Likewise Part 2 of 3

He was stocking when she came back.

"Do you have Cat's Cradle by any chance?" asked a female voice. He was down on one knee filling up the next-to bottom shelf and didn't turn around immediately. "It's by........by........"

"Vonnegut," he said as he stood up and turned around at the same time.

Suddenly he was 16 again at a local football game. He didn't really care about football, but his friends had practically dragged him to it, and now he was thirsty. Musing over how many other drinks he could have had elsewhere for the price of the one in his hand, he was walking back to his seat when he saw her. He thought she had black hair at first, but would find out that it was just a very dark brown. And green eyes. Green eyes that stopped you. Just like they were doing to him now. Someone bumped his shoulder and muttered a swear word. She was wearing a short jean jacket, with what had to be fake fur around the edges and cuffs, because later she would tell him how she hated to see any animal hurt. She was standing still too, and looking at him. After all these years, he never forgot the way she first smiled.

"Yes! Vonnegut!" She smiled the same way. Tucker blinked a few times before becoming fully present in the moment again. He didn't want her not to remember him. Frantically his mind searched for some key event, some pivotal point in time that would bring it all back to her. He thought of the last night before she went off to college. He still had another year before he went, and they weren't even going to the same school. They had both ditched a farewell party and had driven out to the highway. They parked in the median, and were laying in the grass listening to the cars pass on both sides. He had given her a lighter, not because she smoked (he knew she despised even the idea) but because...

"Fire is always so alive and so bright, and that is how I'll always remember you."

He stood there trying to read some kind of response in those green eyes, but could draw nothing. Then her hand slowly reached into one tight front pocket, and pulled out a lighter with a lion carved into one side. She had always said she wanted to be a lion when she was a kid. Now her green eyes were searching him.

"Tucker?"

***