by David Connor
“I hope so.”
The star on the tree came back on just as Aidan came in with Alec in his arms. He swung him around, getting snow all over the living room. “We trounced ’em,” Aidan said. “Go get some dry gloves.” He patted Alec on the rump. “It was me, Abby, and Alec against Dad, Al, and Auggie. They thought they could get to us through the little one, but Alec held his ground.”
I smiled at the playfulness and absolute joy in Aidan’s face as he stood there crusted in snow and ice—his hat and the tips of hair that couldn’t be contained beneath it, his eyebrows, his whiskers, and his pants. “And you know what happened?” he asked, coming closer to envelop me.
“Don’t!” I chuckled. “You’re too cold.”
“I have to.” He did and I shivered. “I took a dive, right. Dad fired at Alec and I had to protect my best shot. So I flew over into the Travis’s yard, and guess where I landed.”
“In the middle of their decorations,” Alec said, holding back giggles as he returned.
“Their nativity scene,” Aidan added. “I might have broke it, ’cause only two pieces were lit. Guess which two.” He was still squeezing me and getting me wet.
“Which two?” I asked.
“One wise man and the baby. Get it?”
I thought I probably did.
“A wise man,” Aidan said. “A Wise man… as in Caleb Wise… Grampy… and the baby. He was telling us something.”
“Maybe.” I gently pushed him away, though it was too late, I was wet right through to my skin. “That’s pretty cool.” It was wonderful to see him so comforted and assured by something some might call silly.
“I don’t know when he wants us to, Kipster, but he definitely does. He’s telling us we can handle it.”
I looked to Ainsley. “I hope so,” I said.
The story continues in Summer Spirit, an Aidan and Kip novel coming in 2016.
Christmas yet to come...
December 25, 2020
We were out in the storage room, wrapping gifts. It was officially Christmas, though we had a while to finish up Santa’s duties before the ones waiting for him awoke. Not he that everyone believed anymore. Whenever we mentioned the big guy in red we got more than one, “Yeah, right!”
I was a music teacher—music and chorus—high school and junior high, and also the Diversity Committee advisor. Aidan was a baker at the bakery across town. He had plans to open his own someday, and I had no doubt he would do it, even with kids to raise. Aidan was a great dad. A great foster dad. We’d been together for six years, seven, if one counted back to that night in his dorm room when it all officially began. We’d been married only four. With everything that happened, it took a while to get around to that. There had been some tragedy and some trouble. Things had been quite overwhelming for a while, and it looked as if we might not make it, but somehow, we did, stronger than ever. We didn’t know how long the little ones and not so little ones would be ours when they first arrived. This Christmas, we were blessed with a houseful. We’d gone from a young couple of goofy men to parents. Life was hectic, but my teaching hours were conducive to raising them all, and there was never any shortage of love, fun, angst, and worry.
“Is that about me?” Aidan kissed me. It was the sort of kiss meant to start something.
“It’s about all of us.”
“Put it away. I want to unwrap something early.”
“Here?” I asked.
“We can see the house.”
We could see the tree in the window too. The star shone brightly. It had every year but the one—even without changing the bulb. Sometimes it went off. Sometimes we grasped what Aidan’s grampy was trying to say right off. Sometimes we didn’t, a least not right away.
The Shelf Elf had never moved again on his own, and no mysterious stocking lists had magically appeared. Believe me, we looked. What was it about that Christmas? Maybe the people we lose send messages all the time. Maybe we just stop looking for them after a while. Maybe the message this year would be something different. One year a music box played that belonged to Aidan’s grams. One year a plastic gumdrop came off the ceramic gingerbread house and somehow ended up in Aidan’s car. Sure, these things could be explained. Steam from a boiling pot set off the mechanism in the music box. The gumdrop came off the year Aidan transferred the decorations from Florida to New York, or back again each way. It was a different car by then, though, so maybe it was something more. “We’re with you. We love you.” Perhaps if we stop and look around, the signs are there every day, not just on Christmas. We were hoping for one for Alec from his mom.
“I need you inside me,” Aidan said. “Everyone’s asleep, even Luna.”
We had named our dog after the moon.
“It’s private,” Aidan said. “No one’s gonna interrupt us.”
I had my hands down his boxers before he’d finished the sentence. We’d gotten used to doing it quickly. New Year’s Eve, Aidan’s sister Abigail was going to babysit. A quickie in the storage shed would have to hold us until then.
“Merry Christmas, Aidan,” I said breathlessly afterward.
“Merry Christmas, Kip. And happy anniversary.”
We were married on December 25, 2016.
“I love you, Aidan Asher.”
“Forever, Matthew Asher Kipling,” Aidan said.
THE END