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“Yeah there’s usually this many people,” Kevin said, scratching at the back of his head. “But I know there’s a few- uh- quiet places if you need it.”
“Thanks, Kev, but I promise I’m good,” Thomas assured him, folding his arms and leaning against the pillar they were standing next to. “What do you think my aunts, Sean, and Marcus are talking about over there?”
“Hm?” Kevin looked around until he spotted the four and frowned. “Oh God.” He swallowed. “I don’t know but I’m hoping they aren’t talking about anything embarrassing or trading clever punishments. My legs are still killing me.”
“I thought football players were immune to such things,” Thomas teased him, smirking. “You guys are running all the time.”
“Yeah, in the Fall,” Kevin pointed out. “And this year has been the worst. It snowed our fourth game. SNOW in September!”
Thomas patted Kevin’s arm. “I know, Kev, I know.”
“What do you know,” Danny asked as he and Mark came back with the drinks they had gone off to get, handing Thomas a red can.
“That Kevin hates the snow,” Thomas told him, accepting the can and popping the top.
“No, snow is fine,” Kevin said, taking an orange can from Mark. “It’s having to run and play in it that I hate. Seriously, Danny, I don’t know how you guys deal with it at the beginning of the season.”
Danny shrugged. “It’s got to be done. At least you guys are running around for the most part. Sitting in a dugout waiting to bat while your toes are going numb is awful.”
Thomas half tuned them out as they continued, the complaining about cold weather shifting to technical talk about sports that Thomas had given up on trying to keep track of. He was sure he got the same glazed over look that Kevin and Danny got when he tried to explain a coding error he was trying to fix.
Issac and Felinus were standing with O’Hare over by the massive tree in the far corner, a half dozen or so men wearing elf costumes close by as they moved the boxes around. His head tilted as he considered the couple across the room. Issac was looking better and better every time Thomas saw him: almost to a normal weight by the looks of it, though still with a haunted gaze that Thomas wasn’t sure was just his practically black eyes. He watched as Felinus’s arms wrapped around Issac’s waist, holding him close without interrupting the conversation.
That looks nice, he thought, almost feeling the tingling of someone’s arms wrapping around his own waist.
“Thom-as,” Mark half sang, his elbow nudging Thomas’s. He smirked, lowering his voice. “You’re blushing, dude.”
“They’re called freckles,” Thomas countered, his face warming as he scrubbed his sweater cuff over his skin.
“Mhm,” he said, still smirking and glancing over towards the tree. “I guess I never paid much attention to the elves before but damn-”
Thomas froze, his ears now burning along with his face. “I-I wasn’t looking at the elves,” he protested, hissing through his teeth as he glanced at the “Santa’s Helpers,” then away. “I w-was-” He paused and looked around again.
O’Hare, Issac, and Felinus weren’t by the tree anymore and he couldn’t seem to spot O’Hare’s bright red jacket or Felinus’s tall frame in the room.
“It’s alright,” Mark chuckled. “I won’t tell anyone. I think they’re about to give out the gifts here in a minute.”
“G-gifts,” Thomas asked him, desperate to latch onto anything that wasn’t the green dressed men. “What gifts?”
Mark opened his mouth, then seemed to freeze as a thought came to him. “Uh- Did you-” He paused again, frowning. “No… timing would have been… awkward…” He glanced towards the tree and the “elves” as they started moving through the groups with different stacks of boxes and occasionally calling out a name. “There should be a gift for everyone but um- usually we get a form to fill out… So…”
“It’s fine, Mark,” Thomas assured him. “It’s hardly the point of the season to receive a gift so it doesn’t-”
“Thomas,” an elf shouted, his head twisting so the clover tattoo just peeked over the high collar of his costume.
“Next to Danny, Shay,” Sean shouted, a grin growing wider as Thomas’s aunts looked back at him.
“Ah right,” Shay said, crossing the room and holding out a large rectangular box. “Here’s yours! I think I got-” He searched his stack once Thomas had taken the heavy box. “Yep. Mark, take that top one. Kevin, take the next one down. Danny, yours is the last one.”
Thomas frowned at the wrapping paper as the others got their boxes. It was almost metallic wrapping paper and there was a Santa label that read “To: Thomas From: Daidí na Nollag.”
“Daidi na Nollag,” he read, trying to remember why the words looked familiar.
“Daidí na Nollag,” Danny corrected, the tiny bit of Irish in his accent front and center. “Irish words for Santa.”
Kevin snickered. “You want to see O’Hare start telling the room off, call him ‘Daddy December.’ It’s tradition at this point to see if you can get a full twenty minute rant about how the only people who call anyone ‘Daddy’ are the English and people attracted to men who have daddy-issues. I nearly won it last year.”
“He hasn’t caught on to the fact that it’s on purpose?” Thomas asked, setting the present carefully on a nearby table so he could preserve the wrapping paper.
