_OceanofPDF

“Good morning.” He hit the enter key before looking at me. “There’s
night staff if you want anything.”
“I’m good. Here.” I held out the fuzzy Christmas socks I’d packed.
“These are poly chenille. Warmest ever.”
He took them as if he wasn’t quite sure what I wanted him to do with
them.
“They’re one size fits all.” I pointed at his feet. “And they’re clean. So.”
“Santa socks?”
“Yep.” I sat down. “Biggest lie ever told for the two biggest lie-tellers
ever.”
He chuckled and kicked off his slippers.
“So, working late?” I asked.
“It’s seven at night in Beijing.” He pulled the socks over his feet,
stretching the jolly fat man’s smile. “And they never go home if there’s a
fire to put out.”
“Is there a fire?”
“There’s always a fire.” He pushed his feet back into his slippers.
“These really are warm. Thank you.” He closed the laptop and leaned back.
“You’re close to your family,” I said.
“Not all of them, but in general, yes.”
“I was with my parents, but… you’ve met the family I have now. It’s
not the same, obviously. I tried for a while, when I was a kid, but I got tired
of being laughed at.” I cleared my throat, forcing away the memory of any
specific, painful incident. There were too many and they were all
unbearable. “Anyway, I don’t think I realized how much it would hurt you
to lie to them.”
“Are you talking about feelings, Ella?”
“Are we not supposed to do that, Logan?”
He smiled, looked into the darkness for a moment, before rubbing away
an invisible blemish on his laptop. “Let’s talk about facts.” He pushed back
to a slouch, lacing his hands over his stomach. “Did you ever wonder why I
was at Wildwood? I mean, progressive school. Wall-to-wall music nerds.
Art three times a week. Kids missing half the year because they were
starring in some Marvel movie. Did that ever strike you as weird?”
“No. There were plenty of math kids.”
“Sure. Nadia Goodman was in quant lab, adding corollaries to chaos
theory, but that’s not me. I’m not a creative breakthrough guy. Look at me,