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I’d lost count of how many times I’d done that in recent years.
He studied me in silence, then coughed. “It was a question I’ve never felt capable of asking you. I guess now I have my answer.”
“I’m still being safe,” I assured him. “You have nothing to worry about on that score. And I’m still using condoms.” Although I’d been following certain medical advances that might change that. I needed to do a little research first.
“I’m glad. That you’re being safe, I mean.”
I smiled. “And I’m glad you could stay this year.” That inquiring glance was back. “There have been a few times when you’ve hightailed it out of here—or wherever we happened to be.” What made it even more interesting were that those times coincided with nights when I wasn’t alone.
He glanced toward the window. “It’s such a beautiful night.”
I knew a change of subject when I heard it.
“A beautiful night for a sleigh ride?”
He beamed. “What a wonderful idea.” Then he cleared his throat. “Only… this year, do you think you could put on some clothes first?”
What stole across my mind was the memory of clinging to him the previous year—and my robe flapping open.
I still don’t know which of us had been more embarrassed—him at the sight of my dick bobbing in the stiff breeze, or me that it was considerably smaller than I would have wished.
When I was forty-seven
2014
I knew he’d arrived when I could no longer hear the TV. Not that I’d been watching it. The shows had blurred into one big blur of sound and vision, and it had become part of the background.
My mind was elsewhere, and it fuckinghurt.
A gentle hand squeezed my shoulder, and I fought not to sob with relief. “Hey.” The word came out as a croak.
“Anthony… I’m so, so sorry.”
He knew then. Of course he did.
“Did Ben and his family come over for the funeral?”
“Which one?” My throat tightened, and I took another drink from averytall glass of whiskey and soda. It was doing a crap job of numbing the pain.
Santa sat beside me, took the glass from my hand, placed it on the small table, then pulled me to him. I buried my face in his cloak and wept. They might not have been the best parents in the world, but they were all I had, and now they were gone. First my mom, of a heart attack, and then my dad, who had followed a month later, as if he couldn’t bear to be on this earth without her.
Way too fucking soon.
“She didn’t have even one decade left.”
He stroked my hair. “Do you want me to leave?”
I jerked my head up. “God no. Ineedyou. I need you so much right now.”
“You’ve got me,” he soothed.
“Haven’t you got presents to deliver?” I was praying he was done for the night. I couldn’t bear for him to leave, not when I needed his arms around me. A small part of my brain kept telling me he was only holding me so close because I was his friend, and I was hurting. That it was nothing more than that.
I didn’t care right then. I’d take what I could fucking get.
“I’m done for this year. Now, I’m all yours.”
God, I wish you were.I tortured myself with the idea of turning my face up toward his, inching closer, and kissing him, feeling that gossamer beard rub against my own coarser version.
