by Amy Lane
“I’m all about Sky, baby, cause that’s where Oak is reaching for.”
Hank’s lips quirked sideways. “Unless they’re burying their roots in Earth’s firmament,” he said, and Justin set the tester down and burst into giggles.
“Let’s get out of here, big guy, before you make any more puns and hurt yourself.”
And off they went. They bought some extra ornaments and garlands in their next stop, and then went and got Josie from Mrs. Watson’s, who was so excited she reminded Hank of Justin.
“Oh boy! Oh boy! Is Justin gonna decorate with us? Oh is he, Uncle Hank?”
After a short dinner, they jumped into the fray, letting Josie hang most of the ornaments below waist level. She ran to one or the other of them before each ornament, so they could examine it and tell her it was perfect, and then she placed it very carefully on the tree. Hank tended to prefer the Hallmark ornaments—his childhood trees had been filled with hand-me-downs and homemade—but this year, he was particularly proud to put a candy cane made of beads front and center. Josie had made it in daycare.
Justin held her up so she could put the star on the top and then string tinsel garlands all around the living room, and Hank put a nail in the front door to hang the new wreath on. When he was done with that, he disappeared into the kitchen to make cocoa and came back, setting it on the coasters on the coffee table, and looking around.
“It’s wonderful,” he pronounced, and Josie ran to give him a completely unsolicited, delighted hug.
And then to ask him if she could watch Shrek again after her bath, which he’d forgotten about.
But finally she was bathed and full of hot chocolate and her teeth were brushed, and Hank had read her one story and Justin had sung her a Christmas song in his sweet tenor, and she was fast, fast asleep.
Hank came out of her bedroom to find Justin in the kitchen, cleaning up.
And fell very much in love. Again.
He moved behind that compact, vital body, placed his hands on Justin’s hips and started to kiss the back of his neck. Justin gasped and put the pot he was washing down in the sink, and simply leaned back into Hank’s arms and allowed him to….
To kiss him, his neck, his back, his ears, his jaw, his shoulders....
To touch him, his chest, his face, his stomach, his arms, his throat….
To feel him, pressed up against Hank’s front, a willing, warm human being who was moaning breathlessly and grinding back against Hank as he breathed, touched, and pillaged the young man who had come bouncing into his life and who showed no inclination of leaving.
“You have to promise me something,” Hank whispered, and Justin moaned in return. “You have to promise me that no matter how this goes, you’ll smile at me tomorrow morning, okay? I’m starting to depend on that smile. I need to see it when we leave the house.”
“Deal.”
Hank grabbed his shoulders and turned him around and took his mouth savagely, his breath sobbing in his throat when Justin matched him for urgency. He shoved his hands down the back of Justin’s jeans and pulled up his shirt, dying to feel bare skin, and was gratified when Justin did the same thing. Justin’s hands were warm and still a little damp, but Hank didn’t care. Skin-on-skin, after so long, it was amazing.
Justin panted and bucked his hips forward, then pulled back from the kiss and leaned his head on Hank’s shoulder. “Please tell me your door locks.”
“Yes,” Hank breathed back, reaching into Justin’s jeans and grabbing twin handfuls of taut yet squishy backside. “But we need to unlock it and get dressed when we’re done.”
“Deal.” And then they were kissing, and Hank was walking Justin backwards to the bedroom, leaving the dishes in the sink and turning off lights as they went.
The kiss didn’t stop when they got to the bedroom, but it did get interrupted as Hank pulled off Justin’s bright green sweater and the red T-shirt underneath it. Justin obviously used the gym too, but his muscles were smaller, more compact, and his chest had maybe three hairs on it.
“Does this mean,” Hank asked, kissing down Justin’s pec, “that I’m cradle robbing?”
“Yeah, Henry.” Justin tipped his head back and appeared to enjoy every one of Hank’s perfectly placed kisses down the center of his chest. “They changed the age of consent to read ‘age of chest hair’.”
Hank pulled away to snicker at him, and Justin knotted his fingers in Hank’s short hair and pushed him back to placing kisses on Justin’s nearly smooth chest. “If you suck on my nipple, I may come in my pants,” Justin promised, and Hank went for it, to see if that could really happen.
It was a near thing. Justin’s über-responsive body bucked under his mouth, and his grip tightened to the point of pain in Hank’s hair, so Hank moved to the next nipple to tease some more before shucking Justin’s pants and boxers in one go, and moving straight for ground zero.
“Henry,” Justin whined, struggling to get his pants and his shoes off at the same time so he could lie back on the bed. “Jeez, just give it a little bit of a—” His shoes finally landed with a plop, along with his jeans, and Hank pushed him back on the bed and took Justin’s entire length into his mouth with one hungry shove.
“Ohmygah!” Justin breathed, and Henry tightened his lips and pulled back, tasting skin, sweat, soap, and then pushing forward again as far down as he could go. Justin pounded the mattress in the sweet pain of almost instant arousal, and started to jerk hard. Hank hadn’t done this in a while—he took Justin’s cock in his fist and held tight, then clamped his mouth over the widely flared head and teased with his tongue, letting Justin thrust as hard and as fast and as wildly and—“Ohmygah omygah omygah… fuck!”
He surged forward and Hank swallowed, wanting all of it in his mouth, down his throat, the salty, the bitter, the surprisingly sweet, and Justin kept thrusting until every last bit of it was shot. When Justin made a sound of discomfort, Hank let go of his cock and pushed himself up onto the mattress, still hard and aching but content for a moment to just touch and see the first man he’d had in his bed in too long a time. He didn’t look Justin in the eyes, not yet. First he danced his fingertips across thighs—there was some fur on those, and black hair at Justin’s groin, proving that yes, in fact, Justin did have body hair. From the thighs, he stuck his tongue out and caught the edges of Justin’s oblique muscles and traced up while Justin held himself, quivering, and tried, Hank could tell, not to fall apart and giggle.
Hank moved to his side and tried to give him a hickey, and Justin lost the battle, curling up defensively and giggling like a little kid.
“Ohmygah, Henry! Way to kill a mood!” he said, still laughing, and Hank slid up to put his head on the pillow next to him and pulled Justin, giggles and all, into his arms. He dropped little kisses in Justin’s silky and enviably straight black hair, on his temple, on his cheek, and then, as the giggles stilled, on his mouth. Justin opened his mouth and returned the kiss and Hank made a sort of desperate sound and ground his still-aching groin.
“What do you want?” Justin asked, tucking his hands under Hank’s shirt and sweater, and Hank closed his eyes and shuddered.
“Just touch me,” he begged. “Just…”
“Yeah,” Justin whispered. “Here, Henry, let’s take your clothes off.”
There was some scrambling and some breathless giggling but in a few moments, Hank was naked and lying on the sheets across from Justin, who pressed a kiss on his mouth and then scooted closer and wrapped his arms and legs around Hank’s body, just pulling him into a full-length, skin-on-skin embrace that left Hank shuddering.
“C’mere,” Justin whispered against his neck, even though Hank was solid in his arms and they couldn’t get any closer without penetration. Hank didn’t want that, though. He found he was clinging to Justin, aroused—painfully aroused—but needing Justin’s skin, and his kindness and his joy with every fiber, atom, skin cell, particle, electron, platelet and neuron in his body. “Shh….”
/> Justin stroked his back and his sides and even his backside, and when Hank’s hips started to buck, he slid his hand between their bodies and grasped Hank’s cock. He stroked jerkily because there was no room for anything else, but Hank was so primed, so high off the thrill of being touched, that Justin’s stuttering, inexpert touch was all he needed.
He climaxed hard, the hot come spurting between them. His vision went black, the orgasm convulsing him into Justin’s arms until he huddled there, still shaking.
Justin held him, nothing delicate or fragile in his touch at all, until Hank got hold of himself and tried to pull back, if nothing else, to restore his dignity.
Justin’s embrace only grew tighter.
“Stay,” he whispered. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
Hank wanted to laugh. It was ludicrous, wasn’t it? Hank was the banker; Justin was the fun guy the kids loved. Hank had the house; Justin lived with his parents. Hank took care of Josie like he’d taken care of Amanda, and Justin… oh God. He was taking care of Hank. He was. He was clutching Hank right up next to him, naked and vulnerable and unafraid in a way Hank had never been.
Hank found himself breathing shakily into the hollow of Justin’s neck, taking everything he had to offer.
HE WASN’T aware of the moment he managed to pull himself together, but it came. He drew back a little and yanked the comforter over the two of them to their chins. Justin laughed and pulled it over their heads and looked at him in the light shining through the deep gold comforter, and Hank blinked back, relieved that he was Hank again because he’d felt a little lost as Henry.
“That was good,” Justin whispered, and Hank smiled and nodded, feeling excited like a kid at Christmas.
“That was wonderful.”
“Want to do it again?”
For a moment he almost said no, they had to go to sleep, they both worked in the morning blah blah blah blah. Of course then it hit him; he had Justin, and he was naked, and he was in Hank’s bed, horny, and ready for a (hopefully slower) second round.
Common sense reasserted itself in a hurry.
“Oh God, yes,” he said, closing in for a kiss, and Justin’s laughing mouth opened for him and their secret hiding place from all the scary things in the world kept them safe while they made love again.
Drama
CHRISTMAS EVE loomed in four days, and Hank was waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It had to, right?
He’d just been so damned happy.
Yes—work, Josie, clean the house, repeat daily as necessary—all of that was still there. But, like he’d imagined, having Justin to fill the quiet places in all that routine also filled the empty places in Hank. Having him spend the night—quite a lot of them, for two weeks—well, damn.
Hank could never remember waking up every morning and being so incredibly grateful.
Josie had woken up that first night that Justin slept over and tiptoed into Hank’s room. (He’d expected this—they were both chastely dressed in sleep shorts and T-shirts by then.) Hank had walked her back to her own this night, but she’d seen Justin, still sleeping, on the other side of the bed.
“Will he be here in the morning?” she’d asked, as he pulled the covers up to her chin.
“Yes,” Hank said, not doubting it for a moment.
“Good,” she yawned. “I can sleep if he’s going to be here.”
Hank had no idea how that worked, but as he’d gone back to bed and pulled Justin against him, he’d thought blearily that it was probably just magic.
SO TWO weeks later, the biggest thing he was stressing about was what to get Justin for Christmas. He’d gone back to the bath shop and bought Sky—the entire line, bath scrub, body spray, shaving cream, man-sturizer, the works! But it didn’t seem enough. Although it was personal, maybe the most personal thing he’d ever bought for a man (Alan had preferred gift certificates and DVDs) it just didn’t encompass all of the good things, all of the hope and the joy and the oxygen that Justin had brought into his life.
So when Hank sat down at his desk after his lunchtime run, the question of whether gloves were lame as a gift and a worry about taping the Charlie Brown Christmas special on television that night were the only two things on his mind.
And then his desk phone rang and his world ended.
“Henry! How ya doin’, big brother? How’s my baby girl?”
Hank had heard about a person’s “bowels turning to ice,” but even though he’d been in a car wreck when he was seventeen, he’d never had it happen to him.
Until now.
He almost hung up the phone, but like social niceties, cowardice wasn’t his strong suit either.
“Hello, Amanda,” he said, pulling out the files he’d been planning to review and a pen and pretending like this was any other office call. “You couldn’t use my cell phone?”
“Didn’t want you to hang up on me,” she said impishly. “You can’t turn the office phone off!” No one had ever said she was stupid.
“Yes, well, only cowards run away,” he said coldly and was not surprised to hear her gasp.
“That’s not fair, Henry! I was desperate!”
“You were tired!” he snapped back. “And I totally would have helped you out, but you didn’t ask for that, did you! You just...” his voice threatened to shake and break and he took a deep breath. “You abandoned your child, and you were just lucky you left her with me, because Josie’s in a good place now. I’m just waiting to see what fresh hell you’ve got waiting for your daughter now.”
“Henry! Don’t be mean to me! I want to come back!”
“Why?” Hank lashed out, hating himself but unable to stop. “So you can dress her up like a doll and parade her in front of your friends? So you can leave her alone while you go to the movies? Yeah, Amanda—she told me about that. She told me that you snuck out while she was sleeping, and she told me about different men every morning.”
“God, the kid’s a freakin’ narc!” Amanda whined, and Hank took a deep breath and tried to control himself. This… this blame thing wasn’t going to help the situation. Besides that, his voice was rising, and his co-workers were eyeballing him and, dammit, he didn’t like drama!
“What did you need, Amanda?” Hank asked, because that had to be the only reason she called, right?
“I just…” Amanda’s voice dropped. “I just wanted to see her, that’s all,” she said. “I… I was passing through town and I wanted to wish her a Merry Christmas. Is that so freakin’ bad?”
Oh hells. “No,” he said shortly, running his fingers through his hair. No. It wasn’t. Amanda was young, and it was Christmas, and it wasn’t so freakin’ bad to want to see your family at Christmas. “Are you going to try to take her from me?” he asked, surprised when he said it, shocked at how close this fear was to the surface.
“I wouldn’t mind if she wanted to come with me!” Amanda said excitedly. “I’ve got this sweet setup in Lincoln now, and my boyfriend says he likes kids and wouldn’t mind her. My best friend lives in the same complex and we’ve got a pool and—”
“Please,” he said, his voice tinny and echoing in his ears. “Please rethink that,” he said when he could get his breath. “The social worker just okayed her for my house, and we’ve got a routine and a daycare worker and….” Oh God. Justin and Josie, they were… they were his home and his everything. She couldn’t just swoop in and take half his everything, could she? “I fixed up her room and we’ve got plans for Christmas.” No, oh please, Amanda, I gave you all my toys when we were kids, I fed you, I walked you home from school, and I never wanted anything, being your family was enough. Please don’t take this thing, this one thing, away from me when it’s so close to all I ever wanted.
“Oh Henry!” Amanda laughed. “God, you’re so uptight! She’s a kid! She’ll be fine wherever she is. Some television, some McDonald’s, she’s all good!”
“Right,” Hank said bitterly. “Because God knows we both turned out just
fine!”
There was a wounded silence on the other end of the line, and then Amanda inhaled. Hank recognized that inhale—it was the sound Amanda made right before she dug her heels in.
“I’ll be there tonight. I’ll let you know if I’m taking her with me then.”
Amanda hung up and Hank was left at his work desk, shivering, trying to tell himself that those were not tears burning tightly in the back of his throat.
Suddenly he wanted Justin. He needed Justin. He told his supervisor that he was not feeling well and excused himself from his afternoon, then made a beeline for the gym.
When he got there, he flashed his ID and went straight back to the gym daycare, so focused on talking to Justin that he actually stopped short when he heard Justin’s voice come out of an empty workout classroom to his left.
He didn’t sound happy.
“Justin! Baby!” came a female voice that Hank dimly identified as Justin’s supervisor. “You’ve got to calm down. It sounds like things are going great—I don’t know what your problem is!”
“You don’t get it, Jackie!” Justin wailed, and as Hank backed up and leaned against the wall, the better to eavesdrop, just hearing his voice—even distraught—eased something in Hank’s chest and slowed his heartbeat. Justin charmed children, small animals, grim social workers, and Hank. Surely, Justin would find a way to convince Amanda that Josie needed to stay with him, stay with them, so this warm, almost painfully gratifying sensation of home didn’t need to evaporate like sweat after a run.
“What don’t I get? He’s a nice guy, he likes children—hell, he has one built in—and I’ve seen him look at you. I think he sort of worships you. It’s weird. What’s the problem?”
“He doesn’t like drama,” Justin said, and Hank grimaced. Well, he’d made that clear, hadn’t he? “And I want to bring him home. Home. You’ve met my mother! She’ll call in the whole family and they’ll grill him and I’ll be coming out too and there will be tears and… drama! And… I… I don’t want to scare him off, but… it’s so stupid.” Justin’s voice broke a little. “I just want to bring him home for Christmas.”