Bryan pressed his elbow into Victor’s side and grinned. “That’ll teach you to write such a horrific ending to beloved characters.”
“Smart ass.”
Bryan snickered. “Serves you right.”
“Yeah, I know.” Victor didn’t want Gavin and Matthew to end that way any more than Bryan or the vast majority of his readers would. He’d rework the scene in the morning. Bittersweet was still on the table. Maybe. But a gruesome mauling by vampires was off.
Chapter 2: Déjà Vu
Gavin
Matthew’s movements seemed buoyant even with the solidity of his strides. The footsteps behind them varied as people turned on and off from side streets.
Halfway home, foot traffic thinned to a trickle, and a streetlamp ahead of them winked out. The alley behind it lay pitch black.
Likely, the timing was coincidental. Lights went out, and odds were someone would be around to see it when it happened. Just because Gavin and Matthew were the people to see this one shine its last lumen didn’t mean there was anything nefarious about the timing.
But a persistent feeling of déjà vu nagged at Gavin, and he brought them to a stop. “I don’t like this.”
“You know”—Matthew sounded droll—”if somebody with the ability to turn off a single streetlamp at will is after us, they’re going to get us eventually anyway.”
“I know. I’ve just got a really weird feeling.” Gavin shivered and shook his head. “It’s stupid, but…” He turned and lifted an arm. “Taxi!” he yelled.
A cab pulled over. “Ugh,” Matthew said. “It’s really not that far. We can cross the street to avoid the dark stretch.”
“No. I’m sorry, I can’t explain it. Please just humor me.”
“Fine.”
Gavin’s stomach fluttered, and he blew out a heavy sigh as he slid across the back seat of the cab. He flashed Matthew a wide grin and got a smirk in return as his husband slipped in beside him. Gavin gave the address, and the cabbie rolled his eyes—probably because it was such a short distance—but took off.
Matthew planted a quick kiss on the corner of Gavin’s mouth. “On the plus side, we’ll be home that much faster.”
They both rocked forward, then thumped back in their seats as the taxi slammed to a stop. They’d barely gone twenty yards. “Out!” the cabbie shouted as he turned his mottled red face to them. “Outta my cab!”
Matthew stiffened. “You’ve got to be kidding me. It was a peck, not a make-out session. Get over it.”
“The only thing I’m gettin’ over is your dead body after I kick the livin’ shit out of you if you don’t get outta my cab, pronto!”
“Come on.” Gavin took note of the cab’s identification number and elbowed Matthew. “Let’s go.”
Matthew huffed, but opened the door. On the sidewalk, Gavin rushed them past the dark opening to the alley and breathed a sigh of relief once they were clear.
“That was somewhat worse than a mere stinky cab.” Matthew’s jaw looked tight as he bit out the words.
“Sorry. I…damn.” Gavin sighed. There wasn’t anything he could say to fix it. What could he do, repeat that he’d had a “weird feeling” over and over? That wasn’t going to make up for their ruined mood. Especially since it had been all for naught. They were past the dark alleyway, and nothing had happened. He’d put them through that ordeal for nothing. “I made note of the cab’s ID number. We’ll report him, because that was bullshit.”
Matthew matched Gavin’s sigh with one of his own. “Don’t worry about it. Yeah, I want to report him, but it’s cool. I’ll be fine.”
The next intersection was well-lit. Gavin turned to Matthew. “I love you, and I’m not going to let that jerk spoil our happy night.”
“You’re right.” Matthew nodded decisively. “He’s not worth it. We won’t let him win.”
Darned right. The cabbie and his ilk were in an ever-shrinking minority. They were on the wrong side of history, and all those other catchphrases that were nonetheless true.
Gavin glanced at the pedestrian crosswalk signal as the lighted red hand switched to a clear white walking figure. “Come on.”
Strains of Bobby Helms singing “Jingle Bell Rock” drifted from a coffee shop entryway as someone exited, and Gavin and Matthew stepped into the street.
Gavin wondered idly what the procedure was for reporting discrimination by a cab driver. Report it to the taxi service? Was there a government site for making reports?
Four steps in, they didn’t even see the cement mixer, whose driver apparently didn’t see his red light. By the time people on the street screamed in horror, Gavin and Matthew were beyond hearing.
* * * *
Victor
Victor smirked as he wrote those last two sentences.
Bryan snorted behind him. “You knew I was standing here, didn’t you?” Bryan gently thumped his shoulder.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist.” Victor looked up with a sheepish grin.
“Because really…a cement mixer? Isn’t it like nine at night in the story? And close to Christmas? Maybe it’s not impossible, but still…”
“I wrote it only because I knew you were reading over my shoulder.”
“Don’t make me sic Amelia on you.”
Victor laughed but executed a phony pearl-clutch maneuver. “Never that!” He could always sic Felix on Amelia in retaliation next time she visited, but then again, Bryan’s sister would probably think that was fun.
Amelia was Bryan’s only rival for the distinction of being named Victor’s biggest fan. She gushed over the Gavin and Matthew series. Victor was almost certain part of the appeal was because he’d described the pair to look like Victor and Bryan.
“I’ll tell you what, since it’s Christmas Eve, I won’t introduce the topic with her, but I’m not gonna lie if she brings up the story.”
Victor just rolled his eyes, because that promise wasn’t worth much. Oh, Bryan would keep his word, but Amelia could absolutely be counted on to ask about his progress on the current manuscript.
“Speaking of Amelia, is it time to go?” She hosted a big pot-luck dinner party for Bryan’s whole extended family on Christmas Eve, including their parents, all four siblings and their spouses, and a few young nieces and nephews.
“It is.”
Victor saved his file and followed Bryan like the devoted husband he was. He shrugged into his coat and picked up the chafing dish loaded with ham balls. Bryan grabbed the shopping bag full of gifts and ushered them out the door.
In their cab, Victor gave Bryan a sidelong glance, and Bryan gave him a knowing grin. As in, knowing exactly what Victor was thinking.
Bryan gave a cocky double-eyebrow waggle and feinted a lean toward him. Victor’s eyes widened, and he returned a small but jerky head shake. Bryan’s shoulders shook with suppressed laughter as he turned to watch the snow-covered buildings go by out the side window. But he did snake over a hand to grasp Victor’s, and Victor held it and gently rubbed his thumb across his husband’s wrist all the way to Amelia’s.
The upbeat holiday rhythm of “Sleigh Ride” by the Ronettes rolled out the door when Amelia threw it open. The red bulbs dangling from her pierced ears flashed merrily, and she beamed at them. “Did you wear them?”
“Of course!” Victor said. “Is Simon wearing his?”
“Darned right!”
Victor snickered. Not that she’d have needed to twist her husband’s arm to get him to put it on. Amelia and Simon were well-suited. In fact, he’d probably helped pick out the holiday sweaters they’d given to everyone in the family last year with the plea that they all wear them to the Christmas Eve party this year.
Amelia wore hers. At first glance, it looked like an innocuous white sweater with a wide red band that had rows of demure diamonds trimming the top and bottom edges. Until you took a double-take at the three white reindeer in that field of red and saw what they were doing, which was…each other.
Bryan and Amel
ia’s parents approached with wide smiles and open arms. “Merry Christmas!” they sing-songed.
Amelia rescued the chafing dish from Victor’s hands, and Bryan dropped their shopping bag of gifts while they went through the hug gauntlet. Those embraces and accompanying murmurs of “So glad you’re here,” and “Come in and take your coats off,” were so warm, accepting, and genuine, that if Victor had had any remaining holiday blues smothering his usual cheer, that would have pulled him out the rest of the way.
Bryan’s mother rotated side to side, showing off her sweater. It was fairly tame, depicting Santa leaning over to place gifts under a Christmas tree with the top of his thong peeking out of his droopy pants. “What do you think?”
Bryan laughed. “It’s you.”
Shaking his head at Bryan’s father’s “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire” sweater that had Santa warming his junk in front of a fireplace, Victor added with a wink, “I think it’s a good thing the grandkids are a bit too young to pick up on our humor.” Although a “half-moon” was all they actually saw of Santa’s nether regions.
Victor and Bryan had gotten off easy with their matching green and white sweaters, differing only by the phrases appliquéd across the front. There was nothing remotely offensive about them either. Oh, some would express their indignation at the messages—some like Victor’s family—but Victor had seen many different sweaters all season long while he was out and about that had the same phrases emblazoned across them. People having dogmatic viewpoints that flew in the face of established science and the consensus of the medical and psychological communities did not render the slant given to the statements on their sweaters objectively distasteful.
Victor joined Bryan at the coat closet to hang up their outerwear. He smiled at the rainbow-colored lettering on Bryan’s sweater, proclaiming, “Don We Now Our Gay Apparel.” Victor’s mood had lifted as soon as he’d pulled on his own sweater earlier in the afternoon. His decreed they should “Make the Yuletide Gay…AF” with equally colorful lettering.
It felt a bit like a big “in your face” to the family that had rejected him. He’d been wrong thinking that his melancholy had stemmed from hating the thought that the family that had once meant everything to him now thought he was some kind of reprobate. Or maybe that had been the root of it, but his feelings had since evolved.
Ever since putting on the sweater earlier, a voice in the back of his head had whispered “right on…make the yuletide gay in every sense of the word.” Because why not? Why should he let anyone’s baseless opinion affect him? His family by choice had given him this validating gift that his family by birth would have scoffed at.
He now recognized that his sadness had stemmed from mourning the loss of the people he’d placed on a pedestal in his childhood memories. Except, the parents he’d once looked up to as moral guides hadn’t actually changed, it was his perception of them that had changed.
They didn’t deserve the honor of being mourned anymore. The people he’d been grieving didn’t actually exist outside of his mind.
Victor turned to Bryan as raucous laugher erupted across the room. “Come on, I’ve got to see Simon in that godawful sweater Amelia gave him.” His was a long sweater displaying a snowman standing on its head. The snowman wore a knitted hat with “tassels” that were two shiny blue ornaments attached to the sweater, and sported a plastic orange carrot nose projecting out, and drooping down over the balls.
Amelia announced, “Hey, the food’s all here now. Feel free to grab a plate.” Their Christmas Eve dinner was not a formal sit-down affair, but more of a free-for-all. Go through the line and sit wherever.
“Is that all we are to you, bearers of food?” Bryan threw out his arms in a mock affront.
Simon swayed suggestively to make his carrot and blue balls swing back and forth. “Don’t make me come over there and show you what you mean to me.”
“Promise?” Victor waggled his eyebrows suggestively and pointed at his sweater. “Because I’m under orders to make the yuletide gay.” He silently mouthed, “As fuck.”
Amelia snickered. “Bryan can have a go at Simon if he wants, but your butt’s going to be parked next to mine while I grill you on what you’re doing with Gavin and Matthew.”
Victor groaned in defeat as Bryan guffawed.
Chapter 3: Merry Christmas to All!
Victor
Victor stretched in the dim early morning light. He turned on his side and lay watching Bryan’s chest expand and contract with the long slow breaths of sleep. The inhalations were steady and dependable, just like the man. Always there, always supportive, always loving. Always.
Closing his eyes for a moment, he pulled in a lungful of Bryan’s warm scent. He resisted the yearning to draw the man into his arms, and instead settled for stopping the kitten mid-pounce from waking Bryan, and planting a light kiss on his husband’s forehead before slipping out of bed.
After feeding Felix, there was something Victor had to make right, and he wouldn’t be able to relish the joy of a cozy Christmas morning with Bryan until he’d taken care of it.
* * * *
Gavin
Matthew scowled as he stood at the window, staring out at the heavy snow drifting down. “It’s not supposed to let up.” He glanced at the weather app open on the tablet. “Four or five inches are expected to accumulate over the next few hours, and about eight overnight.”
Gavin pushed aside his laptop. He’d been finishing the latest story in his Victor and Bryan series, which was just as well. He’d had a really strange dream last night, and it had given him an idea for a paranormal story. He wanted to concentrate on fleshing out that concept in his mind while the impression was fresh.
“But you wanted some Christmas snow.” He came up behind Matthew and rested a chin on his shoulder, and felt some of the tension drain.
Matthew turned his head to brush a light kiss on Gavin’s lips. “I know. And it is pretty. I just wish we weren’t going to have to miss the It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story double feature. It’s tradition for us to go see it.”
“So we’ll buy digital copies and stream them at home this year.”
“Yeah?” Matthew’s expression brightened.
“Sure, why not? We can even make popcorn.”
“Well, yeah, that goes without saying. And you know, since we’re not limited by what the theater is offering, we can add Bad Santa to our movie marathon.”
“Now you’re talking!”
“Walking in the snow would have been nice, though.” Matthew planted another kiss on Victor’s cheek. “We could’ve seen who could catch more flakes on their tongue.”
Gavin shivered, but he shook off the disturbing dream. “Yeah, it would’ve been fun.”
“On the other hand, we can snuggle on the couch if we’re watching the movies at home.”
Gavin grinned and quirked an eyebrow. “And maybe Bad Santa will inspire a few…shenanigans on the couch?”
Matthew matched Gavin’s grin and pulled him toward the couch. “I think maybe we need to start a new Christmas Eve tradition!”
* * * *
Victor
Victor turned when Bryan padded into the office, rubbing his eyes.
“Merry Christmas,” Bryan muttered. “You’re up early.”
“Merry Christmas! I had to make this right.” Victor shrugged and petted Felix, cuddled on his lap. “I woke up anyway, so I figured I’d get this out of the way before you got up, too.”
Bryan bent down, planted a kiss on Victor’s forehead, and read. He quirked an eyebrow at one point, then tittered. “You’re weird.”
“But you like it?”
“Love it. And love you.” He pulled on Victor’s arm. “Come back to bed and I’ll show you how much.”
Victor grinned much like the Grinch, put the kitten on the floor to freely wreak destruction in their absence, and followed like the lovestruck Bryan-devotee that he was.
THE END
; ABOUT ADDISON ALBRIGHT
Addison Albright is a writer living in the middle of the USA. Her stories are gay (sometimes erotic) romance in contemporary settings. Her education includes a BS in Education with a major in mathematics and a minor in chemistry. Addison loves spending time with her family, reading, popcorn, boating, french fries, “open window weather,” cats, math, and anything chocolate. She loves to read pretty much anything and everything, anytime and anywhere.
For more information, visit authoraddisonalbright.com.
ABOUT JMS BOOKS LLC
JMS Books LLC is a small queer press with competitive royalty rates publishing LGBT romance, erotic romance, and young adult fiction. Visit jms-books.com for our latest releases and submission guidelines!
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