“Mm-hmm.” Rory was lying. Austin had no idea why he’d lie about a broken water heater, but he was. “Has nothing to do with feeling like you’re being watched over there. Now that you think ghosts might be real.”
“That’s downstairs, my bathroom upstairs is ghost-free. The pipes are at least fifty years old. Just eat your lunch, and take your medicine and worry about getting back on your feet, okay. I nearly had a heart attack when I rounded that corner and that SUV was heading straight for you. I thought you were dead. Don’t ever fucking scare me like that again, okay.”
Austin stopped eating and reached for Rory’s hand. It shook as Austin squeezed Rory’s warm hand with his good hand. He didn’t know what to say. He saw tears in his friend’s eyes and remembered the other night when they’d kissed. He’d been chasing a ghost while a live, hot-blooded man who loved him was always there for him. “I won’t. I promise.”
“Good.” Rory pressed pills into his hand. “Now take those and finish your soup.”
Austin swallowed the pills down with water and managed a few more bites of the soup before the world started to go fuzzy.
He let Rory take him into the bedroom and cooperated as Rory took off his clothes. He slid into his bed and rolled over to face the wall. Not much later a hot body smelling of Austin’s shower gel slid in behind him and Austin rolled into his arms and lost himself to the sleep he’d been avoiding for longer than he could remember, for fear of waking up to find his dream lover… was really a nightmare.
“An article in an old diary,” Austin whispered to the tune of the song he’d heard all day.
“Mmm, if you say so,” Rory mumbled in a hot whiskey-soaked voice. “Whas it mean?”
“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, an article in an old die-ah-ree.” Austin sighed and snuggled into Rory’s sleep warmed body.
“Reminds me, I left your gift in my room.” Rory sounded hurt. “It’s not a diary.”
“M’kay, love you, Roar.” Rory just grunted and the world finally went blessedly black.
Chapter Nine
“On the second day of Christmas.”
Austin woke up with that damned song stuck in his head. Christmas was over. Officially. And he hurt like a bitch. He pushed up in bed and whimpered as white-hot pain shot up his arm. He clutched his wrist to his chest and whipped the blankets off. Regretting that almost immediately as the cold air kissed his almost naked body.
“I just got a fire going.” Rory sounded almost as tired as Austin felt.
“What time is it?” Austin blinked rapidly, to clear his vision. He felt groggy from the drugs. “My arm hurts so badly. I think it might be broken.”
“You should have let them X-ray it. Nobody’s fault but yours there, buddy.” Rory brought him a pair of flannel pants and a heavy sweatshirt and helped him dress. “Want me to take you back to the emergency room?”
Austin shook his head. He had morning wood and cottonmouth. “I need to go to work.”
“Mmm hmm, about that.” Rory stood up and crossed his arms over his chest, he looked like his father when Rory had done something wrong.
“I have a schedule to keep, we’re supposed to open the house to the public on the fourth. That’s next week. And I have—”
“Interns to do the work, which is why they’re here for the holidays. Mrs. Henley has contacted your mutual employer and filled him in on the accident. He is upset that he wasn’t informed, but understands that you are going to take a few days to recover before opening any more wooden crates with a broken wrist and concussion.”
“Are you waiting for me to say, ‘yes, Mom’?” Austin pushed himself up from the bed, swaying a bit too much for all his pretending that everything was fine. “I mean… do you want me thinking of you in a parental way?”
“I want you to look me in the eye and tell me you’re okay, so I know you’re telling the truth. Because lying to yourself isn’t working for you.” Rory wasn’t wearing anything but a pair of briefs. He stood there with arms crossed over a sinful body that gave Austin so many wrong ideas.
Austin focused on a spot somewhere between Rory’s eyes and that part of him that was bulging behind black fabric, but not in arousal. Enough to remind Austin what his friend was packing. Maybe that he wasn’t aroused while Austin was at full mast bothered him. He couldn’t look his friend in the eye and lie to him. “I’m pretty sure my arm is broken. And that I’m losing my goddamned mind. And that I’m hard and you’re not.”
“I could be if you weren’t in pain. You’re hurting so much you’re radiating.”
“I had sex with a ghost. You can’t tell me that’s…” Austin stopped talking as Rory shook his head, a look of sadness or pity on his face. “Yeah, I don’t believe me either.”
“I didn’t say I don’t believe you.” Rory reached out and stroked his thumb over Austin’s jaw, concern in his eyes. “You’re burning up.”
“I’m freezing.” Austin lost his erection, but not the urge to go to the bathroom. He tucked his hurting arm close to his chest and stumbled to the tiny bathroom. When he was finished, and his mouth didn’t taste like something vile had died in it, he came out to find Rory fully dressed, looking like he was about to leave.
“I called Mrs. Henley. I’m taking you to Urgent Care to get your arm looked at. She said she’d have your interns unpack—”
“Anything but that wooden crate on my desk. They’re not to touch that crate. No one is to touch that crate until I get back.” He eased his feet into his furry slippers and used the back of the chair Heath had sat in… Heath wasn’t real. There was no such person as… he didn’t even have a last name for the man. “He wasn’t a ghost. He was real.”
“I know.” Rory wrapped his coat around his shoulders and squeezed. “We’re taking your car. When we’re done, we’re going to get breakfast, then we will come back here and watch Christmas movies until I have to go to work.”
“Why do you get to go to work and I have to stay home?”
“Austin,” Rory sighed and snagged Austin’s keys and wallet from the table beside the door. “You’re whining.”
“I am not.” He was. And he knew it. “I’m…”
“Hurting, I understand,” Rory sighed again and helped him out into the courtyard. The snow from the day before had melted already, but the cobblestones were still very slick. “Don’t fall now. I’ve got you.”
Austin felt the lump, that had been lodged in his throat since just after the accident, dissolve. Rory patted his hand as they walked to the tiny parking area behind the old stables, turned apartments, and pretended Austin wasn’t blubbering like a baby.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me.
Two Broken Bones and An Article in an old Diary.
Chapter Ten
“On the third day of Christmas.”
Austin sat at the bar in Callaghan’s pub, his arm strapped to his body so he couldn’t damage it anymore until the swelling went down enough to put a cast on it. It was Wednesday, maybe. Austin wasn’t exactly sure. All Austin knew was that there wasn’t a single football game on any of the televisions. And the grainy black-and-white image of Jimmy Stewart kept flickering away, no matter how hard Austin tried to ignore the damned movie. The dialog in a little black caption box near the bottom.
“Clarence, why you even give a damn about him, he’s doomed.” Austin slurred his complaint. He probably shouldn’t be drinking beer with the pain meds he’d taken, but Rory was too busy to stop him and he felt like getting shit faced and… getting fired.
“Clarence can’t hear you.” Rory took his bottle away and put a cup of coffee on the counter. The televisions switched to another channel, and a cheer went up. The news wasn’t any better, but at least it was in color.
“I’ve only had two… light beers at that.” He made a grab for the bottle, but Rory split into two people and he chased the wrong one.
“It’s not the beer, Austin, it’s the pain
pills with the beer. You’re drunk. Or high.” Left-Rory lifted the bar flippy thingy and walked out, leaving Right-Rory to hide his beer. Left-Rory looked back at the woman standing beside Right-Rory, but Right-Rory was disappeared now. He looked at the woman. She was too pretty. She winked at him. And something in Austin’s chest broke, loudly. “Hold the fort, Angie, I’ll be back.”
Left and Right, Rory tucked him under their angel wings and started moving him toward the front door. “Don’t make me go home. I don’t want to go back there. It’s lonely there.”
Rory sighed in his ear, he sounded so unhappy. Austin wasn’t much of a drinker. He could count on one hand and come up with extra fingers the times he’d gotten fall-down drunk, and two of them had been since he’d moved to this godforsaken town.
“I can’t stay with you, not tonight,” Rory said with another weary sigh.
“I can stay with you instead,” he suggested helpfully. The weight in his chest that threatened to drag him down, felt a little lighter… maybe.
“Sure, okay. If you sleep it off. Tomorrow we go back for the cast.” Rory turned him to the back of the pub toward the offices where the stairs were hidden. He hadn’t been up to Rory’s flat since he’d moved in. He had no idea if Rory even had a bed.
Austin nodded, or his head lolled to and fro. Either way, it was sort of a nod. Rory chuckled in his ear. “You have a sexy laugh,” Austin heard someone say. It seemed to come from his mouth. It sounded like his voice. Sort of.
“Oh, Austin, not when you’re stoned.” The sigh was back in Rory’s voice, and Austin tripped on the first step. “Don’t start flirting now. Okay. I… maybe staying with me isn’t the best idea. It’s… freezing upstairs all the time. The heating doesn’t work up there.” He dragged Austin off his knees, making him whimper in pain. “Come on, Austin, just lift your feet. Help me out a little and I won’t hurt you.”
“I am lifting asshole… you’d never hurt me, Rory. I’m… it’s the pain pills.” Austin focused on the treads beneath his feet and climbed up with Rory’s help. At least the stairwell was wide enough for the two of them to go up side by side, which was unusual in old buildings like this one.
“Combined with the beer that you shouldn’t have been given, on an empty stomach.” Rory opened the door to the upstairs room. A blast of cold air hit Austin in the face, almost sobering him up.
“My stomach isn’t empty. I ate… something… Corned beef and cabbage and… and cornbread. It was good.”
“Really? Then why did I take a mostly untouched plate back to the kitchen?” Rory closed the door behind him and flicked a switch that turned on several lamps in the small space. “Told you it was cold up here. Really cold since winter finally set in. I have a space heater, but it doesn’t do much. The electric blanket is on the bed. The water heater works now. It still takes time to heat up. I need to replace it. Dad says we’ll wait until the spring. No sense putting more work into the place if… well, he didn’t say if this place fails, but it was implied.”
“I thought you were doing well,” Austin said, grateful for a new uncomfortable topic other than his condition.
“We are, for now, but right now we’re still operating on the Grand Opening specials. When we go to full price menus and stop bringing in music every night of the week business will drop off. That’s to be expected.” Rory turned on a radiator-style space heater and rolled it close to the bed.
“This place looks nice,” Austin said, looking around at the bare brick walls and windows covered with Irish flags for curtains. There was a bed in the corner with a big-screen television in the opposite corner. A large coffee table between them loaded down with movies and books. “Well, it’s not the Ritz, but it looks homey.”
“It’s enough for me. The bed is new. Stack some pillows behind you if you want to watch TV. I have clothes in the wardrobe beside the bathroom door. Get some pajamas or sweats. Keep warm. Call me if you need me. We close in about three hours. I’ll be up after we clean up. Don’t fall down the stairs and break your neck. And… Austin, don’t throw up in my bed, I don’t have any backup sheets.”
“Yes, Mom.” With a sigh, Austin wondered when Rory had become a stodgy stick in the mud.
Rory echoed his sigh and placed a warm kiss on his forehead and the TV remote in his hand. “Get some sleep. You look like death warmed over.”
Austin closed his eyes, wishing he could convince his friend to stay and… maybe… make him forget that he was going crazy. He needed… He opened his eyes to tell Rory he wanted to kiss him again… really kiss him. But Rory was gone.
Austin punched the button on the remote and jumped when the sound blasted out of the speakers. Porn… oh dear god, Rory had been watching porn, and the movie started where… oh dear, those were girl parts. Austin quickly turned off the TV and sat in silence, feeling more miserable than he could ever remember being.
“My true love gave to me… Three Lonely… that sounds so stupid.” He got up and went to the wardrobe and pulled out a pair of flannel pants and a T-shirt. Rory wasn’t much bigger than him, he’d have to pull the drawstring a little tighter, but the pants would fit him well enough.
He changed in the bathroom. He didn’t brush his teeth with Rory’s brush, even though the thought did occur to him. He rinsed his mouth with blue mouth wash and splashed cold water on his face. He was so tired. Not drunk, or stoned. Just really tired. He blinked away the water and spun… but there was no broad-shouldered blunt faced ginger staring over his shoulder in the mirror.
Austin didn’t need a heater to warm up.
He left the bathroom, crawled under the covers, and pulled the quilt over his head. He was seeing things. That’s all. First, a ghost fucked him in an antique bed… then saved his life… and now he was seeing the fuckers everywhere.
He fell asleep listening to the sound of his heartbeat, that fucking Christmas song stuck on repeat in his head.
On the third day of Christmas…
Three Lonely Nights, Two Broken Bones, and An Article in an old Diary.
Chapter Eleven
“I need that journal,” Austin said before he even opened his eyes. Orange and green-tinted daylight filtered in through the curtains. That weren’t… in his apartment. He sat up, his arm screaming in pain. Clutching it to his chest and tried not to wiggle his fingers… or scream for real. There was a warm body pressed to his back. God, he was very warm. And he had to piss so very badly. It was either stay warm or pee the bed… and then where the fuck would he be?
“Fuck.” Austin threw off the covers, regretting the loss immediately. The only heat in the room was in the bed, with Rory, who was sound asleep on his back with one arm flung over his face covering his eyes. He wore a pair of boxers that needed better elastic at the waist.
“Shit, it’s cold in here,” Austin whispered and checked the clock on the shelf above the headboard. It was just a little past six. His need to piss warred with his need to stay warm.
Morning wood, next to a hot man… probably not the best message to send to a platonic friend. Careful not to upset his broken wrist, he pushed the rest of the blankets off and climbed out of bed. He half-remembered coming upstairs last night. Half remembered the bathroom being about six steps from the bed and just as cold. God, everything hurt… even his teeth.
He maneuvered around the coffee table and almost tripped over Rory’s shoes. It looked like he started stripping at the door and fell into bed when he was down to his shorts. Poor, baby.
It was too fucking cold to piss. He stood there, holding it down and shivering while it worked up the courage to empty his damned bladder. It could be worse; he could have to sit… the seat would be like sitting on an ice cube in this place.
“Gotta move you into better digs, Roar,” he mumbled and leaned against the cold brick wall to hold himself up when the piss finally left his body in a rush. “Fuck,” he whispered. “Even my dick hurts.”
He stood in front of the sink and contemplated washin
g his hands. The water would be frigid. He wondered what it was about that mirror gave him the willies.
“Leprechauns,” he whispered and scratched his balls with his good hand. “What the hell did I drink last night?”
He left the bathroom and blearily stumbled back to the bed. Rory lay on his back, that same arm thrown over his eyes, his mouth open as if he was… panting. His body was mostly uncovered now, the quilts lay over his thighs liked they’d been dragged down, along with his shorts.
He moaned softly in the cold, silent room. His other hand flexing over his chest, as if he wanted to claw himself, or reach for… his dick stood out straight, and wet, and red, and he clawed at his chest, squeezing his nipple as he panted and… writhed. His belly fluttered as his breathing became rapid and shallow. He pumped his hips as if he were… fucking air. His soft moans growing louder and more desperate as his dick twitched, he spread his legs and arched his hips into the air as his dick stood up straight and his balls drew up tight… he cried out, clawing the bed beside his body with both hands. God, he was beautiful when he came.
Austin’s dick stood at attention in his borrowed flannels. He stood beside the bathroom door, suddenly very warm. It was… his friend had… in his sleep… a leprechaun’s face smiling back at him… “Oh god,” Rory moaned from the bed. He lay on his back with his dick limp on his belly… there was no cum. He sounded… strange.
“I didn’t do it,” Austin heard himself say. “You were… like that when I… what the hell, Roar?”
Rory didn’t answer. He sat up without meeting Austin’s gaze and dragged his boxers up to cover himself. He was out of the bed and walking past Austin into the bathroom before he hesitated, his eyes filled with something akin to fear. “I’m… going to shower. Then we’re going to get your cast put on. Then… I have to… just… excuse me, Austin.”
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