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It was such an odd thing to see him there. Standing outside my usual café. He's the most unusual person I've ever met so you can imagine how it is. To see something so unusual in such a regular spot. Like finding an ice cream truck in the desert.

He had patches of snow covering his ebony fur. He could almost pass off as some spotted dog, but there's no mistaking it. It was him. The only man I ever fell in love with. The only person that ever gazed upon my soul so completely.

He gave me a stare much like the ones he had given before. His face seemed so cold, yet his eyes spoke volumes. It seemed to last decades, and yet it was over in one beautiful flash. He kept walking by as if nothing had happened. As if he didn't realize how fast he made my heart race.

People always say that black cats are unlucky, but what do they say about black dogs, black labs? I guess they don't say anything about it, but they should.

It all happened about a year ago. I was visiting my parents. A necessary evil I like to call it. The winter snow was just as cold and bleak as it had always been. A new café had just opened up and I was hoping to kill any sort of nostalgia with something brand new, something commercial and not so homely.

The café that I arrived at was nothing of the sort. It seemed to mesh perfectly with my childhood and this town. Wooden chairs, old fashioned decorations, sappy Christmas tunes. It's almost strange that this café hadn't opened up sooner.

Some new and rather fresh feeling did, however, envelope me as I was finding a seat after I had ordered my medium (yes not Grande, or Tall, as I had asked for, a medium) Carmel Frappuccino. I saw a black lab sitting by himself, he looked in my direction and that's when all my problems started. His blue eyes pierced straight through me. He wasn't smiling at me. He just had a rather empty expression, as if he were reading a book. For some reason my nerves started to get at me. The air itself very dense.

I continued walking past him as if nothing had happened, as if that moment was somehow just a fluke. I found an empty table near the back and sat down. I looked around, trying to absorb some of the dullness of the place. I needed to calm my nerves. To assure myself that this was still my boring same old same old town.

"Medium Carmel Frappuccino for Sam" The coyote that worked there yelled. It's not like I was going to leave without getting my Frapp. I figured I would just pass him again grab my drink and pretend as if nothing had happened before, very simple.

On the way up I looked dead ahead of me. No eye contact with anyone.

"It was fine" it I thought to myself "He was probably just thinking about something and he happened to be looking my way.

As I grabbed my Frapp and turned to go back to my table, he proved me wrong.

"So your name's Sam huh?" The lab said with a big smile on his muzzle. We were standing face to face now, and I realized that he was quite a bit taller than me.

I knew I needed to say something quick, make it seem like I could care less whether I talked to him or not. "Yeah" I replied quickly. As I continued walking

"Jet"

"Huh?" I said, as I turned my head in confusion.

"I'm Jet, nice to meet ya" He extended his paw to me. I didn't have a choice, I shook his paw. He had a very firm grip, but also one that had a bit of tenderness to it. "Why don't ya sit down with me?" Jet said as he broke our handshake and extended his paw over to his table.

I paused for a moment and looked over at the small table in the back where I was sitting.

"I'm sorry if I'm keeping your friends waiting, I'm sure they won't mind if you talk to me for a moment" he said sarcastically.

"And that was where this lab made his first mistake" I thought to myself. "If he wants to challenge me, a fox, in a battle of being overly critical and sarcastic then he's going to lose faster than he can even blink"

I took a brief moment to compose myself and said "I don't know, they can be a tad possessive. I'd say you've got about five minutes before they come over here and kick your ass"

That dog didn't even bat an eye at the comment; he smiled back at me and said "that's all the time I need"

Needless to say five minutes turned to hours, hours filled with casual laughs and light hearted banter. Turns out he's actually ten years older than me. Not that I mind or anything. We talked about nothing for the longest time, and it was great. At that point I had completely forgotten the piercing stare that he had given me earlier.

He was so easy to talk to, that was the best thing about it. We would have sarcastic go betweens every now and then, and all in all, he felt like someone I could talk to, and someone who could make a nice friend.

"Well I should get going" I said

"Oh yeah, no problem, but first I think you'll be needing this" Jet said as he handed me a small piece of paper.

"Oh, and what's this" On the small piece of paper, he had scribbled down his number and wrote "Jet, your prince charming"

That last comment made me uneasy for a second.

"Hope there'll be a second date" he said as he winked at me.

My whole body started to tense up in that moment, all from just one small sentence, one small gesture. The atmosphere had completely changed.

"Oh..." I struggled to continue "I'm not; umm I'm not gay sorry"

And what he did in response annoyed me, and still annoyed me to this day. He just chuckled slightly, and then he looked at me, through me. And with a small smirk he said "Well, if you ever are gay then give me a call." He then got up and walked away, as casual as he had always been.

It was official, I hated this dog, I hated his calmness, I hated how easy it was to talk to him. And didn't I say that I was the one who had to leave, not him? It felt like he took everything good about that day and ruined it. Shattered, in millions of tiny pieces.

But there wasn't much time left to think about it. I had already wasted all the extra time I had set aside before it was time to visit my parents. "At the very least" I thought "I won't be seeing him again"

Everything was the same; in fact everything was too much the same. The smells, the out dated furniture, and the squeak that my bed made when you sat on it too quickly. It was all there. It was as if my parent's house was preserved in a jar. Never changing, only slightly rotting and decomposing.

"Hi there deary, " my mother said. Still as cheerful and ignorant as I remember.

"Hi Mom, nice to see you again" I said, with fake enthusiasm.

"Honey, Sam's home" my mother said as my father came running up to me. He had aged a bit more. The silver streaks that used to be unnoticeable were then completely visible all over his formerly orange and cream colored muzzle.

"Well there's my Ol' slugger" He said. His voice still as hardy and lively as it had ever been. He took some quick jabs at my shoulder. He moved his gaze past mine and scouted the area behind me. "Still ain't bringin' a girl home yet huh son?"

"Ah, no Dad" I scratched my head and gave a light chuckle to his words. Truth be told it had been a couple years since I had brought a girl home to my parents. Even more truth be told, I had become bored with dating for about a year or so then. I never seemed to meet the right girl. They were too typical, too generic. I knew what I needed to do to get them, but what I didn't have was the ambition or the desire.

"What about that Mary girl, I always liked her" Mom interjected.

She seems to ask that same question every year since my high school prom. "Mary and I stopped seeing each other a long time ago Mom." I said trying to hide my irritation with hollow sounding amusement.

In a way that saddened me, I was already feeling drained. I loved my parents to death, but in a way I always felt as though I had to put on an act for them. I was their genius child, I did well in School and always did what was told of me, and by now I already knew how my parents worked. The way that the next two days that I would spend here were already crystal clear in my mind. We would chat for a bit, then do whatever Christmassy thing that would make Mom happy. Maybe talk some sports with dad, and then to top it all off, a Christmas dinner. And of course the presents.

Deep down, I would only tolerate it. The time I spent with my parents was not so much joy as it was the good feeling that comes from giving others joy. My parents were always happy to see me, and they were glad that I came to visit them.

There isn't much else that can be said about the visit to my parent's house. The time I spent there went exactly the way I expected, with a few variations here and there. The only thing that made this visit slightly different from my usual visits was that I occasionally thought about him. Jet, that is. And the worst part was, the more I tried not to think about him, the more I thought about him.

At times, I'd remember how fun and easy it was to talk to him. Then at others I'd remember how much of pain in the ass he was. And each and every thought was always finished off with the same question. "Why am I thinking so much about someone I only met once?"

I had to ignore that, and him. It was December 26th time go take a plane back home, to my new home. The one that I had created in my adult life. Back to my somewhat tedious job, back to the me that I had become.

It seemed as though destiny wanted to be a jackass however. Big moving red pixels read "Flight to Wentent - CANCELED" What the hell was I supposed to do then? Go back to my parents? I really didn't feel like coming back there. Two days of nonstop family fun was enough.

An image of Jet flashed into my mind for a brief moment. With his big cocky smile. There's no chance I would be calling him. But after everything was said and done, the next flight to Wentent wouldn't be until tomorrow. "I have to kill sometime" I thought "and then find some shitty motel and stay there." The whole thing sounded like so much fun.

My first thought was to go back to that new café, but then I thought that Jet might be there. And then it occurred to me, that as long as I stayed here there would always be a chance of him being at some hangout. "Only one more day, that's all I have to endure".

Jet picked up his phone on the second ring. "Hello" he said

"Hey... Jet, ummm. It's me"

"Ah foxy, so nice to hear your voice again"

I groaned "I have a name you know"

"Yeah it's Sammy" he retorted

"Just call me Sam alright?" I said.

"So Sammy, when's good for you?"

I groaned again. I hated this dog, I hated him with a passion. "Look, I'm not looking for a date or anything. I just... Well... you know I need some place to crash for the night and-"

Before another syllable came out of my mouth he already interjected "Oh sure thing Sammy, sleepovers are always so much fun. We can stay up late and tell ghost stories"

He hadn't the slightest bit of sarcasm in his voice, yet I already knew how sarcastic he was being. The dog was mocking me. "Why was I doing this?" I thought to myself and somewhere inside of me there was an answer, but it was an answer that I chose to ignore.

After a short pause he continued "I live right on the corner of Malentura and Deci, you know where that is?"

Of course I knew where that was, I'd only lived in this town my whole life. But he didn't know that. "Yeah I know where that is"

"You're gonna have to wait about two hours before you can come over though, I have some quick renovations I need to do"

"Yeah whatever... And thanks" I said, reluctantly

"No problem, I'll see ya then foxy"

CLICK, and just like that the phone call was over. It was done; I had set it I motion. I could still back out now, but I figured I'd use the two hours to think it over.

Sadly the only thing I accomplished in those two hours was procrastination and avoiding literally every feeling in my body. I honestly did have every intention to get all philosophical and question exactly why it was I was doing this, but something else always came up. I ended up knocking on his door as if the 2 hours had only been 2 seconds.

"So nice of you to come" Jet remarked

There he was, he seemed slightly more intimidating standing there. The night sky a watered down sparkle infested knock-off of Jet's deep black fur. Fancy jacket, red flannel shirt, and grey jeans

I wasn't entirely sure what I to say at that moment, so I just nodded and walked in. His place looked exactly as I had pictured it. Wannabe refined with a little bit of mainstream and worn out furniture for good taste. He had some nice pictures from some artist I'm sure I'd never heard of. His ceiling was oddly covered with some kind of foliage, but I paid no attention to it. His predictability made me smile a bit.

"Now the question still remains" He said "Why did you come here"

And then of course there was that volatile unpredictable side to him that made me realize why I despised him so much. I hadn't come in for more than a minute and it was already like he was interrogating me.

"It's exactly like I told you on the phone" I said, abruptly.

"You want something from me, you gave that away the second you looked into my eyes. You're surprisingly easy to read for a fox, you know that?" he said

And again he stirred up my insides. He was so peculiar, diving straight into the issue like that. I couldn't help but look away in embarrassment and anger. Anger for the sheer audacity that he had been so blunt and embarrassment because of how correct he was.

He inches closer to me and grabbed my shoulder. He looked straight through me again and said " Sammy, you have to find the things that you want the most in life, and you chase after them. If you don't, then you're not really living." He looked away from me for a moment and then his gaze returned. "All I know is that you wouldn't be here if you did want something."

In that moment he grabbed my hand and pushed his muzzle close to mine. My heart started pounding, seconds becoming years. He looked me right in the eyes with his beautiful blue omniscient eyes, and he whispered "Tell me Sammy, what is it you want from me?"

My eyes spasmed, I had to look somewhere else. Not in his eyes, any other place. Looking in his eyes is the same as telling him. I began to feel as the ground underneath my feet was disappearing. My body tensed up to the point where I couldn't take it anymore.

As my eyes drifted around I gazed up and lo and behold the cheap foliage was actually mistletoe. I can believe I didn't realize that sooner. It wasn't simply one small piece of mistletoe, no not at all. It practically engulfed the ceiling, like stars in the night sky. My body slightly relieved itself of some of the tension. Is that what he spent the last 2 hours doing? How needy, how jerkish, how cliché, how stupid, how sweet, how wonderfully idiotic was it that he took the time to put all that mistletoe up there?

The air was a bit less dense than it had been before, and I felt as if I could breathe again. But since coming here I decided that breathing properly was far too overrated. In one awkward movement I connected our muzzles and rode the rollercoaster of sensations and emotions that followed. Grabbing, groping, and feeling his tongue against mine. It all felt so right, almost as if I had been waiting my whole life to do it. I felt my heart beat again and it was over.

I immediately looked down, I couldn't bear to look into his eyes. I knew he'd have the smuggest look imaginable. Somewhere in between a toothy "I told you so" and cocky smirk. He put his arms around me and I didn't resist. He put his paw against my cheek and turned it towards him. I wanted to turn away, to not be humiliated so much, but my body had stopped listening to me a long time ago. Inevitably I looked at him. The only thing on his face was a warm comforting smile, which indirectly made me hate him even more.

"See, was that so hard?" He said softly. So softly that had I been an inch farther from him I wouldn't have been able to hear it.

There were no words left for me to say. I tugged on his flannel button shirt with both paws and pressed my face against his chest. My legs felt like spaghetti and I couldn't stand up straight any longer. I started to slowly slide down to the floor and he matched my movements.

We sat there for quite a while, not saying anything. Me wanting to cry into his chest, but being too proud to do so. And him, gently stroking my fur, not saying a word to me. His scent was warm and inviting, as it had always been. A mix of just the right cologne and natural musk. His body felt warm against mine. I noticed that then, at that moment, more so than with anyone else. His body heat radiated on to me, and it felt like a warm blanket covering me from the inside.

He was a jackass, but he was right, so god damn right it almost hurt. I didn't dare move from that spot, I couldn't face the admission, and all the complications that were certain would follow. I laid there about as long as person could lay there. Minutes? Hours? Days? It all seemed to mesh together in one long warm embrace.

Eventually I found the courage to get up and compose myself. I pushed myself away from his grasp, and got up, walking away a few feet from him, my back towards him, and I started talking. "Alright, you caught me in a moment of weakness. Maybe..." And there I paused for the moment, tongue tied. "Maybe I am attracted to you."

"You don't say" he quickly responded.

I hated this dog, I hated everything about him, and as much as I had wished, in that moment, for him to burst into flames and even greater desire filled me. "Get back over there" It said.

"Look Sammy, I'm not forcing you to do anything, in fact you were the one that kissed me back there"

My body tensed up again. Somehow I had hoped that that shockingly obvious detail had somehow slipped out of reality lost forever by the moment of passion that followed it.

He continued "I don't need you to say anything. This isn't a confession" he walked towards me and placed his paw on my shoulder. "We can go however slow or fast as you want. No one's pressuring you"

He made everything so simple, and I hated him even more for it. All the problems I ignored or spent years trying to solve dissipated, with a mere flick of the hand or an elegantly stated sentence.

"Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple" he whispered to me. God damn reader.

The beauty about the next kiss we shared was that it was so unexpected and passionate. I initiated it, again, and I found that I enjoyed it even more the second time. The warmth, his warmth almost a necessity for my body.

We slowly kissed over to his bed occasionally knocking over a book or two. Our kiss was broken. I tensed up for a second, here I was in a bed with another man. It was a picture that I never imagined myself in, well, not realistically. But here I was, and damn I have to admit he was hot.

He looked damn good in his damn flannel shirt, and god damn gray jeans. He always did, but I wouldn't have admitted it to myself until that point. And all I wanted to do was to get his body sexy body out of those clothes.

When he saw me taking grabs at his shirt he simply followed my lead and started undressing me too. Our tongues met again, which only helped add fuel to the fire. There was a lot of groping in between stripping.

My paws felt weird pressing against his zipper, I could feel his doghood pressing back hard against me. I rubbed it slightly and I watched Jet sigh out softly. We were both shirtless at that point.

"You sure you're alright" Jet whispered softly

Of course I was alright, I was better than I had felt in ages. At that moment the sensation of his cock was still fresh in my mind, and I was in a state of strong lust for him. So I figured I better do it, before I chickened out.

I got up out of the bed, and pulled him up with me. We kissed briefly before I pushed him against the wall. I got down on my knees and again I pressed my hands against his package, rubbing it softly. He sighed out with that infectious sigh again, and then I grabbed for his zipper and slowly pushed his jeans down. I brought my muzzle close to his boxers and rubbed my cheeks against his doghood, still concealed from me.

He said softly between sighs "You don't have to start off with this you know, you can just let me take care of you. I don't mind it really. I take it, this your first time, and if you're not ready we can just cuddle and-"

I looked up at him, and I'm not sure exactly what face I gave him, but he stopped talking immediately.

He continued "Alright then"

If I didn't do that then, I might never have had the courage to do it later. I wanted to suck him off I knew that I did. I wanted to give him pleasure; I wanted to hear more of his adorable sighs. His erection was now almost rudely protruding out of boxers, incredibly firm from all the encouragement that I had given it.

I took off my pants and then removed both of our boxers. He was slightly bigger than me, thicker too, but it didn't matter now. I took his cock in my hands and got a feel for it. It was just like my own. And I thought to myself "All I would have to do was not do what about 70% of my girlfriends did when it came to giving blowjobs and I'd be fine"

I slowly eased the tip of his shaft into my muzzle, putting one of my paws against his waist. He gave me a long warm sigh, and that was enough encouragement to continue. I eased the rest of his dick into my muzzle. I could tell that he was the type of guy that liked to get a slightly rougher blowjob. His hands continued to move back and forth awkwardly around, contemplating whether or not to grab my skull and force me down on him, his brain wouldn't allow him of course though. I knew he wanted to take it slow with me.

After taking his entire shaft into my muzzle I became more at ease with the whole process. Then started to bob up and down on his shaft, slowly, almost agonizingly slow because I enjoyed the subtle thrust of his hips. I could tell he wanted to shove his dick far down my throat, but he wanted to practically be a statue for me, to sculpt and explore. This was almost my way of getting back at him.

I continued to tease him that way for about another ten minutes until he finally whispered "Can't you go a little faster foxy" sounding slightly embarrassed and needy. I stopped briefly to smile and then I continued. I sucked on his shaft at a slightly faster pace. Then I proceeded to go back to a much slower pace.

The whole thing was rather amusing actually, I felt like I had finally found his Achilles' heel. Just as I was beginning to enjoy myself more, he retaliated. He moved one of his legs closer to my groin and he started to rub against my shaft. This made it much more difficult to focus of teasing him just right.

Both the sensations in my mouth and on my cock started to overwhelm me. I started to move my head more rhythmically and eagerly.

"You're amazing... at this" Jet said softly between pants. I could feel his hips starting to thrust into me, his resolve to being a statue diminishing. His thrusts combined with the movement of my head almost at times made me gag but his foot continuously stroking me, gave me enough encouragement to ignore it.

Eventually we were going at a rather fast speed and Jet spoke "Ah God, I'm gonna-"

And before I could react he had grabbed my skull with his hands and thrust into my muzzle, he made me gag slightly but it was irrelevant at the moment. He gave me one last final thrust and with that he filled my muzzle with his cum.

I had occasionally tasted my own cum, but I had never been filled with a mouthful of it. He pulled is dick out of my muzzle. And in a few series of gulps I managed to swallow all of his cum. Mostly because I remembered how much I disliked when a woman would spit out my cum. Honestly it wasn't really that bad, maybe I was just too horny at the time, but I kind of enjoyed it.

"I'm sorry for being rough there" he said still rubbing my shaft with his foot.

"I'm fine, don't worry about it" I responded

"Well, you're not quite fine yet" he smirked "now let me take care of you"

And once again he was right. It had been about a week since I'd last jerked off. With work and then family I just couldn't find the time.

He moved me over to the bed, my feet still touching the ground, and he spread my legs. "You know, they say men give better head than women" He said "Let me prove to you how right that is"

He put the tip of his muzzle against my balls, and then he slowly started to move his muzzle upward lick my balls all over in the process.

No women had ever done that to me and it was a completely new and interesting sensation. He then started to lick all over my inner thighs and occasionally he tickled me. I'd rub his head occasionally just to feel the warmth of his face.

After about 5 minutes of sexual licks and kisses, he finally moved toward my shaft. He pressed his muzzle against the very tip and licked softly. Then he enveloped my entire muzzle in one go. What started out from very slow movements turned into fast movements. The way his muzzle felt against my shaft was much firmer and rougher than I had ever felt before. We had only been sucking me for what felt a few seconds and embarrassingly enough I was already on edge. Again, he was right. This was hands down one of the best blowjobs I had ever gotten, not that I'd ever tell him that though.

One of his hands tickled my balls slightly as he continued to impale his muzzle on my shaft.

His movements became rougher and rougher until I couldn't control myself any longer. My legs jolted for a moment and then pressed against his face and neck. I sighed out powerfully and loud, embarrassingly loud as his climaxed in his muzzle.

It was one of the best orgasms I'd had in a long time, the soft feeling of his fur on my thighs, his tongue expertly working on my shaft.

It took me a while after to catch my breath and that alone was more than enough to give him a hint as to whether or not he gave better head than a woman.

We both settled back on his bed. He put his arm around me and we cuddled. The quiet snow falling outside only adding to the coziness of the bed, and his arms even more so. Everything felt serene, calm and in its proper place

We continued to talk to each other, about everything. I told him about my parents, my job, how I didn't live here, my hopes, and even some silly goals and dreams of mine that were probably better left inside my head. And he told me everything, about his life. His dreams, his hopes, his job, his parents.

"So you liked me from the very start?" I said questioningly

"Sure did"

His simple and easy answer warmed me to my core.

He continued "but you already knew that didn't you?"

I snuggled up to him and said "Yeah, but sometimes people need to hear things that they already know, just to be sure it's true."

He chuckled, and his chest reverbed and sent a nice sensation throughout my whole body. "That's a good one" he said "mind if I use it?"

"Only if you use it well" I retorted

He wrapped both his arms around me and shook the both of us playfully. This was just how it was in café. He was just as easy to talk to as he was back then. In fact he was probably always that easy to talk to, but in the midst of everything I guess I lost sight of that.

I drifted into sleep shortly after, with a warm and content feeling.

As I was leaving for the airport he peeped his head outside his door. "I'll call you" he said, with a wink and sure as hell he was true to his word. He called me about a week after, left a message and then called back a couple more times.

I never called him back. When I got off the plane, I wanted to return to my old life, and all the familiar sounds and smells made it pretty easy. The courage that I had had in his house had almost completely left me, and I ignored Jet just as I had ignored my feelings for any man. My life wasn't particularly good, but it wasn't particularly bad either. It just went on, in a decent and acceptable way.

At least it did for a while.

Somewhere along the line, my jumbled and chaotic mind finally had a coherent thought. After a lifetime of repressing and ignoring my feelings, one single thought shot out me. It whispered at first. Then after a time it roared, until finally it breached the surface so often that it couldn't be ignored. Finally, I reveled at the genius and simplicity of the thought.

He was worth chasing after.

And so I have to make two confessions. This isn't my usual café, I lied. And he's not the one out of place, I am. It had taken me a year to do it, but I came back. I was too embarrassed to go back to his place so I had hoped the café would be as lucky as it was the first time. And it just so happened that it was.

I don't know if he's found someone else, I don't know if he even wants to speak to me again. But I sure as hell do. I regret every ignored call, every day, every minute that I spent not talking to that wonderful black lab.

I had to catch up to him, nothing else mattered. I had to get up from my table run outside and chase after him. I pictured it about a thousand times in my head before my heavy feet actually moved. The whole world seemed to vanish, if a heavy metal band were playing next to me, I wouldn't have heard it. Even if Satan himself were standing right in front of me, I would have walk right passed him in a desperate attempt to make amends for leaving. For hurting someone who had only been kind and straightforward with me.

I ran outside, and I found that Jet had only taken a few steps from where I had seen him. My insides tensed up and stayed there, but my body kept moving.

"Hey" I said looking down

"Hey" he responded, turning around to staring at me.

"Jet, I'm... I'm sorry" I said, still looking down at the snow

"I know, the look you gave me back there already told me" The way that he had said it, the look in his eyes, he was the same old Jet. And I thanked God that he was. I eagerly accepted all the annoying things in my life that never changed, my parents, my job, my friends so long as it meant that this Dog wouldn't change either.

"Well since you probably already know what I'm going to say, I'm sure we can just skip it." I said, my nerves getting the best of me.

"We could" he said, as his hears flicked "But sometimes people need to hear things that they already know, just to be sure it's true."

I responded somewhere halfway between a chuckle and an intense sob. I ran up to him and kissed him deeply, our tongues reunited within our muzzles, as they should always be. He put his arms around me, and just like the snow underneath my feet, I melted.

_______________________________________________________________________________

The events that took place here are far too unlikely to ever happen again. If an extra second had passed, perhaps things would have been different. Jet would have decided differently, Sammy would have come to his decision a moment too late. All those things are to be expected of humans and furs alike. But every now and then, something amazing happens, and rather warm feelings are felt in a rather cold world on a rather cold day, somewhere in late December.