Gideon swallows against the lump in his throat, focusing instead on the way Leo’s eyes linger on the faded ink until he feels his eyes prick again with tears he won’t shed. Instead, he wipes the counter and starts the water to wash the mixing bowls. “They weren’t hard to make, except for maybethe decorating. I liked the hearts best.”
I like your heart, Gideon wants to say, but he just throws a dish towel at his mate’s head instead of the heartfelt confession. “Come dry these.”
“Oh, come on…” Leo complains, bumping Gideon’s shoulder as he begins drying the bowl regardless. After a beat, and oh-so-casually, Leo asks, “Hey, did you get your Secret Santa gift done?”
Gideon stiffens, because yes, it’s done. No, he doesn’t want to talk about it. Sighing, he turns his head back to where there are only five gifts under the tree. He wonders whose is missing. None had name tags (he’d looked earlier), but none had smelled like they might explode or go bad.
Jay had asked him to double-check, though Rowan had been offended by the suspicion. Most of them had just smelled like a craft store. Gideon would know, and no, he doesn’t want to talk aboutthateither.
“None of your business, nosy-britches.” He flicks some soapy bubbles at Leo’s face. The beta had been lost in thought and hadn’t seen it coming. A blob falls from his nose onto his T-shirt before he looks incredulously at Gideon.
Gideon has three seconds to turn and run before Leo snaps his ass with his damp tea towel, chasing him down the hall toward the studio. Gideon cackles, thinking it’s no coincidence that Leo chases his melancholy away, too.
Rowan
“He’s going to love it,” his mother-in-law says as she pulls to a stop outside the Rhodes compound gates. “You’ve done a good job, especially for your very first time.”
“It’s not perfect though, and he’s…” Rowan waves his hand like she’ll know what he means.
“Perfect. I understand the sentiment. I won’t bore you with the details, but I gave something much like this to someone I love very much, a long time ago, and they still have it. I saw it just this morning. So I know for a fact that he will treasure it.”
He doesn’t need to open the brown paper bag where his Secret Santa gift is hiding to know his creation is less-than-ideal. But he’s been working at it every day, when he can find a minute to himself away from prying eyes. Luckily enough, everyone had been looking for time alone, too.
Rowan wonders if spendinglesstime together the last few weeks had been the goal. Probably not, but even if that had been the result, he’d seen how his mates’ sly faces and teasing comments had raised the level of anticipation. It made the time theywerespending together during this busy season more fun.
Even Gideon, when he was home, wasn’t griping and complaining about entitled tourists. Luca had whispered to him just yesterday when they’d been watchingThe Muppet Movie Christmas—a mutual favorite—that maybe if Gideon didn’t put cilantro in everything, customers might complain less. Finn had nearly choked on his popcorn when Gideon had spun round and pointed a wooden spoon at Luca in a silent threat.
So yeah, Secret Santa has been a learning experience for everyone, even if he has some performance anxiety to get through in the next…fifteen hours.
“Thanks for helping me. It’s been fun.” It had been. His mother-in-law is cool. He’d been intimidated to ask for her help at first, but when he’d called, she had taken him to the right stores, got him started, and even sat with him over several hours while he’d made mistake after mistake after mistake.
She was actually really kind. He should have expected it, given who her son was. Her wicked sense of humor made him miss his own mom, even though they were really nothing alike. “And I like the little bits we added at the end.”
“Me too. And the color suits him. You inspired me to create some things of my own these last few weeks, too.” Hers were perfect, of course; she’d been doing this for years. Maybe he’ll keep it up, and he can be better by summer.
“Do you think we could…uh…maybe do this again?”
“I look forward to it. We’ll see you all on Sunday after you pick your mother up at the airport?”
“She’s excited to see you all. It’s been a while.” Since the trial, actually, when all their parents had shown up to support Nix.
“Wonderful,” she murmurs. Her car is running, and the heat is blasting her sweet scent through the interior. It’s calming. “Rowan?”
“Mmm?”
She places her hand on his coat sleeve and squeezes. “He’s going to love it,” she says, as if she can read his delay tactics better than he can.
“Yeah. Okay. It’s going to be okay,” he repeats, and squeezes her hand before he opens the door and climbs out. “Thank you so much, and have a Merry Christmas. I’ll see you on Sunday.”
“Bye-bye!” She nods and waves. Rowan watches her pull away so fast that the rear end fishtails on the black-ice. But she quickly gets the big car on track like a pro, clearly an expert driver even by Rowan’s exacting standards.
He does a quick check of the pack’s whereabouts on the phoneapp they’d installed after the break-in last year, before slipping in the side gate. Everyone is home except Gideon again. It worries him to think about why he’s out so late, all the way across town, so he doesn’t. He’ll worry about getting his Secret Santa gift wrapped and under the tree, and then he’ll worry about Gideon…and the gift itself.
Ugh. Fuck, he hates this feeling of being inadequate.
When he keys in the code and enters, he’s met with the scent of burnt sugar. The real kind, not the my-omega-is-furious kind. Tsuki comes barreling around the corner, and Doodle is meowing loudly while Domino flies by covered in flour. There’s a blaring fire alarm that makes Rowan peek his head around the corner to be sure nothing is actually on fire, before he texts the all-clear to the security company. He receives confirmation that this is thethirdalarm they’ve received in the last two hours.
He can see why, too. Nix and Leo are using tea towels to wave smoke from Gideon’s normally pristine kitchen, and Luca has the sliding glass doors wide open while Jay is sweeping up the remnants of broken cookies on the floor. There’s a tray of burnt chunks on the top of the stove.
