Jamie was eating. For the first time in three days he was eating, and it wasn't scraps he'd find in a dumpster somewhere, but real food. An honest to goodness home cooked dinner. At a dining table, no less, surrounded by a pleasant looking family of rich white folks that called themselves the Nobles. Don, the kind man that brought Jamie into his luxurious home—rescued him from a bitter and freak blizzard just two hours ago—sat at the head of the table with his elbows propped and hands clasped together under his chin, smiling. Jamie could feel the man's kind eyes on him, but he was more concerned with attacking the unbelievably delicious yams on his plate.
He realized that this all could have been some sort of dream, or that he had died in that blizzard and gone to heaven, so he saw fit to revel in the bliss while it lasted. It's not every day a homeless eighteen year old black kid found himself in a situation like this, after all.
"When was the last time you had a meal, hun?" Olivia, Don's wife, asked while primly cutting through a juicy chicken breast with her knife and fork. She always took very small bites, and seemed to savor every morsel she so elegantly carried past her lips. Jamie vaguely remembered tasting the gorgeous meal Olivia had prepared. He'd been too concerned with getting the food down his esophagus and into his belly.
Jamie stabbed his last yam and stuffed it into his mouth, barely chewing it before swallowing it hard down his throat. The young man sitting across from him—who had introduced himself earlier as Ryan, Don and Olivia's eldest child—snickered, as did his eighteen year old sister Nina, a spitting image of her beautiful mother, sitting beside him.
"S-Sorry..." Jamie said.
"Don't be!" Olivia solaced. "Ryan, Nina, don't be so darn rude!"
"Sorry, ma," Ryan said with a bit of laughter in his voice still, "but he was really going at it!"
"Yeah, seriously!" Nina agreed, nodding.
"Well, looks like ol' Jamie here just worked himself up an appetite runnin' in that blizzard is all," Don said through lips that never seemed to stop smiling. Jamie had told himself that there wasn't that much happiness in the world to be smiling like that, but contrary to a lot of people he'd dealt with in the past, Don's friendliness, as well as his family's, seemed really genuine. That, or they were impeccable liars.
"Found him face down in two feet ah snow," Don continued, "completely unconscious."
Ryan and Nina murmured their surprise, and Olivia's face looked stricken.
"My God! Why were you running out there like that, dear?" Olivia asked.
Jamie looked to Olivia, and then back down to his plate. He found it difficult to look at her for too long. She was just so... gorgeous. Sure, he'd seen plenty of beautiful women in his life, but none of them appeared to match Olivia. Her long and lustrous red hair seemed to catch fire when the light hit it just right, and it framed her pale, heart-shaped face to perfection. Her big green eyes apparently possessed heat vision, for looking into them for too long induced melting. Her lips were full, glistening delectably with some sort of lip gloss. She was also stacked like a brick house, slim but remarkably shapely. Olivia could make a Coke bottle envious.
Nina was gorgeous as well, but she couldn't quite match her mother. She had inherited her mother's best features, from her ample breasts and hips sand thighs, to her gorgeous hair (though Nina's red hair appeared to have come in a bottle) and soul-capturing eyes. But there was something about Olivia... Something that Jamie couldn't put his finger on.
"I, uh..." Jamie started, trying to pull his thoughts together, "well, like I had told Mr. Noble when I came to..."
"Please, call me Don." Don's smile grew wider, which should have been impossible.
"Um... ah, Don," Jamie corrected himself, feeling a bit thrown off by calling the man by his first name. Sure, Don had insisted, but it still made Jamie feel awkward.
"You were saying, dear?" said Olivia.
"Uh, yeah, well," Jamie continued, "I was running to the shelter... I'd lost track of time reading at the library and was rushing to get there before they closed their doors for the night."
"Oh, you like to read?" Don's question surprised Jamie. Not so much the question, but how he asked it. It had been void of the condescension he'd grown accustomed to whenever he'd told folks that he actually read books, because apparently street kids are too preoccupied with running drugs and turning Tricks. Tally another point for Don Noble.
"Yeah... I love books."
"That's fantastic," Don said, "Ryan here has a large collection of novels that I'm sure he wouldn't mind sharing."
"What's mine is yours, dude," Ryan said, shoveling the last bit of his mashed potatoes into his mouth. He raked his fingers through his short, chestnut brown hair, then extended his hand to Jamie for a fist bump.
"Wait... are you saying I can stay here?" Jamie asked. The look on his face appeared to amuse Don and Olivia, and they snickered a bit.
"For as long as you like, hun." Olivia, finished with her meal, started to rise and collect dishes until Nina beat her to the punch.
"I... I ca—"
"Can stay for as long as you like, son," Don interrupted Jamie, smiling that unwavering smile of his.
Jamie just sat there for a minute, mulling over his new situation in his head. Were these folks serious? Did they really plan on allowing him, a homeless street kid, to stay in their home? To live in their home? He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment and then snapped them back open. No... he wasn't dreaming, after all.
"Dude, ya gonna leave me hangin'?" Ryan said light-heartedly, his fist still hanging in the air.
