Christmas Angel
By Sharon Maria Bidwell
Published by JMS Books LLC
Visit jms-books.com for more information.
Copyright 2017 Sharon Maria Bidwell
ISBN 9781634864671
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.
All rights reserved.
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This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America.
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This one is for those who love Dean and understand why Jay saw the good in him. To those who embraced the multi-layered anti-hero and accepted a good man doesn’t have to be perfect.
NOTE: To round off Dean’s journey, there was only one direction to follow. Even though this required much research and reading, I’ve only been able to use a fraction of what I waded through. Not everyone may agree with all the information I included to form part of Dean’s therapy, but like so often with research, there was a limit to what I could include, only so much that was suitable to, I hope, give Dean and Jay, and the readers the Happy Ever After they deserve.
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Christmas Angel
By Sharon Maria Bidwell
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Prologue
The world spun on two pairs of lips, the central point of Jay’s axis. The struggle to tell whether he rotated around Dean or the man revolved around him, was real. Certainty struck home: choosing didn’t matter. He loved Dean. Dean loved him. A pity many others took more convincing. In the words of Hot Chocolate, it started with a kiss, but Jay didn’t for a minute sense an awakening.
He ran his tongue along his lower lip the action sparking his memory. Foremost, he and Dean had been friends. Funny how Jay took this long to understand how important their grounding was. Friendship remained their foundation, the infrastructure destined to hold them together in the coming years. They’d travelled far. Faced a long road. Their future appeared to fit the analogy, which suited Dean’s love of cars—potholes of their own making filled by time. When those obstacles appeared to dwindle, others placed bumps en route or tried. Jay had grown accustomed to his sister being one of those hindrances, her animosity born out of love if domineering, but he hadn’t expected his mother to speak or act out against the man he loved. His parents liked Dean but the day before, in a romantic getaway booked to celebrate his parents’ thirtieth wedding anniversary, Eleanor Reid tried to throw a sexy Frenchman into his path. The motorway metaphor didn’t account for when people got driven over, their feelings splattered on the tarmac. Too easy to imagine his emotions sprayed wide, an ornate decoration of bruised sentiments. Red and purple. Bloodied and bruised.
Jay took in a deep breath, counted to twenty before releasing it. The fun of having shared a four-poster bed with Dean didn’t compensate for his family’s interference. Why go to so much trouble choosing a perfect suite for them to try to…not separate them, not that, but interfere for personal reasons? What was his mother’s motivation? A moment alone with her might supply the answer.
Saying goodbye to Jay’s parents took time. When Dean carried out their case and said he’d bring the car around, Eleanor and Jonathan Reid extended their farewell, until Jonathan told his wife to let their son get on the road. He hinted at a possible build-up of traffic if they allowed much more time to tick on then ambling off, a tactic well known to help cut her goodbyes shorter. Still, she hung back and walked with Jay out to the reception area. About to pass through the oval entryway, Jay hesitated.
“Mum?”
She turned, and he spent a few seconds taking in her appearance. Elegant as always. Coiffed one might say.
“François…” One of her impeccable eyebrows lifted. “He has a son?”
“Yes. Adrien.” She spoke as if François having offspring meant nothing.
“Apart from an amusing conversation—” he avoided mentioning eye candy “—was there a particular reason you felt we should talk?” His mother pursed her lips, the polished boards of the hotel fascinating. “You’re more direct than this with April. Well, in a roundabout way.”
“Parents want the best for their children.”
Something heavy settled within his chest. How many times did he have to defend his relationship with Dean? She answered again before he protested. He thought things couldn’t get any worse. He was wrong.
“I know you may feel my support extends only so far. To a degree that’s true. From what you know of your grandparents, it may not be apparent, but some didn’t approve of my father marrying my mother. She was a little…lower in class, shall we say, back in days when those things counted. I’m a little more…I guess the term April would use is prim and proper than most women are today. It might surprise April to know I envy her relaxed ways. I had elocution lessons and had to sit with my back straight.”
“So you don’t approve.”
“My feelings have nothing to do with you being homosexual. My…reservations have been quite selfish in their way. I wanted to see my children get married. I wanted grandchildren. Of course, that’s not out of the question. I don’t…dislike Dean. I simply cannot imagine him being a good parent, and I never heard him speak of having a family.”
“But you once thought he might get together with April.”
“True, but then the children would have a mother.”
Jay opened his mouth but hesitated, seeing no way to reply to that twisted way of thinking without starting an argument that would lead them off topic.
“I never mentioned children.”
“True.” The word whistled out between her teeth and her gaze went distant, introspective. “I just wanted you to be aware of…options. If you want a family. If Dean doesn’t happen to.”
Options? Like life without Dean? Like leaving him for another man? If that were to happen, it wouldn’t be owing to their disagreeing whether to have children. Other issues might come between them but on the subject of a family, he would be happy either way. No. Having, or not having, children didn’t bother him.
“And that will be between us.” Jay leant in and kissed his mother’s cheek. “Happy Anniversary.” He walked off before she said another word, pushing any unease to the back of his mind, compartmentalising. No sense in rushing. Dean had much with which he needed to contend. Jay intended to give him every opportunity to come to terms with their relationship. To decide what promise the future held.
Cha
pter 1
Jay’s mother paused while laying the table. She tilted her head to one side and stared at her daughter, April. “Please tell me we will make it through dinner this time and I have a good reason to set an extra space.”
Movement ceased throughout the dining room. Everyone stared at April. She gazed at her mother, lips pursed. As though the universe waited, time appeared to hang, suspended.
“Depends.” The word forced its way out, April’s lips unmoving. “We might be third time lucky.”
Dean barely arrested his laugh, wanted to applaud her. When April said nothing more, her mother raised an eyebrow—expression full of amusement, merriment backed up by a twitch of her lips. April resumed her chore, busy polishing glassware. If she rubbed any harder, the fragile goblets might fracture.
The sharp green artificial plant twisted in Dean’s hands, tugging his attention back to his task; only his strong grip prevented the tree from toppling.
Dean and Jay set the Christmas tree on its stand and then confronted a fortification of boxes. While dinner cooked under their mother’s watchful attendance, April and Jay, along with Dean, were to decorate the tree’s synthetic branches with help from April’s current boyfriend. If he behaved, said boyfriend’s invite extended to dinner.
Dean’s thoughts winged back to Christmases before, though, in truth the auspicious date remained four weeks away. The pre-celebratory tradition of hosting a semi-formal dinner a month before Christmas included festooning the tree and the rest of the house, inside and out.
“Dust gatherers.” April toed one box out of her way after uttering the annual custom: her yearly complaint one Dean agreed with in spite of the Reids’ insisting decorations not up at least a month to be a detestable hassle. The job required days instead of mere hours, enthusiastic a moderate way to express Jay’s father’s enjoyment. Not Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation excess, but decorating the exterior became Jonathan Reid’s personal present, wrapped and packaged for his own pleasure under the guise of doing a good deed for others.
Dean’s lips twitched. No reason he should believe the way he did, but so used to keeping his feelings a secret, he struggled with how to clarify why he cherished the simple, somewhat childish delight of sharing this time with people he considered extended family. He liked that Jay’s relatives maintained this tradition, though the onus fell on the siblings to attend a month beforehand, not merely at Christmastime. If he wanted to act churlish, Dean might accuse his friends’ parents of being greedy, desirous of their children’s attention.
They were lucky though. Dean included. Now Jay and Dean were a couple, Dean helped. They were, every one, family.
“No sign of the long ladders?” Eleanor Reid asked of no one in particular.
Jay checked outside the window. “He’s behaving himself.”
“It’s for his own good.” Eleanor sniffed.
The declaration brought Dean an unexpected twinge. Both sets of parents grew older. Though window nets obscured the view, he recognised the unmistakable shape of Jay’s father working outside alone. The man’s annual declaration of wanting no interference was as mildly spoken as the current weather, as sharply meant as a snowstorm. They left him unattended, but for his safety, the family had at last overruled his using tall ladders. They insisted, this year, he only hung lights from the porch, not the roof.
“It won’t make a difference.” Eleanor Reid said, tone wistful. As the ground level decorations were numerous, Dean agreed with her. Those who stopped by to slip a donation into the collection box for charity—the real reason the Reids’ took so much trouble—were unlikely to spot a lack of icicles twinkling from the eaves.
Eleanor disappeared into the kitchen, the swing of the door letting in many enticing aromas. Dean’s nostrils and stomach twitched in unison, a noise from his mid-section rumbling out.
“You got a good couple of hours to wait.” Jay scanned the various labels on the boxes. “I thought Mum colour-coded these things.”
“She did.” April held each glass up to the light, inspecting her handiwork. “But she didn’t note what codes she gave what, and now can’t remember. Get a move on and open them. I’ll help when I finish laying the table.”
Dean grabbed the nearest carton, relaxing his grip at the last for fear of crushing the cardboard as well as the contents. Gratitude aside, where to spend Christmas was one problem faced as a couple—a welcome, wonderful, and unexpected complication. A few people might say his feelings over what many considered being a predicament revealed much of his history—his prior lack of long lasting companionship; the flighty relationships; his views on sex.
Dean swallowed, overcome with a love only less powerful than his emotions for his own parents. Ridiculous reaction with no true reason. Such feelings might intoxicate due to the season. Whatever the cause, the sudden disabling sense of nostalgia shocked him. Christmas was never this large a concern. Although an only child, his parents chose less ceremonial festivities.
The array of decorations brought a lump to his throat, in part because of the extravagance, in part because his parents only bothered with a single decoration: the tree. They chose a lighter observance though their preference had nothing to do with a lack of love. They never pressured Dean to visit on Christmas Day, often itching to be away—a fact proven this year by his parents’ cruising plans.
Where Dean and Jay spent Christmas and Boxing Day this year remained open for discussion, although each time the issue reared its head, April’s glare spoke volumes: You two will not leave me here by my lonesome. The Reids’ loved each other, but Christmas arrived each year with the requisite compulsion to create the perfect celebration. Warmth seeped into his face at these notions. Too many firsts of late. Too many unsettling revelations. Every simple decision bore a meaningful, underlying repercussion.
He didn’t know how he wanted to celebrate this year. In spite of trying their hardest, the Reids’ never got their perfect Christmas. April shouldn’t be without a partner, but she hadn’t intended to be the last two Christmases either.
On cue, the doorbell rang. To judge by the rise and fall of her chest, April took a deep breath. Once, the movement would have interested him. These days, he did his best to ignore women’s breasts. With so much in his life changed, Dean spent more time admiring how she fought to suppress her obvious nervousness. This one must be important for April to feel anxious. He turned to welcome the newcomer.
Brian Clarke brought frosty air into the house along with the warmth of a smile that at once brought a silent plea to Dean’s lips. Whilst unimportant for Dean and Jay to get on with April’s love interest, it wouldn’t hurt to like him.
As Brian grinned at Jay, nodded at Dean, and took the effort of shaking hands without removing his coat or putting down the bags he carried first, Dean already liked him, unprepared for disappointment.
“This one’s promising,” he whispered to Jay as he passed.
“We remain hopeful,” Jay replied, a twinkle in his eyes. Despite the underlying hilarity at April’s expense, Jay didn’t fool him. Both men were hopeful for many reasons. April had more than her share of failed relationships. At least two had crashed and burned only a few feet over the starting line, owing to the men making fun of her brother.
As Dean at last found the box containing tinsel and the lights for the tree, he thought back to Christmas number one.
Jeffrey had lasted until he fetched the tree topper, saying, “No need for this. Not when we’ve got ourselves a real fairy.”
Dean had no chance to deck the bastard. The heat had seeped out of his anger as April growled. Used to being in a tight spot with her, Dean had believed she had been growling at him until she stalked toward her boyfriend to snatch the winged figure out of Jeffrey’s hand. She had snarled at Jeffrey while shoving him across the living room, outside, along the path, through the front gate. All the while, she threatened to stuff the delicate sprite somewhere and so deep Jeffrey would never find the figurine an
d experience trouble walking.
Second pre-Christmas get-together and Oliver lasted until they got the fairy on the tree’s pinnacle.
“Does everyone get three wishes? I mean we got not one, not two, but three faireeeeeeeees—”
Dean never saw where April grabbed Oliver—too busy marching over to open the front door, grabbing Oliver’s coat on the way, preparing to stuff the garment into the man’s arms. The noise to issue from the bloke’s mouth made Dean’s eyes water as he recalled the increased pitch of desperation. How much pain did one need to inflict to cause someone to produce such a sound? The mere thought made Dean’s testicles want to crawl up somewhere safe and warm. Once, April would have treated Dean the same way, the unbidden thought making him reflect on the heated relationship he and April formerly shared over Jay. Whatever the outcome this day, he’d best remember never again to piss off April.
Amazing to think he and April could now speak in a convivial manner and joke. Sure, suspicion made her eyes appear flint-like at times, but the consideration behind her gaze didn’t escape him. Nowadays—such as escorting Oliver off the premises—they acted together almost by intuition.
The big question this year: how long might the latest candidate last?
“Tinsel before the lights.” April’s remark brought him back to the present. The large open-branched tree always looked too bare if they started with the lights.
“Who gets that wonderful job?” Dean asked, aware he would. April gave him a stare, her head tilted to one side. He narrowed his gaze at her, to which she grinned. Brian stared from April to Dean, brow wrinkling in a fashion too adorable to look right on a man.
“Never mind them.” Jay plonked a glass into Brian’s hand. “Years of mutual disrespect. They communicate by telepathy these days.” He poured a generous measure of Scotch, ignoring Dean and April as both stared in his direction.
Faced with two choices—put the tinsel on with sleeves rolled and withstand the tree scratching him, or down to protect his skin—Dean rolled up his sleeves. He preferred protection, but the one time he tried, he discovered the tree liked to snag any fibres the fake needles encountered. He ended up hugging a tree—not a terrible thing for a nature lover and if the tree were not plastic. Much to everyone’s amusement, he’d required help to get free, so now put up with the scratches. A scotch might dull the annoyance.
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