“Where did you come from? How’d you get here?” Nikki, Cas saw somewhat to his surprise, actually seemed glad to see him and proved it with her next words. “God, it’s good to see you.”
“Is it? I wasn’t sure you’d feel that way, me dropping in unannounced like this. I would have called first but you just told me where you lived, you didn’t tell me your phone number.”
“Stop apologizing. I invited you, of course I wanted you to come. I just didn’t expect you this soon. You know you, the Hamlet of Sam Adams High. Usually it takes you forever to decide to do something. Or have you changed?”
She was teasing but in typical Cas-fashion he thought he was being accused of something and defended himself. “No, I haven’t changed. You know, thinking things over isn’t a crime.”
“Then what are you doing here already? We only ran into each other last week.”
“I–“ With the stealth of a sneak-thief, the answer struck him from behind. “I…just wanted to…see you again.”
There are moments in life when time simply stops as if the machinery of the universe had unexpectedly hit an iceberg and ground to a halt. They generally occur when we are experiencing one of those short flashes of enlightenment that are all we ever get, instants when the clouds part or the fog lifts or the sun comes up after a night of drunken wandering and we discover we spent the long cold dark ten feet from our own front door. Moments, in other words, when reality manages to punch through our walls of illusion long enough to slap us upside the head with a heavy mitt and shout, “Get it now, moron?”
Cas and Nikki were having such a moment. Being human, neither, of course, did anything about it. Cas looked in her bright blue eyes for about as long as a hummingbird takes to flap one wing, and then down at his sneakers. Nikki said, “Oh” and held her breath a second longer than she would have otherwise before she finished, “You can bunk with Jonathan. Phil’s in Boston for a few days. Come on, I’ll show you.” And the moment passed – gone but not entirely forgotten.
