A Holiday Tradition

by Chrissy Munder

  Instead of the unpleasantly hot and humid weather Paul expected, the temperature reminded him of an Upper Michigan summer. His senses, already tuned to the drab winter, swam with the assault of lush and scented greenery.

  Paul turned his back on Grandpa Louie’s curses from inside the RV. This place had every kitschy trailer park cliché ever shown on television. Right down to the Santa-cap-wearing plastic pink flamingos that lined the drive farther into the park. Tacky as hell, his father’s voice whispered in his head.

  But part of the fencing around the block of mailboxes had been repaired and painted a fresh white, and the shrubbery in front of what must be a clubhouse was neatly trimmed back.

  Paul quirked his lips upward at the mini snowmen peeking from among the palm trees and other landscaping plants. A stack of paving bricks weighed down the bed of a rusted pickup parked to the right, so more repairs were on the way.

  He plucked his shirt away from his chest, the fabric slightly damp with perspiration, and almost laughed. This didn’t seem real. His internal thermostat still expected the bitter cold of his home state, buried under who knew how many inches of snow.

  With no sign Grandpa Louie planned on exiting his steel cocoon, Paul picked his way over to the office. The crutches had been surprisingly easy to get used to. Thumbs-up for all the days he spent doing arm work in the gym to unwind after classes. He turned slightly sideways and took the stairs one at a time.

  “Ha!” he exclaimed in a tiny rush of triumph when he reached the top of the three-stair riser. The activity released his normal impatience, and Paul gave up on his grandfather. He swung his right crutch against the metal kickplate of the screen door a couple of times to knock.

  The holly wreath fixed to the front swayed in response. Paul poked at a sign in the center. One of those old-fashioned smiley faces with a We’ll Be Back clock on the reverse. A neon oval blinked the word Open in blue, red, and white LEDs from the side window, but Paul had his doubts.

  “Forget about the paperwork and come on,” Paul called to his grandfather. “We’ll figure it out.” The door squeaked behind him and he swung back around to face….

  Wow.

  Oh wow.

  “I said it’s open.”

  Paul blinked. He’d expected a crony of Grandpa Louie’s, with leathery skin after a lifetime spent in the Florida sun and dressed in some god-awful patterned polo and pants. With a hat. Because other than this last one, the cause of every accident he’d been in was an old guy wearing a hat that blocked his view.

  Well, except for the teenager who dropped his cell phone at a red light and then couldn’t understand why neither Paul nor the responding officers found that to be a legitimate explanation for hitting the rear of Paul’s car.

  Instead Paul now faced a tall drink of water that could definitely soothe Paul’s parched throat and every other body part affected by his romantic dry spell.

  He looked up. Way up, feeling all his five feet nine inches compared to this guy’s, what? Six two? Six three? He followed the stretch of long legs to the broad shoulders threatening the seams of his faded T-shirt.

  Paul gulped and continued past the rough scruff decorating a sharp jawline, pouty lips curved in an amused smile, and finally settled on icy blue eyes that reminded him of Lake Huron in the winter.

  Paul shivered with delight and returned his gaze to where the loose waist of the cargo shorts had exposed hipbones so sharp Paul could have gladly impaled himself.

  Wow, he mentally repeated before he gathered his equilibrium enough to meet the dancing amusement in those frost-tinged eyes.

  “Hi,” tall, dark, and all-too-amused said. His voice, a low mix of needing-some-morning-coffee husky poured over a hint of gravel, raised goose bumps across Paul’s skin. “What can I do you for?”

  Paul flushed, and he tightened his grip on his crutches. Busted. In his defense, not one of his prior boyfriends ever carried themselves with this much effortless confidence. He struggled to define what made this frost giant stand out and settled on accepting he had dated boys. This guy? All man.

  Grandpa Louie joined Paul on the small deck. He didn’t seem to notice Paul had all but tripped over his own tongue. “You must be Maria Lombardo’s grandson.” He greeted Paul’s new crush with a kind smile and an outstretched hand. “The guys told me you were running the park now. I’m Louis Knight. This is my grandson, Paul.” Grandpa Louie cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry for your loss. Maria was a great gal.”

  “Thank you.” He stooped to shake Grandpa Louie’s hand. He parted lips just this side of pink, revealing a daring grin to make the butterflies in Paul’s stomach flutter. “I’m Kevin. It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

  “Come inside and I’ll get you checked in.” Kevin stepped back and let Paul’s grandfather precede him into the air-conditioning and then turned to Paul with an unmistakable challenge. “You coming?”

  The innuendo was as blatant as Paul’s inspection, and there was only one real answer. Paul flushed all over again, his pulse rate increasing along with his doubts he could meet Kevin Lombardo on an equal playing field. But he gave his best shot with his reply. “Not yet.”

  PAUL POKED at his laptop with a despondent finger. He’d spent five minutes working on one sentence, and the results sucked. Everything he’d worked on since their arrival sucked. No matter what he tried, his sentences stayed dry, dismal, and refused to become something anyone would want to read.

  He didn’t even want to write it.

  Work the problem, his father always said. Okay. His surroundings were fine. The RV pullouts expanded to a ridiculous spaciousness. The kitchen area was large, and with Grandpa Louie getting dressed to head out, Paul had all the quiet comfort he could want.

  It didn’t help. Paul glared at his laptop. His problem was the paper itself. Ugh. Sure, it was one of those “give the same assignment to ten students and get ten different responses” topics, but come on: The Wolf of Wall Street was right. Altruism and the Death of Capitalism. Double ugh.

  Paul tapped his pencil against his lips. The real question? Write what he truly believed, or write what they wanted to hear?

  Paul shoved his printed notes with his foot, uncaring when half of them fell off the coffee table he had turned into a desk. He flopped back onto the sofa and flung out his arms, milking the moment for all the drama he could muster.

  He needed to think rationally, logically, and consider all his facts. Paul took a deep breath, pressing the heels of his hands against his forehead. Then another. Okay: fact number one? He needed this grade. Fact number two? This assignment sucked as bad as his writing.

  His sketchbook lay abandoned on the cushion beside him, and Paul flipped through the pages. He stopped at his most recent drawing. Kevin Lombardo’s high cheekbones were a pain to shade correctly, but Paul had done a fair job capturing the challenging glint in his eyes.

  God. Paul closed the book with a snap and stared out the large window to his left. To further mock his pain, Kevin sped past in one of the golf carts everyone drove around the park. Paul groaned. So much for there being no distractions.

  The sun shone brightly in the clear sky, promising a day of warmth. Even though his thoughts seemed traitorous to his snowy-December-loving soul, Paul bet it would feel good on his pasty-white skin. Nothing wrong with taking a break, right? He scratched his thigh where the edge of the cast itched, then shook his head.

  Nope, his father wanted to review his work from the last couple of days. Which, speak of the devil, Paul glanced at his phone. Two missed text messages. He sighed and unlocked the screen.

  Eliminate the immature and circular logic on pages seven through eleven. It should only take a page at most to wrap up your argument.

  Paul bit his lip and scrolled to the next message.

  Expect revisions by end of day.

  Great. Not like he expected his father to call and actually talk, but he could ask how the trip went. Or maybe how Paul’s leg was doing. The
se brief status requests made it difficult to tell if the message was from his father or his father’s assistant. The result was the same, a not-so-gentle prod to remind him of his father’s expectations and the underlying assumption Paul had already failed to meet them.

  “Hey, you’re up.” Grandpa Louie strolled out of the bathroom in a cloud of aftershave, styling in a pair of mint-green trousers and a white polo shirt. He tugged on a matching jacket. “You want to help me set up the clubhouse for the euchre game?”

  Paul battled with temptation. He had been holed up in the RV ever since they arrived. He wanted out. He wanted…. His phone dinged with another text alert, an unsubtle reminder of where his wants fell on his list of priorities.

  “Maybe next time,” he offered. “I need to finish this part before I lose my train of thought.”

  Grandpa Louie frowned but took the refusal with good grace. “I’ll see you after lunch, then.” He grabbed his wallet and a straw hat from the counter and waved to Paul as he headed out.

  Paul reached for his coffee, grimacing when he realized it had gone cold. Crap. Now he needed to get up. He struggled to his feet. This would be a good opportunity to turn down the heat and open the windows to cool things down while his grandfather was gone. His phone dinged again, but Paul ignored the implicit demand. Didn’t his father have any employees to micromanage?

  Chapter 3

  THEIR ROUTINE continued for the rest of the week. Paul would get up before his grandfather, helped by the fact that he, at least, went to bed at a reasonable time. He’d fix a small breakfast, fill a carafe with coffee, and start on his paper.

  He’d open his laptop and review what he’d produced so far and hate every single word while he stared with longing at the beckoning sun. His grandfather, on the other hand, didn’t roll out of bed until noon, and after a breakfast spent cajoling Paul to join him, would head out for the day.

  The park offered a lot of activities and lectures. Everything from gardening, caregiving, health and wellness issues, to legal matters. So many that Grandpa Louie fixed the monthly newsletter to the front of the refrigerator with his favorite palm tree magnets to make sure he didn’t miss any.

  Paul had been invited to golf, a variety of card games, the promised square dancing, and bingo night. He almost went to the chair yoga class just to get out of the RV but changed his mind. What if he ran into Kevin? Paul pulled out his sketchbook and flipped through the pages.

  Where did this unease come from? Kevin Lombardo seemed like a perfectly nice, extremely attractive man, and any other time, Paul would probably enjoy getting to know him.

  But the deep sense of… recognition… Paul detailed in his drawings foreshadowed the possibility of something greater, and every self-protective instinct Paul possessed demanded he stay away.

  Enough with the drama. Paul tossed away the sketchbook. He was here to work, not worry about the visceral reaction Kevin Lombardo invoked. The guy turned Paul’s crank. End of story. No matter how much he hoped, Santa wasn’t going to bring him Kevin Lombardo wrapped up in a red ribbon.

  The ding of an incoming text roused Paul from his useless speculation, a blatant reminder he still needed to send in the next series of pages. His father had gone to a lot of trouble not only to place Paul in the internship, but to then find a solution to ensure Paul didn’t lose any credits or put himself behind schedule. Paul needed to do his part.

  He tugged at the collar of his shirt. Grandpa Louie must have turned up the heat again. Once he left, Paul could open the windows and wiggle his bare toes with glee. In December! Crazy.

  He had to work harder to ignore the variety of music and the comings and goings of the various residents, but the sounds of life offered a background to his writing and helped him feel less isolated.

  Nothing changed until Grandpa Louie brought home the first of what he politely called “company.” He wasn’t kidding about the widows! Paul made nice, had his cheeks pinched far more often than he thought necessary, and spent too many frustrating nights tossing and turning in his lonely bed while not thinking about the old people having sex in the next room.

  This morning came way too early. Paul stumbled out of bed, tired and unmotivated. He propped himself against the countertop, content to zone out and wait for the coffee to brew until he brushed his hand over a sprig of green spiky stuff on the counter. He picked it up by the red ribbon tied on the ends and twirled it around. Was that mistletoe?

  His sour mood dropped even lower when he turned on his laptop and saw a video feed of himself (ugh, bedhead), and the ransomware message below. He bit back a curse, and his throbbing headache increased along with his blood pressure. “You have got to be kidding me!” He clicked a few buttons, but nothing happened.

  “What’s up?” Grandpa Louie strolled out of his bedroom, unusually early and, thankfully, alone.

  Paul closed his laptop. “My computer’s screwed,” he replied in a slow, deliberately calm voice. “Some kind of ransomware.”

  Grandpa Louie poured a cup of coffee and hitched his sleep pants higher. He sat beside Paul and propped up his feet on the coffee table, his hairy toes on full display. Ewh. Paul was not awake enough for this.

  “Not sure I understand what you’re saying.”

  “It means I can’t do any more work until I find someone who can fix my laptop.” Paul closed his eyes and took a deeper breath, unsure if he was more pissed or panicked. “Do you know of anything in town?”

  “I don’t, but I bet Kevin from the office will.” Grandpa Louie slurped his coffee. “Does this mean you can join us at euchre?”

  He sounded awfully pleased. Paul gave him a sideways glance, suddenly suspicious. Grandpa Louie couldn’t have, could he?

  “I guess I have nothing but time this morning.” His phone dinged with his dad’s text alert, an audible dispute to his claim. He scrubbed his fingers over the top of his head, his frustration bleeding over when he read his father’s curt reminder he’d missed yesterday’s deadline. “Damn it!”

  Paul frowned at his brick of a laptop, searching for another solution. His work was saved in a separate cloud drive he backed up manually. He might be able to switch between his research files and his paper using his phone.

  He picked up his cell. “Maybe dictation will work.”

  Grandpa Louie stroked his mustache, looking either sheepish or hangdog. One of those animal expressions. Paul’s suspicions grew stronger.

  “Did you have anything to do with this?” he demanded. “How did you get the password?”

  “Not like I haven’t seen you log in and out of that thing a hundred times,” Grandpa Louie scoffed. He set his mug on the table with a thump. “I meant to ask before I borrowed it, but you were already asleep, and, well….” His grandfather shrugged. “Carla Jean likes things spicy, and she had me go to this website. The next thing I knew, I was looking at my naked self on the screen!”

  “Oh God.” Paul grabbed for his crutches and swung himself over to the side door. “I can’t listen to this.”

  He managed to get a few feet past the RV before he had to stop and clutch his hair, no easy feat while trying to balance. How the hell was he going to get that image of his grandfather out of his head?

  Kevin Lombardo came zooming up beside him in one of the souped-up golf carts. Of course. Because this was Paul’s luck.

  “Hey, Paul,” Kevin called. “Haven’t seen you around. What’s going on?”

  Not even the sight of Kevin wearing dark aviator sunglasses and those broad shoulders straining at yet another thin and barely there T-shirt could salvage Paul’s mood. “Nothing,” he groaned.

  He must look like a complete weirdo, stomping along outside the RV. Paul wiped his palms against his basketball shorts, one of the few items of clothing that fit over his cast, and took a deep, leveling breath.

  “Do you know of a decent computer repair place that’s local?”

  “Sure,” Kevin responded with an easygoing smile. His quiet confiden
ce was like a smooth stroke down Paul’s spine, enough to convince him, in that one, desperate second, everything was going to be okay. “Take a ride with me up to the office, and I can give you a number to call.”

  Kevin moved to get out of his seat, but Paul waved him off before hobbling around to the other side of the cart. He sat and swung first one leg, then his cast in. The tiny space left their shoulders touching. Kevin’s body radiated heat hotter than the Florida sun and just as immediately relaxing. Paul hitched his crutches to the side, the rubber ends pointing out behind them. “Thank you.”

  Kevin hit the gas, and they sat together in silence. Paul stayed speechless as the shock of Grandpa Louie’s actions wore off, replaced with shyness at being seated next to his crush. He’s a guy, Paul told himself. Just another smoking-hot guy who certainly had bigger fish on his hook than Paul.

  “Everything okay?” Kevin finally asked. “You seem upset.”

  “Yeah.” Paul turned to face Kevin. The artist in him itched to capture the waves of dark hair curled behind Kevin’s ears. “The short explanation is my entire grade this semester depends on a research paper I’m writing, and Grandpa Louie used my laptop to, well, I can’t even say. Now I’m blocked by ransomware, and I need brain bleach.”

  Kevin burst out laughing, a whole-body laugh that threw his head back and rocked him from side to side, his shoulder bumping into Paul’s before he stopped himself. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” With a quick wave, he steered past a couple of ladies powerwalking down the street, then returned his attention to Paul. “But you remind me of me the first time I realized how much fooling around happened in this park.”

  “It’s crazy,” Paul agreed. “There are some things about my grandfather I didn’t need to know.”