing. His mouth stretches taut, on the outskirts of a smile, and he replies with force, "No, you have it."
Kurt shakes his head.
They're stooped before a bookshelf, passing the novel between each other in some game of literary hot potato, and then they laugh. The sound fills the otherwise silent store, relentless and contagious. Kurt remarks the beauty of the boy's unbound grin.
"Really, though, you can have it." The boy sobers as he insists this.
"No." Kurt's sure. "It's yours."
"Oh, not again," the boy says, and Kurt's laughter resonates.
The snow descends on this slightly less boring morning and Kurt is so without anything to lose. And, besides, anyone who likes this author is definitely worth a spot in his life. So he says, one hand extended his way, "My name is Kurt."
"Blaine."
What'd you think?