Lock-pick hearts

[Still searching for the entry wound]
Rejection that pulls you in for a hug. Like a yellow butterfly in December___.
A case unsolved. A riddle still unwound that only exists through memory.
We met by working together. I was the sous chef that gutted, cleaned & applied economic flow to the kitchen. Starting by working w/ two drunken 'philosophers' so down on their luck they could never get up out of the mud they had caked themselves in out of sorrow. The head chef & I had fired the other one, & he took the job of dishwasher.
On that day, when he walked in, it was just me working. He didn't look at me, he didn't say anything, he just walked right to the pit & started scrubbing.
Most of our beginning talk was a series of orders, & in the midst___ the head chef went missing. Naturally, I took over. He got moved up to assistant, thus we worked side-by-side___ mostly in silence, aside from the music I played. [You need tunes when you wake up half alive but mostly dead, fucked on pain killers & flipping hundreds of crepe shells & bashing out quiches before the lunch rush hits.] Eventually we started cracking jokes, laughing, telling stories & getting to know each other in that backward ass way. The first time I saw him in awe occurred as I pulled quiches out of the oven bare handed. He had burned himself attempting the same using rags (we didn't have mitts). [My pain tolerance was so high & hands so callous from heat that it didn't bother me.]
Somehow___ eventually, we started spending time together outside of the kitchen, but not in the way you'd think. He's the kind of guy that quits a job by posting a note on the cork board, saying his band is going on tour (I didn't even know he was in a band, until he was gone). Once he was on tour I quit too___. Only, I went in & prepped everything for the week, made sure another person was there to handle the line, & walked out.
It wasn't sweet, it wasn't cute, it wasn't even direct. We were both fucked up & just sliding through life, but in the middle we found something I still don't understand. Sometimes I supplied the whiskey, sometimes I supplied the weed & sometimes we slept in the same bed.
In his most honest moment___ I slammed several doors on my way out. We never walked away from each other permanently, we never talked about any of it, we just went about our business & occasionally met up or ran into each other.
Years passed, & the last time we actually talked to each other was over the internet. For some reason he felt compelled to confess how horribly a female had treated him, & I understand that moment. It was only confession though, & he ran away from the conversation he started.
He always ran away.
Little does he know, on occasion, I check up on him. Just to know he's still somewhere, doing something & being himself. The person I always oddly accepted, knowing I could never hold for more than just a moment.
The kind of moment that rejects you, yet pulls you in for a hug, & remains as a spark in memory.
Like a yellow butterfly___ in December.