Page 35 of His for Hanukkah

Adam: Tate, I’m done!

Adam: It was awesome. I can totally identify the ideograms for “hello” and “good” in Chinese, which I think will get me a long way in communicating with my team.

Adam: Are you coming home soon?

Ah, so he had other reasons for learning Chinese. Still, it was exciting that he was doing something that he liked and responding so well to Tate’s guidance.

Tate read the texts again and realized that Adam had called his apartment “home.” Warmth filled his chest.

Tate: I’m proud of you, baby. But I need to finish something else before I can come home. Do you want another task?

Adam: No. I want you. =P

Well, it didn’t get any clearer than that. Tate wished he had planned his time better.

He knew that Adam would want him a lot more than anything he could buy. But unfortunately, he still had to get gifts for his nieces.

Tate: Come shopping with me. I have to get presents for my nieces.

Adam: Christmas shopping?!?

Oops. He hadn’t thought about it that way. Adam’s anguish over the season was what had started this whole thing off.

He was about to call and apologize when he got Adam’s text back.

Adam: I expect a LOT of kisses to make up for this. Where should I meet you?

Phew. It was such an Adam response, too. Gracefully doing something he didn’t really want to do and making it into a flirtatious joke between them.

Tate: You’ll get your kisses after your spankings.

Then he sent the address for the toy store.

The rest of the day passed in the same enjoyable spirit. They went out for an early dinner where Adam gently pushed his boundaries and Tate had fun adding to his spanking count.

At home, Tate quickly hid a few of his purchases. There was one, though, that he brought out for the evening.

Adam had picked up real Hanukkah candles at the grocery store, so Tate was able to sing the prayers with him by looking at the words on the side of the box.

Adam claimed that he’d picked up his hanukkiah at home, but he seemed to prefer the wine glass one they’d made together. The wax was starting to melt into the rice in colorful layers, and it looked much nicer than either of them had expected.

With a flourish, Tate pulled out his gift for the night and presented it in the palm of his hand.

Adam rolled his eyes.

“Oh, come on. You know you want to.”

Adam gave him an exasperated look.

“How does the dreidel game work?”

Adam spoke in an annoyed monotone, like a bored middle schooler. “There are four symbols. Nun, gimel, hey, and shin.” He pointed to each one. “They stand for none, all, half, and put in. Are we really doing this?”

Tate nodded. “Baby, twenty-five is a lot of spankings. Are you sure you want to keep this up?”

“Sorry, Tate,” he said innocently. Yeah, right.

“So, tell me why you don’t want to play dreidel.”