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It was a stocking that definitely, certainly, one hundred percent was nothing no one would ever in a million years wouldchoose.
And right at that moment? It was the thing Alex wanted most in the entire world.
"Dad said he wasn't sure if you’d prefer Alex or Alejandro," Cassie said, kneeling down next to him as she cast a weather eye over her handiwork. "But you use Alex, and I'll be honest — I wasn't sure I could center the longer version, and I needed to go pick up Mr. Ethan. So…" Cassie trailed off as Alex turned, staring at her.
"Um… Is it okay?" she asked, biting her lip. "I — I think I can change it if you want it to say Alejandro, inst—oh!Oh, we're hugging, are we?"
Yes,they were hugging, because Alex wasn't certain he trusted himself to speak right at that moment. He sure didn't trust himself to keep looking at her anxiously hopeful face.Orthe soft looks that Jakob and Mr. Hillsman, and — andeveryonewas giving him right then, watching as Alex unwrapped the ugliest stocking on the planet that — that looked —
"It's just like all of ours," she whispered, gesturing towards the others' stockings all pinned in a line halfway up the big bay window looking out over the ranch and the ocean beyond. "See?"
"Yeah," Alex told her. He did see.
None of the stockings are perfect, Jakob had said. They aren't supposed to be — because none of us are perfect. But she made each of them just as unique and special as the people they're for, and… I've always thought that makes them pretty magical, all together like that.
And, sure — it was just as corny now as it had been the first time, but —
"Wait," Alex said, frowning. "There's — There's something hard in the toe…"
He tipped the stocking over, shaking it two or three times before he couldn't take it anymore, reaching inside the stocking to pull out —
"A… A key?" Alex asked, looking up at Jakob.
Jakob glanced over at Mr. Hillman where Alex's teacher had his arm across the other man's shoulders, then turned back to Alex with a grin.
"Not sure if you have plans for your spring semester yet. Figure you, me, and Ethan should sit down and talk over your options in the next couple of days. But whatever you choose to do, you've got a place here if you ever need it, for as long as you care to stay." Then Jakob’s mouth twitched up in a grin. "Just let me know if I should make a store run for extra coffee and stuff before you arrive if you can, alright?"
Alex nodded shakily, sniffling as he rubbed his nose.
Fuckingdustyin here all of a sudden…
"What's the other gift?" Mr. Hillsman, leaving Alex to blink at him blankly for a moment as his brain tried to figure out what he meant.
"Oh!" Startled by Cassie's tapping on the present in question, Alex pulled it out from under his arm, welcoming the distraction. Carefully, he set the box with the stocking down beside him, pocketing the key in his jeans before tearing into the second gift.
He braced himself as he opened the box, ready for some new level of —
"A star?" he asked, picking the item up from its cushion of red tissue paper and examining it curiously. It was large and painted golden, with a swirling sort of tapered spring at its base, like…
"Newest addition to the family always puts the star on the tree," Frank told him, leaning back into the couch and looking pretty pleased with himself. "Them's the rules."
"But — ButMr. Hillsman— " Alex protested, gesturing with the star toward his teacher's arm in its sling.
"Handed his turn off to Owen and Erik ages ago," Mr. Hillsman said, shaking his head. "Even before Cassie came along."
"Well, butshe— "
Alex turned, looking for help, only to find Cassie smirking delightedly at him. "Passed my turn over to Papa Reed…"
"Who was quite happy to relinquish the deed to Nash two years ago…"
"And now I get to inductyou," Nash finished, grinning widely.
There really was no arguing with them, as it turned out. Which was how a mystified Alex found himself balancing on one of the old wooden kitchen chairs; Frank steadying him as he lifted up to his tiptoes to crown the tree with the Christmas star.
The whoop Mr. Hillsman made once it was on startled Alex enough to nearly send him flying. Frank's surprisingly strong grip and the back of the chair under Alex's fingers had been the only anchors that kept him from falling, and possibly busting his ass.
Good thing too. That would have been fucking embarrassing after all the attention today. Alex was feeling pretty well top-loaded at this point. Any more and he might roll over and crash into a blazing inferno of pure mortification.
Still, as he helped Cassie clean up the living room; listening to the sound of Reed and Cassie's mom harmonizing with Frank's baritone, all singing carols together as Jakob finished the final touches on their dinner? Everyone all laughing and talking, like — like —
Like a real family. Like arealChristmas.
Like a damn far cry from any of the previous Christmases Alex could remember.
Absently, he watched Mr. Hillsman duck into the kitchen, then glanced away quickly as he stole a kiss from Jakob when they thought no one was looking. Mock-scowling at Cassie as her wadded-up ball of wrapping paper hit Alex dead center of his head, listening to her laugh…
Alex couldn't help but grin as a sense of satisfaction wove its way through his belly; the shape of the key in his pocket warm and anchoring. There was an odd feeling slowly washing through his chest too. Something strange and beautiful and precious, for all that it was so new and fragile too. And yet, still it threaded through him all the same. A feeling that, though his path had meandered the long and winding way; maybe, possibly, he just might have found that he was finally —
Home.
