All I Love and Know Read Online Free PDF

started to snow, big early-spring flakes spreading over the bus windshield, melting as soon as they hit the asphalt. By the time they crossed into Massachusetts, the trees lining the highway were drooping with snow, and the blinking lights of the salt trucks pierced the blurry dusk. The guy sitting next to him had fallen asleep with his head thrown back and his mouth open. Matt wondered if he would even recognize Daniel, and tried to bring his image into his mind. He didn’t remember the conversation they’d had at the party very well—he’d been more than a little drunk—but he remembered feeling drawn to him, and after all, Daniel had given him his phone number. He mulled over Daniel’s words on the phone, I have a spare room , amused and insulted by Daniel’s presumption that he was dying to sleep with him. But he knew that he’d have said the exact same thing, just to protect himself.
    As the bus pulled slowly into the Springfield station, he looked out the window and recognized Daniel immediately; he was standing under a small overhang, his hands in the pockets of a parka, his face a study in moderate, noncommittal welcome. Matt stood and brought down his backpack from the overhead rack, worried suddenly that his arrival was a chore for Daniel, imagining him complaining to his friends that he had to host some guy he’d met at a party. When he stepped off the bus, he approached awkwardly, smiling. Daniel looked older and more ordinary in the winter dusk than he had in the glow of alcohol and party music, and Matt felt a small pang of disappointment. Daniel proffered his hand, then laughed self-consciously and kissed him on the cheek. That laugh crinkled his eyes and lifted Matt’s spirits. They walked out through the station’s slush-covered floors. It was snowing hard now, and Daniel brushed the snow off the windshield and back window of his Camry as Matt shivered in the cold front seat, shaking snow out of his hair and wondering what he’d gotten himself into.
    It took them forever to get to Daniel’s house, visibility was so diminished. “Remind me what you do again?” Daniel asked. He was sitting forward, straining to see the road. When Matt spoke he had to raise his voice over the din of the defroster. “I’m a graphic designer,” he said.
    â€œShit,” Daniel said; he had gotten himself stuck behind a snowplow, and clumps of snow and dirt were pelting the car. Matt hugged himself and slouched down into his jacket.
    By the time Daniel pulled into the driveway of a small Cape house in Northampton, Matt had lost his bearings and had no idea where Northampton even was. The walk was still unshoveled, and the wind howled in their faces, and when they got inside they stamped their feet, shouting. Matt shook his head, spraying cold drops everywhere; Daniel laughed “Hey!” and took off his glasses and wiped them on the T-shirt under his sweater. A yellow Labrador barged into the mudroom, its tail banging against the walls. “This is Yo-yo,” Daniel said, as the dog pressed himself up against Matt’s thigh with a crazy, tongue-lolling smile.
    The house had pine floors with wide, soft boards. Daniel took him up a creaking flight of stairs to the guest room, where Matt had to stoop under a sloped ceiling. The bed was made up in maroon sheets and a gray comforter, the effect both masculine and warm. Daniel left the room and returned with a sweatshirt and some wool socks. “Thanks,” Matt said, peeling off his wet socks and cupping his hands around his cold toes. Daniel said, “Well, we can’t go out, so I’m going to see what I have for dinner. Come on down whenever you want.”
    After he left the room, Matt looked at the dog and said, “Well, my friend, this is quite awkward.” Yo-yo pushed his muzzle into Matt’s hand, and he scratched the dog’s forehead with two fingers, grinning as a