"Hoffman-HomeForChristmas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Abbie)

she had first collected it. Yes! She had them inside her, and they still felt
fresh.

Food arrived and Matt ate, dipping her bacon in the egg yolks and the syrup,
loving the citrus bite of the orange juice after the sopping, pillowy texture
and maple sweetness of the pancakes. It was nice having first choice of
something on a restaurant plate.

"Good appetite," said Plainfield. He picked out a grape jelly from an assortment
the waitress had brought with Matt's breakfast and slathered some on his dry
toast, took a bite, frowned. "Guess I'm not really hungry."

Matt smiled around a mouthful of biscuits and gravy.

"So," Plainfield said when Matt had eaten everything and was back to sipping
coffee.

"So," said Matt.

"So would you come home with me?"

She peeked at his dreamscape, found herself frustrated again by graphs instead
of pictures. "Exactly what did you have in mind, Bud?"

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 bum 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