by LB Gregg
In the dining room, the table was full. All holiday revelers were present and accounted for and—
Caleb drew my attention like a lodestone. In thick-framed glasses and a form-fitting black turtleneck, he wore his professor clothing like a dream. He was smart, fresh and confident and I felt more like a frumpy veterinarian than ever. I couldn’t remember if I’d brushed my hair after the shower, and I’d definitely skipped shaving.
I remained unnoticed as my mother and father spoke fervently to Caleb about the family’s yearly ban on The Nutcracker. My brother flirted shamelessly with May. She pretended she wasn’t impressed with my Broadway-bound brother, and he obviously loved the challenge. They were thick as thieves. Keith was here—and somehow I’d nearly forgotten that fact. Unbelievable. Why had he come? I needed to address that this morning, because he had no business being here. He chatted with Uncle Archie, who seemed intent on piling a plate with sausage and eggs.
Caleb cut into a waffle with the side of his fork. He was the only one who saw me towering alone in the doorway. Six feet two and in this colorful family I faded into the wallpaper. I always had. With both my parents perennially in the limelight, the entire world a stage for Ryan, And-This-Is-Owen had practically become my given name. The afterthought. The strong and silent overachiever. The one who waited in the wings and held the bags and checked the lists.
Caleb nodded good morning. He glanced at something above my head and, shaking his head, he couldn’t hide a smile. I swear he laughed under his breath. I swallowed remembering the foamy moments in the shower when I’d imagined that mouth closing on my cock, just like old times.
I followed Caleb’s gaze—and damn if I wasn’t standing directly under the mistletoe.
My cheeks burned and I moved before my mother discovered me.
Jake trotted in, and the tags on his collar tinkled. He sniffed my palm with a cold, wet nose and wagged his tail. “Hey, buddy.”
Ryan stopped shoveling blueberry pancake into his already full mouth. “Sweet turtleneck, bro.”
“It’s a sweater.”
“Very trendy.”
Jake plopped down beside my father, who proved good for a handout.
“Oh, it’s Owen!” My mother grinned as I walked by to take my seat. “I ordered you a plain bran muffin, sweetheart. Just sit and have some coffee. You look spent.”
I cleared my throat, determined not to look at Caleb. “I…uh…went for a run.”
I looked anyway. Caleb tucked into a stack of waffles. They were slathered in carbohydrates, rich syrup and cholesterol-laden butter and nothing in my life had ever looked so appetizing.
“I think I’ll have waffles.”
Mom blinked back at me. “Wow. It must be Christmas.”
“It’s just a waffle, Mother. Calm down.”
I eyed my father and he seemed to be halfway through his raisin-choked oatmeal. He’d eaten toast, the crusts still on the plate, and he had a small a.m. pillbox on the table next to a glass of juice. My bet it was something rich in iron, like prune. So, my mother and his doctor were looking out for him. I can’t say I was relieved, exactly, but this was a sign that things were in hand. “Morning, Dad.”
“Ryan.” I winced as Mom whispered to him. He squinted and shook his head. “Owen. Sorry. Need to get my glasses checked again.”
There was one free chair—unfortunately, it was next to Keith.
“Morning.” He smiled as if that seat was my first choice and, just like old times, he passed the orange juice. He didn’t waste a second. “I swear I thought you were onboard with your mother’s invitation. This is so embarrassing. I should have called.”
“I know better than that.”
His chuckle told me everything. “Okay. You got me, but I came because you wouldn’t have agreed if you knew. It was underhanded.”
“It was. I don’t know what she told you, but—”
“And I know this is intrusive.” He ducked his head and I remember that there was more to him than his obvious likeness to Caleb. He was a nice guy—at least he’d texted me to tell me it was over. We’d had closure, unlike Caleb and I. I’d gone to the Black house that New Year’s Day, only to find it empty. No forwarding address. No word. Nothing.
Later, O.
Keith handled his fork and knife with precision and delicately carved a sausage. “I know how you must feel, but I’ll only be here for a day. That’s not a long time before I leave for Boston. I’m just glad to see you again. Maybe we could find a little time to talk.”
“Talk? You know I’m not a talker.” Unless I had the health of someone’s pet as the subject matter, I wasn’t much of a conversationalist. And if I were, I’d have found the right moment to ask Caleb what happened to him that New Year.
That was just too much of a mouthful for me.
Keith said, as if I cared, “Well, fortunately I am a talker.”
“Look. Keith—”
“I just hope we can still be friends. It sounds trite, I know, but it’s what I want. That’s all. We were friends once.” He glanced at Caleb, who in the fresh light of day didn’t resemble Keith at all. “I didn’t realize you’d have…someone else here.”
An older woman arrived in a snowman-covered apron and saved me from comment. She carried a steaming carafe of coffee and bustled to top off everyone’s cup. When she filled mine, she set the carafe next to my plate. “Waffles?”
“Absolutely.”
“You’re Dr. McKenzie?”
“I am.”
“You’re so young! I’m Katie. I was hoping to meet you this morning.” She sighed in obvious relief. I sensed my first patient in St. James, not counting the hypothermic one last night, was about to make an appointment. “I have a teensy little favor to ask of you. I know it’s Christmas and all, and you haven’t officially opened your practice yet, but Rex, our cat…”
This was my claim to fame—and it was never about me, which made me comfortable. “It’s fine. I’d love to meet him.” I smiled to put her at ease and dropped my napkin on the table. Before I pushed my chair back, she stopped me.
“Oh no. Please. It can wait until after breakfast. She’s just feeling poorly this morning. I was going to take her to the vet, but that’s twenty miles, and with the holiday and dinner to prepare…I thought—”
“It’s fine. Really. This is what I do. Rex is a she?”
Katie winked. “We didn’t know until recently. Let me get you fed first. Big guy like you needs a hot breakfast.” She hurried to fetch waffles.
“You better watch it or you’ll be doing free veterinary work for the rest of your life,” Keith said.
My mother clapped her hands and stood. Today’s holiday sweater was a fully decorated Christmas tree with tiny silver jingle bells and more blinking lights. She must wear a battery pack in her bra. I glanced casually to her left and caught Caleb watching me. He quickly turned his attention to my mother.
“I brought the hat!” My mother produced her moth-eaten Santa hat with a flourish. My father moaned. “I took the liberty of adding Caleb and May to our Secret Santa, and Keith of course, since we’ll all be a big happy family this week. Doug and Katie agreed, as well.” Caleb drank his juice but he seemed surprised to be included. Mom squeezed his shoulder. “You don’t mind, do you, love? It’ll be fun. The rules are that you take one name, and if you choose yourself, you have to try again—Ryan.”
“Oh please. That was only the one time—and let me remind you, that year I received the perfect gift.”
“The rules still stand, smarty-pants. Twenty bucks—be creative. And no food, no condoms.” She gave a meaningful look to my brother.
“I said it was the perfect gift.”
“No fake dog poop or hot-pepper chewing gum, and no live animals.”
“Ryan,” my father said.
“These people really take the fun out of gift giving,” Ryan complained to May.
“Please don’t buy me poop,” she answered.
�
��You have only this morning because you have to give your Secret Santa his or her gift before midnight—”
“When Santa turns into a pumpkin,” my brother stage-whispered and May rolled her eyes.
“—so the oldsters will go together in Dad’s bus, and you young people can fit into Ryan’s Suburban. Don’t be late getting back! Doug’s letting you take the snowmobiles this afternoon before the snow hits.”
Like magic, Katie returned and a plate of waffles slathered in piping hot apples and fluffy white whipped cream was placed in front of me.
My eyes rolled back with the first taste—I just didn’t go for this sort of thing—and I demolished half of my breakfast before the hat made its way around the table. Keith went first, and after smiling, he hid the name in his pocket. “I know exactly what to buy.” He was far too satisfied. I prayed he didn’t have me and not just because he never stuck to the twenty-dollar rule.
I snagged the last scrap of paper, and predictably, Caleb Black was written in my mother’s neat script. Maybe all of them said Caleb Black and she was performing some strange matchmaking ritual. I pocketed the paper and wondered if a room key was an inappropriate gift.
I ate, tended to the obviously pregnant Rex, wrote a prescription, and then leaving Jake in the yellow room, I grabbed my coat and met everyone in the driveway. It was cold so we wasted no time piling into the Suburban and heading into town. May sat in front and Caleb, Keith and I piled into the back. Squished next to Caleb, I tried like hell to ignore the length of his thigh against mine. His shoulder touched me. His arm touched me. I stared at the snow-covered fields and inhaled the woody scent of his aftershave. The ride was going to be the perfect blend of pleasure and torture. Particularly with Keith tightlipped and pouting at Caleb’s right.
Had he always been so petulant? Maybe.
I tracked a herd of deer picking their way through the trees until we rolled across the warped boards of the St. James Bridge. May sighed happily. “I can’t remember the last time I was surrounded by so many good-looking men.”
“How about this morning at breakfast? And last night?” Ryan snorted. “Are you fishing?”
She knocked his shoulder. “No. I’m sure you all have turned heads your entire lives, but I was one of those girls who looked thirty at thirteen.”
“Well, now you look thirteen at thirty.”
It may have been the sugar that had me flapping my gums, but it was more like payback for last night. “Just because you had sex when you were fourteen doesn’t mean everyone else did.”
“Dude. That was so low.” Ryan’s surprised gaze reflected in the rearview mirror and I blinked innocently.
May’s eyes bulged at Ryan. “Fourteen? Are you kidding me?”
“No. She was our math tutor. She was in college and I was precocious.”
“That’s disgusting.”
“Not for me it wasn’t. I was six feet tall in the ninth grade. I shaved when I was twelve. Sweetheart, I had no difficulty hitting that. But, oh man, Owen. Eighteen? That’s pathetic.”
It was more like twenty but I kept that to myself. Caleb wiggled beside me and for a second, I thought he was laughing.
“God. I was twenty.” May looked back at me like I was the only other late blooming virgin in the car and I moved in case she tried to pat my hand. “It was special, for me too.”
“I thought you were twenty,” Keith bitched. “It’s like I didn’t know you at all.” He squinted at Caleb. “Who in the hell are you?”
“I’m Caleb Black.”
“That’s not actually an answer.”
“It is for me,” Caleb said.
I broke in. “He was the first guy who ever drove me home.”
My brother snorted from the driver’s seat. “Keith. FYI. That’s a euphemism for the first guy Owen ever let into his pants.”
I had to agree. “Actually, it was.”
Caleb surprised me with a quiet, “Me, too.”
I quelled the crazy urge to squeeze his hand. Instead, I pressed myself against the door.
“Didn’t you ever have someone like that? A secret love from your past?” May asked.
“No. I don’t keep secrets from my lovers.”
He just bored them to death. This wasn’t going to end well so I watched the scenery—Vermont beneath a half foot of fresh snow, even on a bleary day, was still bright. I needed to pick up some sunglasses.
“What about your first crush? You know when you can’t eat or think or breathe without them? Or with them for that matter? Oh my God, it makes me sick just remembering it.”
“That’s depressing. I never felt anything like that.” Ryan steered us efficiently to town. “I just banged chicks in high school and they gave me teddy bears and rope bracelets.”
“That’s because you’re spoiled and emotionally stunted,” she said and I wanted her as my sister-in-law. She spoke to Keith. “Maybe what happened was too personal—and special. That’s how it felt to me. As if everything in the world hinged on that single moment in time—and it was too private to share.”
Caleb shifted beside me. His hand slid casually against his denim-clad leg and his knuckles brushed my thigh. They brushed again and I knew it wasn’t an accident.
My heart knocked against my rib cage.
May looked directly at us and Caleb didn’t move his hand.
“I bet it meant a lot to both of you—to be gay in a small town during high school. That’s so isolating and terrifying. And to find someone you like, who likes you back?” She pressed her hands to her heart. “Oh, and then to make that first move when you’re afraid not only of rejection but of…your feelings about yourself? Knowing your secret could be out? Oh my God, I bet that first everything was explosive. To risk everything? That’s so hot. No wonder you’re still single, Cay. You had that first big ‘O’ with Owen. That’s as good as it gets.”
“Wow. You talk more than my mother. I didn’t know that was possible,” Ryan said.
“Can we just drive into town?” Keith snapped. “I have shopping to do.”
“Sure. Sorry. I was just thinking out loud. But they were lucky to have each other.” She winked at me as if she were delivering a message—Single. Caleb is single. Over and out—and she faced front. Silence descended.
She was right, though. Caleb and I were damn fortunate. At the time, it had felt miraculous that Caleb returned my interest. It had been everything May said—which made that pain slice so much deeper when it abruptly ended.
I felt warm. Why wouldn’t Ryan at least put the damn radio on? I’d take Christmas carols or even Fox News over this lead-weighted quiet. Ryan didn’t so much as crack a smile, just focused on switching lanes and bringing us into town.
Caleb’s knuckles rested on my thigh. It was nearly enough to distract me from Keith’s anger.
“Special,” he muttered and frowned out the window like he was considering leaping from the vehicle. Or tossing Caleb into the snow.
We entered St. James. The roads were plowed and freshly salted, and every sidewalk bustled with last-minute shoppers in bundled clothing. The street lamps were decorated with red bows and holly and Santa rang a bell on the corner in front of the Starbucks. Christmas carols warbled from loudspeakers on the traffic-choked street.
There wasn’t a parking space to be had.
I found Mom’s list in my coat pocket and I almost dropped it. Condoms was the first thing she’d written—with a smiley face next to it. The woman was a menace. A single-minded menace.
Caleb poked at my list. “How many names did you take?”
“No one is allowed to touch this list.” I snatched it away. “And I have one name—same as you.”
Ryan swore as he searched for parking. “Even the library is full.”
“Just park at my house.” My mother had the craziest things on her list. Where was I going to find Uncle Duncan’s hair pomade? And blood oranges? Was she making a potion? I skimmed, but eye of newt didn’t make an appearance.
“Your house?” Keith made a choked sound.
“Oh. Yeah, I move in next week—after the closing. It’s not a secret. I bought a little—I guess it’s a bungalow. It’s a small white house with black shutters.” I’d just described every house in St. James. “It has a porch.”
Keith blustered, “You bought a house?”
“I said as much. This is where I live.” I would have to be blunt. “I’m thirty-three and this is a sound investment.”
Ryan turned onto Maple Street—my street—and lectured everyone in the car, “It’s customary to congratulate someone on purchasing his or her first home. Not bitch at them or whine. So congratulations, brother mine. Also, please note that it’s the done thing to send a gift to the new owner’s brother.”
“It’s just a house. The new practice is a block away. It’s a buyer’s market and this made good fiscal sense.”
May said, “Oh, I love this street. All the trees and the brick work. Is it here?”
“Right here,” Ryan said as he stopped the Suburban in front of my empty house. The SOLD sign was buried under a snowdrift, as was the porch, the walk, the driveway and most of the house.
“It looks adorable,” May said.
“It looks expensive,” Keith grumbled.
“It’s only a block from my house,” Caleb said and he finally moved his hand from my thigh. “That’s…really…really wild, isn’t it? What a small world.”
“Close your mouth, bro, you’re catching flies.”
I clicked my teeth together and Keith finally snapped at Caleb. “Why are you staying at the inn if you live right here? That doesn’t make any sort of sense.”
Caleb’s look was even. “May’s mother passed away—and the rest of her family is in Missouri. Doug and Katie invited us.”
Ryan sent May a sympathetic smile and said, “That’s awful, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”
She nodded. “Thanks, Ryan.”
Keith looked immediately contrite. He raked his fingers through his black hair and yanked at his fancy cashmere scarf. He didn’t look a thing like Caleb to me, then or now. “I’m so sorry. It’s just this situation is…very unusual. I came to say hello—I didn’t mean to be so…but really you just blindsided me.”