“Sounds good,” Emma muttered, hunched over her phone and tapping away. She froze. “Wait, what?”
Maksim rolled his eyes. “You need to be more aware of your surroundings, brat.”
“Why?” Emma shrugged. “I’ve already survived one kidnapping. I figure that’s enough bad luck for one life.”
“I wish it worked that way, kiddo,” Val rumbled. He gazed out the window as they merged onto south I-5.
“Where are we going, really?”
Maksim accepted Val’s thermos and took a quick swig before passing it back. “Christmas tree hunting,” he announced.
“Then why are we leaving the city? There’s a tree lot on every corner.”
“Val insists that’s not the proper way to do things.”
“Since when?” Emma demanded. “What, he’d rather have a fake one? I don’t like those. My parents have one that’s white and decorated with ornaments that cost more than my school tuition. They’re afraid to put presents underneath it in case the tree gets bumped.”
“I suggested an artificial tree. Less mess. But I was shot down.”
“You’re both pathetic,” Val laughed, slouching down in his seat. “You haven’t experienced a proper Christmas until you’ve cut your own tree.”
“Okay, Clark Griswold,” Emma laughed, giving his seat a playful kick. “Just so long as I get my presents, I don’t care.”
Val and Maksim traded a glance.
Emma wasn’t deprived of material goods. She had money and baubles coming out of her ears. What her life with her parents lacked was warmth, love, and stability. The last thing she needed was to be showered with more gifts, and neither of them wanted for anything, so they’d agreed to celebrate a gift free holiday. They were all starving for time with each other, nothing more.
“Yeah, about that…” Val said hesitantly, rubbing the back of his neck.
He broke the news to her gently, but they were still forced to listen to her loud and sarcastic protest the rest of the trip.
Maksim flipped on the radio and turned up the volume to drown her out.
“I hate jazz!” She yelled from the back seat.
Val changed the station.
Dashing through the snow….
Maksim groaned. But both Val and Emma were grinning and bobbing their heads to the beat, so he suffered through the sugary chorus.
Rain was falling in a light mist by the time they reached the Christmas tree farm outside the city.
The Ferris Family Farm sprawled out across hundreds of acres at the end of a long, winding dirt road, and both men winced as the bottom of the Mercedes scraped against the deep ruts caused by the rain.
“Welcome to the farm!” A weathered old man greeted them once they’d found a space in the crowded parking lot. He wore a gap-toothed grin and a flannel hunting cap that had reindeer antlers sprouting from its sides.
Jolly, upbeat Christmas carols blasted from outdoor speakers strapped to posts at the corners of the parking lot, and a sales area was decked out with kiosks selling holiday baubles, cookies, and hot cocoa. A food truck sat at the end of the lot, exuding the salty smell of hot dogs.
“Ah, I feel back to nature already,” Maksim murmured.
Val jabbed an elbow into his ribs.
“I’m Frank. Good to meetcha.” He thrust out a calloused hand toward Maksim, who gave it a brisk shake. “You ever been here before?”
“I have,” Val said with a grin, and the man did a double-take.
“Valentine?” He asked, squinting until his weathered eyes were nothing but deep grooves in his wrinkled face. “Good Lord, boy! It’s been years since I saw you! Where’s your mama and papa?”
“Ah.” Val ran a hand through his hair. “They, uh, passed away last year.”
Frank’s expression grew solemn. “I’m sorry for that, Valentine. Your family must’ve come to me for over a decade! They were good people, your folks.”
He pulled Val into a hard hug that had him tensing all over, but he controlled himself when the man gave him a hearty clap across the back.
“Thanks. Uh, how’s the crop this year?” He extricated himself from the man’s embrace and slipped his hand into Maksim’s.
Fierce pride flashed through Maksim as he threaded their fingers together.
“Hearty and hale, my boy! Hearty and hale!” He cocked his head at Maksim and Emma. “This your family?”
“Yes,” Val said simply.
Frank gave Emma a quizzical look, clearly trying to do the math in his head, but he gave up with a shrug. “You know the drill. Grab a saw and take a walk. Stay within the roped off areas and send up a yell when you’ve felled your tree. I’ll send the boys down on an ATV to haul it up.”
Emma stared aghast at the rolling hills of evergreens. “All the paths are mud!”
“We’ve had a lot of rain,” Frank offered apologetically.
“A little dirt never hurt anyone,” Val declared, grabbing a rusted hacksaw from a post strung with equipment and slinging it over one shoulder.
“I just got new boots,” she moaned, extending one skinny leg and modeling a pair of neat suede ankle boots.
“You want to wait in the car?”
“Not by myself.” She scowled. “What about Maks?”
Maksim glanced down at his own boots. They were sturdy, good quality leather, perfect for this kind of terrain. But they were also Gucci.
Val’s eyes sparkled. “Well?”
Maksim sighed and wrapped one arm around Emma’s thin shoulders. “Come on, Em. The spirit of Christmas beckons.”
They spent a good hour walking the rows of trees, bickering good-naturedly about the perfect shape. Maksim favored the Nobles. The tall, sparse branches appealed to his minimalist aesthetic. Emma placed her vote for the tallest tree she could find, a strapping Douglas Fir that would scrape the vaulted ceiling in their living room.
“There is no way I’m strapping that thing to the roof of my Mercedes,” Maksim said firmly. “We’d take out an extra lane of traffic every time we turned!”
Val kept gravitating toward the fat, squat little Scotch Pines. He brushed his gloved hand over the tender branches and stuck his face close, inhaling deeply.
“We had a small place growing up, so we couldn’t get anything too big. But we always end up with these huge, dumpling trees and spent the next few weeks trying to maneuver around them. It sort of became a tradition.”
“What other traditions did you have?” Maksim asked, smiling faintly at the unfettered joy on his lover’s face.
His anxiety was unpredictable. One day – or even one hour – could be sheer hell, but it often passed as quickly as it came.
Yesterday, Val had been lost. Today, he was fully present and loving every minute of it.
“On Christmas Eve, we’d always have a huge Italian feast. Mom would make manicotti and cannoli sprinkled with chocolate chips. I thought we’d do that this year, unless you wanted something else?”
Maksim shook his head. He wasn’t wed to any particular celebrations. He hadn’t put much stock in the holidays since his mother passed.
“What about you?” Val prodded, eyeballing a tree that was almost as wide as it was tall.
“I haven’t celebrated in a while. I usually stayed home with a good drink and It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“What did you do when you were a kid?”
“Hmm.” Maksim had to think about that. It had been so long ago.
They watched Emma as she crouched down beneath a tree, trying to catch sight of a squirrel that had darted into the thick branches.
There was still so much of a child in her. She’d given up moaning about her clothes five minutes into their adventure, and was as filthy as a ragamuffin by that point. A streak of sap marked her right cheek.
“We always had a big feast on Christmas Eve, even though it was only the two of us. Mother would make whitefish and pierogi, and for dessert, we would have kolach. We’d go all day without eating,
and we weren’t allowed to start dinner until we spotted the first star of the evening.”
He smiled at the memory of sitting on their little balcony, wrapped in a quilt and scanning the horizon while his stomach growled. “It was a real pain in the ass on a cloudy night,” he laughed.
Val had a thoughtful look on his face.
“What?” Maksim asked, cocking his head.
“Nothing.” Val hung the hacksaw on a sturdy tree branch and wrapped Maksim up in his arms. His breath was a warm puff against his throat. “I’m just glad I’ve got you to make new traditions with.”
“Aaaah! It tried to bite me!” Emma shrieked.
Maksim kissed Val’s smiling mouth, tasting coffee and spearmint gum. “Sounds like she needs a rescue,” he chuckled.
In the end, they settled for Val’s short, fat tree. Val helped a crew of teenage boys lash it with twine to the roof of Maksim’s vehicle.
Maksim trusted him to keep the boys from damaging the paint, so he escorted Emma to the kiosks and bought her a hot chocolate and a small collection of crystal baubles to hang on the tree. It wasn’t until he was forking over his credit card that he realized they’d forgotten to purchase decorations for the tree. Val had gone crazy with the outdoor displays, but they didn’t even have interior lights yet.
Val solved the problem by stopping at a Walmart on their way home.
Maksim insisted there were better places to go, but Val told him that paying twenty bucks for a box of electrical wires and filaments was a sucker move.
Emma dumped an armload of cheap, neon-hued body wash into their cart, and Val snagged approximately fifty giant plastic candy canes.
Maksim gritted his teeth against the onslaught of holiday shoppers, though even his quick reflexes couldn’t prevent a large woman in a pair of fuzzy pajama pants from sideswiping their cart beside a display of giant stuffed animals.
“Watch it!” she bellowed, plunking her hands on her hips.
Maksim gave her the same look he applied to witnesses during cross-examination and watched her complexion lose two shades of color. She hurriedly glanced away, heaving her cart around him and speeding down the aisle without a backward glance.
“Okay,” Val chuckled, coming up behind him and dropping a peck on his cheek. “That’s our cue to leave.”
“How do people do this every year?” Maksim growled.
“Bourbon?” Val suggested.
“There isn’t enough in the world,” he assured him, watching in horror as two harried parents carried their squalling toddler from the store.
Val threw his head back and laughed, and the sound warmed Maksim to his very core.
Perhaps the joy of the season had pushed the worst of his anxiety to the side, for the time being, at least.
Christmas mattered to Val, unlike Maksim, and this was one of the first holidays he’d celebrated without his parents.
It would be perfect, Maksim vowed to himself.
He’d make sure of it.
4
He woke in the dead of night with the crawling sense that something was wrong.
Val’s side of the bed was empty, and had been empty for a while; the sheets were cool to his touch.
Maksim lifted his head off the pillow and squinted at the digital clock beside the bed.
It was still the heart of night, and not even a particle of light filtered through the curtains. But a golden sliver was visible beneath their closed bedroom door, so the hall light was on.
He lay flat on his back, ignoring the dread pooling in his stomach and taking stock of his environment.
They were in the middle of nowhere, and the house was absolutely silent, so the chances of a home invasion were slim. Val had probably gone downstairs to get a snack.
Maksim sighed and stopped lying to himself. He climbed out of bed and donned a pair of silk pajama pants.
Emma stood in her doorway, twisting the hem of her pajama top between her fingers. Her worried expression melted away as soon as Maksim stepped into the hall.
“I didn’t know if I should wake you!” she hissed, throwing her arms around his bare torso.
Maksim held her close and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Where is he?” he whispered.
“In the guest bathroom.” She looked up at him, chewing her bottom lip nervously. “He didn’t look so good. But he said not to bother you. So, I didn’t. I was waiting for him to come back out, but…”
“I’ll take care of it.” Maksim took her gently by the elbow and steered her back to bed.
He tucked the quilt up to her chin and smoothed her hair off her forehead, the way he imagined he might have done if she’d been his real daughter.
Emma grabbed him by the wrist when he began to move away, and he stifled a surge of impatience.
Val needed him. He needed him now.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked nervously.
“He’ll be fine,” Maksim assured her. “Just nightmares.”
“Yeah.” She let out a huge yawn. “I had those for a while, after… you know. But Val was always there for me. How come he won’t let anybody be there for him?”
“I don’t know,” Maksim said grimly. “But we’ll be there, anyway, won’t we?”
Once Emma was settled and pretending to drift back to sleep, he went straight to the guest bathroom.
A wall of steam slammed into him as soon as he eased open the door. Val hadn’t bothered to turn on the light, but they’d installed a decorative nightlight for Emma so she didn’t stumble in the middle of the night.
Maksim stepped inside the small space and gently closed the door behind him. Through the dim orange glow and the bank of steam, he made out the shadow of a man leaning against the shower wall, unmoving.
He dug into the cabinet and set out two large, fluffy towels before shucking his pants and stepping in behind his lover.
“Jesus, Val,” he cursed. “The water’s freezing.”
Val didn’t respond. His face was buried in the cradle of his forearms as he braced himself against the shower tile.
Maksim instinctively ran a hand down his gorgeous, muscular ass, and he twitched in response, like a horse about to shy.
Maksim slid an arm around his waist and pressed in close behind him, reaching around to adjust the temperature of the water. As soon as the spray warmed, he adjusted the showerhead so it fell gently across Val’s back and shoulders.
Val’s naked body was so large and strong, like a Greek sculpture, but the curve of his neck seemed so fragile and vulnerable right then.
Maksim pressed a gentle kiss to his nape, but Val’s face remained hidden in his arms.
They didn’t speak. They stood together for what felt like hours, and Maksim kept adjusting the faucet by increments whenever the water began to cool.
Eventually, Val’s muscles began to unlock, one by one, and Maksim began rubbing a soothing hand over his shoulders.
“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmured encouragingly. “You’re safe. I’m here.”
Val’s back heaved. He sucked in a shuddering breath, and it seemed as if it were the first breath he’d taken in a long time. “You should be sleeping,” he rasped.
“I sleep best with you beside me,” Maksim murmured into the wet skin of his shoulder.
Val’s low voice was barely audible over the hiss of the shower. “I didn’t want to wake you.”
“You’re a dumbass.” Maksim gently turned him in his arms, but Val’s head hung low. He cupped his chin in his hand and lifted his face. A universe of pain tumbled about in Val’s gray eyes. “Do you want to talk about it?”
Val shook his head, but he wound his arms around Maksim’s shoulders and finally returned his embrace.
“No point in talking,” he rumbled, resting his forehead against the hollow of Maksim’s throat. “It’s nothing I can’t handle. No sense in upsetting you and Emma while I get my head on straight.”
Maksim didn’t reply right away. He didn’t t
rust his control. Frustration welled up inside him until he wanted to scream with it.
Eventually, he croaked, “You’re not alone, Val.”
Val kissed him gently. His smile was a malformed thing. “In this, I am.”
Maksim’s heart broke, just a little, as he gathered his lover up in his arms and held him until the water turned to ice.
“Acosta, if you hang that mistletoe in this office, I will kill you!”
Alex’s strident bellow greeted Maksim as he entered the Cabrini Legal Clinic the following Monday.
He stood in the entry, shaking rain from his umbrella, and watched as two grown men grappled for a sprig of greenery.
Alex came in low, with enough force that Maksim wondered briefly if he’d played linebacker in college, but Miguel scampered around Stella’s desk. He backpedaled out of reach, holding a clump of mistletoe wrapped in a red ribbon out of the grasp of his boss.
“Don’t be such a scrooge, Cabrini,” he sneered.
Alex’s glare was menacing. “Did our sensitivity training mean nothing to you? I will not have my staff suing you for sexual harassment!”
“Stella doesn’t mind!” Miguel dropped a loud kiss on her cheek. “Do you, Stella?”
“Knock yourself out,” she replied, barely looking up from her report. “It’s not like I’m getting lip action anywhere else this Christmas.”
“Elliot!” Alex yelled down the hall. “Company vote! Do you want Miguel kissing you?”
“Only if he wants to spend Christmas in a body bag!” came a muffled shout from the back office.
“Ain’t no one’s fault but yours if you can’t handle a little Latino heat, my man!” Miguel called.
“It’s not me you have to worry about!” Elliot shouted back.
Alex folded his arms across his chest. His charcoal suit and teal silk shirt were nearly as expensive as Maksim’s, so he must have spent a rare afternoon in court. Usually, he loafed around the office in jeans and sweatshirts, delegating all court appearances to his staff.
“Do they allow mistletoe at Lockheed & Poole, Kovalenko?” Alex barked.
“Only when a senior partner is trying to get in someone’s pants at the company party,” he said, straight-faced.
The Rules of Gift Giving Page 10