Page 14 of Don't Bite the Boy Next Door

“Ate them?” he turns back to me.

“Only one, thankfully.”

“They do that,” he shrugs, making to walk towards me, “are you planning to put them in the pot?”

“No,” I gasp, “they are pets.”

He nods as though he figured as much, and I step back out onto the porch so that he won’t pass too close to me, dangerously close, on his way out.

“I couldn’t understand it,” I add as he leaves the house, “why Spike would do that.”

“Spike?”

“The male rabbit – he’s such a sweetie usually.”

“One way or other fathers destroy their sons,” he says quietly, casting me a quick sidelong glance as though he had said too much, revealed something of himself he shouldn’t. “You have a merry Christmas now.”

“You too,” I frown, as he vaults down the steps and strides to his old Ford truck, starting it with a roar and driving away without looking back.

“You too,” I repeat, as I ponder his words about fathers.

Turning inside, I shut the door firmly behind me and, hands on hips, consider how I might decorate a tree that takes up fully one-third of my lounge room.