by Cooper Davis
I follow dutifully behind, carrying our suitcases and thinking that she’s still my new best friend, for reaching out to Max like this, for saving his Christmas. Even though I never thought I’d say it, I definitely love her.
I just have to get comfortable with being part of her family.
John appears from the kitchen, where I hear a chorus of familiar voices. I make out Louisa’s laughter and Veronica’s giggles, right as the warm smell of home-baked cookies hits my senses.
“There you are!” Veronica pokes her head out of the kitchen with a generous wave in our direction. “The boys are back in town!”
“We thought you’d never get here,” Louisa chimes, and blows us both a kiss.
“Long flight, you know,” I kind of mumble, glancing all around me. Max sails right to the kitchen, hugging Veronica and Louisa, and I suddenly feel stranded. Like a stranger in the middle of what should be familiar territory.
That feeling of panic from the car intensifies. It’s rapid and suffocating, only now there’s nothing to white-knuckle except the suitcase that I’m left gripping in my hand.
“Can I take that for you, Hunter?” John asks, patting me on the back. “Show you the guest room?” For a moment, I feel a little dazed, and wonder if he means that I’ll be staying in a room by myself again, without Max.
But I can’t possibly voice that question, and instead I find myself following him toward the back of the house, kind of agreeing to a long series of his friendly questions. What a great guy, it’s still true; he just chatters along about how glad he is we’ve come, that we didn’t let “things” keep us away. That Leah’s thrilled we’re staying with them.
Then we’re in the guest room, and I see that there’s a king-sized bed, piled high with downy comforters and feather pillows. Totally inviting, with no doubt about the message it all conveys. He confirms my thoughts. “This is where you and Max are staying.”
Together. No arguments, no confusion, and certainly no shame.
“Thanks, man,” I mumble, feeling slightly embarrassed. Not sure why, I mean, hell, he toasted to our wedding just a couple of months back. Maybe it’s just that he’s so freaking open about us being together.
He leaves me alone to settle in, and I sink to the edge of the bed. My heart is racing and I’ve broken out into a cold sweat. For a long moment, I stare at the rug and wonder what the fuck is wrong with me. I’m with my soul mate, home for Christmas, part of his family.
I should be happy, because for the first time in years, I’m not alone. But the problem is, I’ve spent my whole life alone, so maybe I can’t do this. Maybe I’m just no good at being part of a tribe.
“Hunter?” Max pokes his head into the bedroom, and his eyes are shadowed with worry. “You okay?”
I’m lying on the guest bed, staring up at the ceiling, feeling cranky as hell.
“Just tired.” It’s more of a grunt than an actual statement.
Max shuts the door behind him and steps close. He runs his hand over the top of his head, and I know that look on his face; he’s not sure how to read me or what I need.
“That all?” he finally asks, sounding uncertain.
“’Course that’s all. Think I’m gonna take a nap.” Never mind that I’ve just blown off everyone back in the kitchen and living room.
Max settles on the mattress edge and reaches to brush my hair away from my face. “Hunter, talk to me.” I recoil from his touch, jerking my head sideways, and he withdraws his hand like he’s just been burned.
“Everything’s fine.” My voice is tight, like the rest of me feels.
“Doesn’t seem like it.”
“Leave it alone, Maxwell. I’m okay.”
He licks his lips and still just stares at me.
“What?” I finally cry, meeting his intense gaze. “What’s the problem? I’m tired, all right?”
“And you’re being a dick.”
“Oh, thanks a lot, man.”
“Hunter, I realize this is new for you, that it feels different being with everybody for Christmas.” His voice is soft and patient. “I know that, but you’re going to have to try.”
“Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Trying to read me, to analyze me like some goddamned shrink.”
He laughs, which seems odd, seeing as how we’re launching into a full-scale argument. “What?” I cry again, my eyes growing wide, because he doesn’t seem angry at all, just a little sad, as he reaches to cup my face within his palm. This time I don’t pull away.
“Hunter, you’re an open book,” he says with a faint smile. “You always think you’re such a mystery when the whole world can read everything about you. Especially me.”
“Oh, that’s just fucking great. I’m transparent.” I grumble the words, but I find my anger fading. God, why does he have to be so gentle with me? So loving and clued into all my emotions, especially when I’m being such an asshole.
“You’re perfect,” he whispers, leaning low to kiss me. His lips are soft, and a little salty, as they brush against mine. “And beautiful and I love you. You know how much I love you.”
“You taste like…nuts,” I observe.
“Roasted chestnuts. John did them out on the grill.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “This really is going to be like some kind of Dickens Christmas, isn’t it?”
He smiles a long moment, leaning in to kiss me again. “You can do it.”
“But what if I can’t?”
“Then you still have me.”
I know he understands, that he gets how hard this is for me. How my whole life I’ve felt like an orphan—hell, I’ve been one, despite Aunt Edna raising me. But there are things at play here that he doesn’t know, that I’ve never told him, and I think he understands that too.
I rake a hand through my long hair, blowing out a heavy breath. The crazy nervousness is fading now, because he’s with me. “I’m trying, Max, I really am. I mean coming here, and, and…”
He cuts me off. “I know that.”
“It’s weird, that’s all. I’m not used to all this traditional stuff.”
“You’re used to me. Well, at least, a little bit by now,” he says, gazing at me through his thick lashes, and I pull him hard against my chest.
“Very used to you. And to loving you,” I whisper, pressing a tender kiss against the top of his head. I trace my fingertips over the luscious, short hair. “’Cause I do. So much, and I want to get this right.”
He leans up and smiles gently, nuzzling his mouth against my cheek, whispering, “The only thing you have to get right is just being you.”
“Then let’s go find a beer,” I say, and he laughs, rising to his feet again, as I sit up on the bed.
“Sure,” he agrees, narrowing his eyes at me. “Just don’t expect any frozen pizza, okay?”
“Damn, baby, that’s what I came for.”
“Bowl games, yes. Frozen pizza, no.”
“Then I’ll survive,” I laugh, as I follow him out of the bedroom, gathering my nerve to face the others. “Give me my football and I can definitely survive.”
Unexpectedly, he turns back toward me, and says, “Hunter, you were surviving for a long time. This is being with the people who love you.”
And he doesn’t even wait for me to respond, just leaves me there, his pointed words ringing in that hallway like bells from some Christmas lost long ago.
Chapter Twelve
“Okay, so we’re going to divide into groups,” Leah announces, giving her red Santa hat an adjustment as she speaks. She’s gathered us into the kitchen like efficient holiday troops, pairing us up into teams. Maxwell and I will work together. Veronica will go with Louisa, and Ben will head off with John, while Leah goes to oversee a pageant rehearsal downtown.
Work. That’s wha
t this seems like to me, but for some reason everybody else is laughing and making jokes. Apparently, they really love this drill.
Leah thrusts a huge plate of cookies into my hands. “Hunter, you and Max are going to the retirement home, then meeting Veronica and Louisa at the orphanage afterward.”
“Why?” It’s not what I mean to ask, but still the word pops right out of my mouth. What I really wonder is whether or not Maxwell put her up to this, me going to the orphanage.
“Because it’s what we do every year,” Max explains evenly. His eyes lock with mine, and I glimpse a flare of understanding in his gaze. I can see that it’s not a setup by the kind reassurance in his expression.
Veronica slips her arm around my waist, hugging me tight. “It’s what we always do, Willis, only you’re a part of everything now.”
“Lucky for us, because otherwise Max would be sulking again like last year,” Louisa says, tossing a pointed glance in Max’s direction. He smiles guiltily, tugging at the zipper on his leather jacket. It’s a nervous habit of his, one I know from experience.
“I wish Hunter had come with us,” Veronica mimics melodramatically.
Louisa places an exaggerated hand over her heart, adding, “He’s all alone back in Los Angeles.”
“Maybe we should call him!” Ben laughs.
Poor Max just shakes his head at all of them, glancing at me a little shyly as he shoves his hands in his pockets.
“You missed me?” I blurt before I can stop myself. I’m thinking of how damned much I missed him all last Christmas.
The look on Maxwell’s face says it all, as he kind of gives a strangled cough. “Well, I told you that when you called here, remember?”
Yeah, baby, I definitely remember. How clammy that receiver felt in my hand as I kicked back on the sofa with a beer. How I never wanted our conversation to end, that I kept replaying it in my mind for days afterward.
“Oh, God, was that why my brother was so testy last year?” Leah groans, staring at Louisa and Veronica in sudden understanding. “Because he missed Hunter?”
“Bingo!” Ben says.
“We’re talking major crush.” Veronica spreads her hands wide in explanation. “Huge. Bigger than big.”
Max looks really sheepish and stares at his shoes for a minute, rocking heel to toe. “Guys, I wasn’t that bad.”
Leah stares at her brother, aghast. “No, Max, I distinctly remember pulling you off of the sofa to help me in the kitchen. More than once. I just didn’t know why you were so morose.”
“Are you sure that wasn’t me the first Christmas we were married?” John asks, grinning at me. I swear he nearly gives a wink.
“No, that would be me most every year,” Ben says. “Forget good deeds. I’m all about pure, unadulterated holiday laziness.”
The jabs continue until Leah reaches for her coat, shaking her head. “Hunter, they’re just impossible, every last one of them. Thank God you’re here to shake things up for a change.”
“Why, Leah? To increase the body count?” Max teases, following after her, laughing like a little kid. “So we can hit ten charity events instead of eight this time? Or would that be twelve with Hunter’s help?”
Leah tugs on a pair of expensive leather gloves with the precision of a Marine Corps commander. “I’m not listening to you, Max Daniels. Not listening at all.” But I hear amusement in her voice as she swings open the door with a flourish and announces to us all, “Report back at seventeen-hundred hours.”
“As you wish, Captain.” I flip a sharp salute her way.
“Willis, don’t even start.”
Gauging by the collective groans from our friends, I’m pretty sure I’ll have to take my place in line if I do.
At the orphanage, Veronica plays guitar and sings Christmas carols for the kids. Max sits on the floor, holding a golden-haired toddler on his lap, softly stroking her hair. They’re cuddled up like lifelong friends, just listening to the music together. She kind of reminds me of that kid at the beach last summer, the one he befriended. Man, Max has got a way with children. Watching him work that room, I feel alternately awed and clueless. I decide to stake out a place by the window and stand there on the edge, where it’s safe.
Problem is, I know the expressions I see here far too well, the shadowed loneliness in the eyes of these children. I can’t look too closely at any of them, because if I do, I won’t be able to stick around. Instead I focus on Maxwell, on how amazing he is with all these children, so gentle and kind. He makes them laugh by pulling faces and crawling around on the floor after them.
He’d make a fantastic dad. Realizing that kind of causes my heart to ache—yet leaves me feeling oddly hopeful, too. Like maybe one day we could adopt or something. Who knows, but I love seeing this side to him. He’s so carefree with these kids. After all, nobody here gives a crap if he’s queer, a cross-dresser or a millionaire. Nobody cares if he cooks like Emeril or makes money like Donald Trump.
He’s just a guy who can give killer pony rides and make a Santa puppet sound convincing and funny.
God, I love him. He’s all I ever wanted in a wife.
He’s all I ever wanted in a father, too. That’s what I realize, watching him be so loving with all these kids. Hell, I’m not sure what I’m thinking—certainly not that he’s my dad or anything creepy like that. It’s more like I have some weird memory flash, as I watch him cradle that little girl close on his lap, whispering in her ear.
The memories fold around me and I remember my own daddy, how he always made Christmas such a big deal. It’s one of the four or five things I even recall about my parents apart from the day they died.
That last Christmas, my father took me out into the woods. I followed him in the snow, stepping into his huge footprints until we found just the right tree. I can hear the sound of that buzz saw powering up, filling the wintry silence with a loud roar. Then there’s the soft thud of the fir branches hitting the damp earth, and my father dropping low to the ground, touching the prickly pine with me. There’s my small hand beneath his large gloved one, stroking the branches.
Son, it’s a living thing. You gotta respect the nobility of that.
He was just an autoworker, an assembly line guy, yet he had a total grasp on the universe. Maybe it’s why I love working with a block of wood so much, that same simplicity. Sometimes I wonder if I’m nothing more than the sum of who they both were. Even worse, I worry that I don’t add up nearly so well, that I’m just a shadowed reflection of them. Now that question hounds me a lot more often than I like to admit.
But what scares me the most is how close Maxwell’s come to figuring it all out, pounding me with those direct questions of his I can’t quite evade.
With a snap of Louisa’s camera lens, I’m slammed back into the moment. Good thing, too, because Maxwell’s watching me. Carefully. I plaster on a smile for his benefit and shake off that memory—before it can penetrate me. Or open me up too much.
Somehow, though, as Max studies me from across the room, I’m sure he isn’t finished with me yet. Even worse, I suspect my memories aren’t either.
Our group has converged on a big downtown park where there’s a Santa village, complete with elves and helpers. Naturally, it comes as no surprise when I spot Leah in the crowd, handing out candy canes.
“Those are the kids from the Y program. The one for underprivileged kids,” Max explains, leaning close to my ear. “Leah arranges for them to get free pictures with Santa every year.”
“That’s great.” I nod, watching a knot of little people squealing in laughter about some shared joke.
As for me, I’m working hard at being sociable for Max’s sake, but damned if I’m not becoming more reclusive by the moment. I feel like an outsider, an observer as my lover and friends convene across timeworn territory. Then again, maybe I’m still haunted by those children
at the orphanage.
I was one of the lucky ones; I never spent time in a place like that. After the accident, I was kept at the home of a neighbor, someone who picked me up from kindergarten that day and simply said, “Your mommy and daddy had to go someplace. They sent me instead.”
Cowards. God love ’em for what they did to help, but what kind of asshole tells a kid who’s just been orphaned that his parents sent them?
Edna hopped the next flight out from Iowa City and by nightfall had arrived in our Detroit suburb. The minute I saw her gentle brown eyes peering at me from the doorway to the neighbor’s den, I knew something was wrong. I think I realized just how bad it was when she swept me into her generous arms and rocked me against her chest. “Hunter, I love you,” she whispered. “I’m going to take good care of you. I promise.”
After that, she explained about the solid, Detroit-built automobile that had failed my father’s unwavering confidence. She left out words I learned much later; words like “drunk driver” and “death on impact”. No, that day, she spoke to me like the five-year-old I was, using simple words to convey the truth. “Mommy and Daddy won’t be coming back, sweetheart,” she said.
Kind of hard to forget something like that, even after all these years.
Thing is, I have far more memories of their death than I do of their lives. And that’s always seemed more than slightly fucked up to me.
“Horrendous, isn’t it?” Max asks, giving me a tentative smile.
I didn’t realize that I’d begun staring off into space. Correction, my unfocused gaze has apparently centered itself on an alien Santa helper. It’s something of a lawn gnome, there in the middle of the park. Ugly as sin, like about a million other items in this freaky desert town.
“Been an annual fixture in this park for my whole life.”
I nod, feeling numbed by the memories that have cloaked themselves around me like a gauzy web. Maxwell’s not daunted, though, and presses happily along with his story. “When Louisa and I were fifteen, I dared her to steal it one night. To keep it until the next day,” he admits. “What do you think she did?” he finally asks when I say nothing.