It was just before midnight when Ryan and Cary sneaked back downstairs. The lights from the tree cast a rainbow glow over the room, and snow drifted down beyond the windows. They plucked the cookies from the mantel and shared the glass of milk in contented silence. Ryan couldn’t believe a year had passed already. He pressed their lips together.
“Happy anniversary.”
“And merry Christmas,” Cary whispered.
Hands clasped, they crept back past the mantel, where a new stocking hung with Cary’s name sewn in shimmering gold.
THE END
Afterword
Thank you so much for reading this box set of holiday romances! I hope you enjoyed them, and I’d be grateful if you could take a few minutes to leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, your preferred bookseller, or social media. Just a couple of sentences can really help other readers discover the collection. Thank you again.
Wishing you many happily ever afters!
Keira
<3
p.s. Keep reading for an excerpt from If Only in My Dreams—another sexy and sweet holiday romance!
My lungs burned as I waited, my hands in fists to stop from drumming my fingers on the counter. The CIA should forget waterboarding—watching someone else search for information on a computer when you’re dying to know the answer is pure torture. Sook-Yin tapped, her eyes scanning the screen, and my heart pounded. There had to be one freaking car left to rent in the Bay Area. There had to be. I’d go to Oakland. Jesus, I’d bus it to Modesto if I had to. Please, please, please, please…
Then she gave me the head tilt/sad smile again, and I knew it was hopeless. She didn’t have to say it. I tried to smile back. “Thanks for checking. It was really nice of you.” My brain whirled. What about Greyhound? Sure, it was the busiest travel time of the year and the buses would be loaded with people who couldn’t get flights, but maybe. “I guess I’ll try the bus.”
She winced. “I’ve heard they’re overbooked. And there was that mechanic’s strike? There aren’t enough buses, apparently.”
“I guess the trains are sold out too.”
“Do you want me to check?” Her gaze shifted to something behind me, and she smiled. “Excuse me for a second. Ah, there you are,” she said to someone. “Did you find the Starbucks?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m caffeinated and ready to hit the road.”
My whole body seized. It couldn’t be. It was not possible.
Not. Possible.
I slowly turned and…wow. Gavin Bloomberg—still as annoyingly tall and hot as ever—was actually standing there in a fitted brown leather jacket with a blue travel mug in one hand and a little rolling gray suitcase resting by his suede Pumas. He blinked at me, and after a moment his lip curled.
“Charlie?” He appeared as horrified as I felt.
Of all the car rental places in all the freaking world… I concentrated on a civil tone. After all, we were eighteen and officially adults now. “Gavin.”
“Uh…hi.” He stared at me the way he might a piece of gum after walking around on it all day and prying it free from the bottom of his shoe, with little pebbles and a bunch of shit dried into it. He ran a hand through his thick, short hair, and even under dull fluorescents I couldn’t help but notice the rich auburn highlights. His sideburns were longer than when I’d last seen him at graduation in June.
I was weirdly struck by a memory of the summer we’d met, and how almost every day we’d stretch out in the sun by the pond, and he’d close his eyes while I watched his hair dry, the whole time aching to touch.
“Do you guys know each other?” Sook-Yin asked.
I nodded. “I guess. Not really. I mean, we went to high school together.” This was definitely a nightmare, but sadly I was all too awake. Time to evacuate. “Well, I should go.”
“Wait!” Sook-Yin’s face lit up. “Are you both trying to get to the same place? Maybe you could drive together?”
My brain was so dumbfounded at Gavin’s unexpected presence that I hadn’t even processed that he’d obviously rented a vehicle. Oh. My. God. Of course he’d snagged the last car. Of course. Because he got everything he wanted.
Gavin glanced between me and Sook-Yin. “I’m going back to Norwalk.”
“Me too. But we can’t…” I waved a hand between us.
Sook-Yin’s brow creased. “But it’s the perfect solution, isn’t it? I can add another driver to the contract. I’ll even waive the extra fee. You’re already paying more since you’re under twenty-five. Obviously it’s up to you, though.”
“Uh…” Gavin stared at her with dawning horror in his brown eyes.
I shared that horror. There was no way—no effing way!—Gavin Bloomberg and I could drive to Connecticut together. It was impossible. It was unthinkable. It was the worst idea ever.
But fuck me. It was my shot.
As much as I hated it, this was my way home for Christmas. Gavin and I could split the driving and gas, and we could totally make it for the twenty-fifth with tons of time to spare.
“I can’t…it’s…” Clutching his travel mug, Gavin stared at me.
“I promised Ava I’d be home for Christmas.”
The hard edges of Gavin’s gaze softened, and he exhaled. After a long moment, he nodded. “Then I guess we’d better get going.”
Home had never felt so incredibly far away…
Read the rest of Charlie and Gavin’s story!
To be home for Christmas, they must bridge the distance between them.
Charlie Yates is desperate. It’s almost Christmas and his flight home from college has been delayed. For days. Charlie promised his little sister Ava he’d be home for her first holiday season since going into remission from leukemia. Now he’s stuck on the opposite coast and someone else grabbed the last rental car. Someone he hasn’t even spoken to in four years. Someone who broke his heart.
Gavin Bloomberg’s childhood friendship with Charlie ended overnight after a day of stolen kisses. With years of resentment between them, they don’t want to be in the same room together, let alone a car. But for Ava’s sake, Gavin agrees to share the rental and drive across the country together.
As they face unexpected bumps along the road, can Charlie and Gavin pave the way to a future together?
This gay holiday romance from Keira Andrews features new adult angst, enemies to lovers, steamy first times, and of course a happy ending.
Read now!
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Also by Keira Andrews
Gay Amish Romance Series
A Forbidden Rumspringa
A Clean Break
A Way Home
A Very English Christmas
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Santa Daddy
Honeymoon for One
Valor on the Move
Test of Valor
The Winning Edge
In Case of Emergency
Eight Nights in December
The Next Competitor
Arctic Fire
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Beyond the Sea
If Only in My Dreams
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Fight the Tide
A Taste of Midnight (free read!)
Fairy Tales (with Leta Blake)
Levity
Rise
Flight
About the Author
After writing for years yet never really finding the right inspiration, Keira discovered her voice in gay romance, which has become a passion. She writes contemporary, historical, paranormal, and fantasy fiction, and—although she loves delicious angst along the way—Keira firmly believes in happy endings. For as Oscar Wilde once said, “The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.”
Gay Romance Holiday Collection Page 38