Summer
by pyrostinger

June 23rd - Freedom

Dexter Ranni sat studying his breakfast.  It was morning, the day of the last day of school.  This was it.  Now or never.  How he acted on this day, what he did would determine the entirety of his summer.  Or so he thought, anyway.  

He swirled the eggs and bacon around in his plate.  It smelled delicious and so very appetizing, and he would have eaten hearty had his stomach not been in knots.  It was worse than any day-before-test jitters he'd ever had in his high school career thus far.  "What have I got to worry about?" the rat said softly, pushing some eggs to the edge of his plate.  "All I'm gonna do is just... ask her out."

"Ask who out?" his father said, coming in at that moment.  Dexter's piebald fur went crimson around his face, gazing fixedly at his half-eaten breakfast.  Chuckling, Zander ruffled his son's hair and grabbed some of the eggs and bacon for himself.  "Well, you don't need to tell me if you don't want to, kid," he said affectionately, sitting down with the food.  "Just make sure that if you're gonna do somethin', you go out and you do it as best as you can, got it?"

"Yeah," Dexter muttered, glancing up at his father with his brown eyes before flicking them back down to his food.  "Gotta go all out."

"I'm not sayin' go all out," the older rat chided gently, smiling.  "I'm just saying that you put your best foot forward.  And if she turns you down, then don't dwell over it, alright?"

Dexter finally met his father's gaze.  Others often said that Dexter looked a lot like his dad, and when you put the two together, with their near matching fur patterns, eye color, and even that little inexplicable clip out of the left ear, they were hard to tell apart.  "How can you say that, Dad?  How do you know what happ--" Dexter stopped, realizing how foolish and petulant he was sounding, blushing again.  His father just chuckled.  

"I met your mother, didn't I?"  Shoveling some of the spread into his mouth, he chewed and swallowed, speaking again.  "I bet you didn't know she turned me down five separate times before she went out on a date with me for the first time, didja?"

Dexter just raised an eyebrow.  "She did?"

"Yep.  But we were friends before, and I think she was just uncomfortable around me for a bit.  We're still friends now, though we're not together anymore."  Biting off a piece of bacon, he chewed more thoughtfully, staring off into space.  "Best years of my life, me and your mother."  Looking back at his son, Zander gestured his fork between himself and Dexter.  "You 'n me are pretty good together, too.  Almost like me and her, but different.  Either way, I count myself blessed."

Dexter smiled a bit.  His mother and father divorced peacefully when he was ten.   Six years later, they regularly talked on the phone and kept in touch, though she had moved out of state.  She was a lovely woman, dark, lustrous fur, green eyes, and a beautiful smile.  She was a bit of a nomad, however, caught up in a wanderlust that her husband didn't contract, try as he might.  

"So," Zander went on, his eyes on his son again, "do I get to know the name of this mystery femme, or are you going to keep that secret?"  Dexter blushed again.  

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