Ethan returned his gaze to his papers, shuffling them idly. “He told me he didn’t want to be a part of it this year.”
“That’s garbage, and you know it. Your boy loves a stage and a spotlight. You’re going to deny him because you get jealous when other people ogle him?”
Ethan traced his pen across a column of numbers, attempting to read them, but all he could see was the red haze of his fury. No, he would never deny Randy anything, and Ethan didn’t mind other people looking at him. Not the way Crabtree was thinking.
But yes, he minded like hell that Crabtree would be one of the people eye-fucking Randy, that Crabtree would take the opportunity to remind Ethan under his breath of all the creative ways he had enjoyed his husband before Randy even knew Ethan existed.
“I was thinking,” Crabtree went on, his tone annoyingly cheerful, as if he truly were benevolent, not a monster coming in here to uproot everything, “that the obvious answer was to involve you somehow. I’ll leave it to the two of you to come up with something suitable. You’ll let Sarah know when you’ve found it, of course.”
Sarah, who was Ethan’s secretary but had been Crabtree’s. Do you still think you can run my life and that of Randy’s because you keep your hand on all the scales? Ethan lifted his gaze to stare at Crabtree coolly, though his pen began to bow slightly in his grip.
Crabtree smiled. “Excellent. That’s settled, then.” With a groan, he pushed himself out of the couch. “I look forward to hearing what you come up with. And if you need any ideas, Sarah can provide you with the videos from previous parties.”
Ethan had been about to point out he’d agreed to nothing and would do so when hell froze over—and then it dawned on him what Crabtree had just said. “Videos?”
Crabtree winked at him. “As I said. Sarah has them all. Give her a buzz, and she’ll make sure you have them right away.”
Ethan did ask for them, and he got no work done that entire afternoon, because all he could do was stare at the stack of plain-labeled DVD cases on the corner of his desk. Inside was more than video of Randy and his former party exploits. When Ethan watched them, he would fill in the blanks of those years he had missed, at least in part. He would see some of the Randy he had been unable to know, the man who had existed before Ethan had arrived.
He made it about an hour before he surrendered and went home, got a bottle of beer, and began watching, ready for anything. He hoped for some insight, but he also braced for things he didn’t want to see, flirtations and possible make-out sessions with Crabtree and total strangers. He told himself it was all in the past, and whatever it was, he would endure it.
In the end, he admitted he should have known better. Randy Jansen was always going to surprise him.
Oh, his husband was a complete and utter ham in every video, and he was as depraved and debauched as the stories promised. But that wasn’t what grabbed Ethan’s attention. He’d been ready to see Randy the man-whore. What he wasn’t prepared for was Randy as…well, as Randy.
Randy himself. The Randy who nuzzled into Ethan’s hair in the middle of the night and bought him new shirts and ties “because.” The Randy who smiled a wry, beautiful smile at him over the top of his laptop when he got too focused on work. His Randy was in the videos, handing out presents, winking, laughing, and flirting.
And looking so lonely it broke Ethan’s heart every time the camera panned to him.
No one else would have seen it, though with great reluctance Ethan admitted Crabtree probably had noticed too. Randy tried to hide it in his widest smile, in his loudest laugh. It was actually a relief to watch him fight arousal as drunken men and women and an enthusiastic Crabtree licked frosting from his body, because there at least he was simply turned on. The rest of the time, though, as Randy faked Christmas spirit in the middle of everyone else’s joy, clowning to hide his pain, Ethan felt hollowed out. This was how Randy had looked when he’d found Ethan on the top of the Stratosphere, when he’d thought Ethan had lost his mind and gone back to Nick. Hurt like a little boy, smiling so nobody would notice.
Ethan couldn’t say, later, why he’d turned off the DVD and gone out to the attic above the garage. He hadn’t bothered to change his clothes, so there he was in a seven-hundred-dollar suit, sifting through Randy’s meticulously labeled Rubbermaid containers, not exactly sure what he was looking for. Eventually he headed to the back of the storage area, where the heat index had to be one hundred and twenty but where there were containers he’d never explored before. There, in the dust-choked corner, he found another piece of the Randy-shaped puzzle.
Six large green and red storage bins stood against the wall, labeled in Randy’s neat and angular handwriting: Christmas. Inside the bins were Christmas lights, ornaments, decorations, and holiday adornments of all kinds. Two of the bins contained the neatly stacked branches of an impressive-looking artificial tree. One container was sub-headed for the tree and another said room décor and was comprised of various branches and evergreen wraps strewn with lights, moving angels, and Santas, and a small but unmistakable nativity scene.
The last plastic bin was labeled Christmas: Miscellaneous, and that was where Ethan found the cards.
There were piles of them, wrapped in stacks and held together with red and green string, Christmas cards and string both faded with years. There was a list too: a black three-ring binder with yellowed paper bearing typed—as in with a typewriter—names and addresses, mostly for people in the Midwest. Some names had been struck through with a date, and Ethan realized these markings indicated deaths. To Ethan’s surprise, most of the cards were religious-themed, and if they weren’t, they were ridiculously sentimental in a folksy, homespun way Ethan never associated with Randy. In the back of the binder were folders full of photocopied, mass-produced, year-end letters, also faded, banded together in packs and held together with rubber bands. They told stories of families in Michigan, what they had been up to the past year, what they hoped to do in the months ahead. At the bottom of several of the letters, handwritten notes in shaky hand read, Thinking of you, and Be glad you don’t have our snow! and Miss you and hope to see you soon.
Ethan stared at the sea of cards around him, heedless of the heat and dust, lost in the discovery.
“I don’t send the cards anymore. Just so you know.”
Ethan was so startled he fell back against one of the bins, clutching a packet of cards to his chest as he tried to catch his breath. Randy, who had made his way silently up the ladder, pushed himself into the attic and crawled over to sink against a box across from him. He picked up the binder and flipped through it, smiling sadly.
“I think most of them are dead now.” He ran his fingers down the page. “There weren’t many people from back there who wanted to talk to the fag who ran away to Vegas, but a couple did. Oddly enough, they were nearly all geriatric. A few were younger, though, and some still send me cards. I should probably keep track and start up again.”
Ethan wasn’t sure what to say. Every time he had a handle on Randy lately, his husband opened a new door and showed him something that bowled Ethan over. He decided the only way to approach this was with honesty.
“I saw the videos of the parties.” When Randy winced, Ethan pressed on. “I’d expected to see a wild man having borderline illegal fun, but instead…” The memory of that aching sadness in his husband’s eyes in the videos pierced him anew. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“What, tell you I was being pathetic and trying to hide how miserable I was getting drunk and—” He broke off and sighed, shutting the binder. “The five years before we met weren’t my best. First I’d realized Mitch wasn’t really coming back, and then he did come back, but he had Sam with him. It was better after that, mind you. But at Christmas…well, it burned my ass a little bit that the old man was with somebody but I was still all alone. Especially on Christmas.”
“You like Christmas. You love it, in fact. You have all these decorations. You used to send Christmas
cards like this, and you saved all the ones from Michigan.” Ethan gestured accusingly to the boxes around them. “Why didn’t you just tell me you want to have Christmas together too? Why did you look all strange when I brought it up? Or is it that you don’t want to with me?” Ethan frowned, shook his head, and plowed ahead before Randy could answer. “No. You do want to have a big, sappy Christmas with me. So why aren’t you asking for it? Why, when I suggested it, did you pinch me and get all weird?”
Randy tipped his head at Ethan and smiled sheepishly. “Because I’m an idiot?”
Ethan tossed a stack of cards at his husband. “That makes two of us.”
Randy caught them with a sideways grin, nodding at the other end of the attic. “Can we get out of here now? Because it’s fucking hot as hell up here.”
“Sure.” Ethan eyed the containers. “Since we’re up here, though, why don’t we bring some of them down?” He gave Randy a hard look. “Because we’re going to have a big, sappy Christmas together. Whether you’re an idiot about it or not.”
Randy’s smile was endearing, almost shy. “Might as well bring them all, since we’re already sweaty and dirty. There won’t be any saving that suit, Slick.”
Ethan would ruin thirty suits to get that soft look on his husband’s face. “You’ll have to pick me out a new one then.”
They maneuvered the bins down the ladder together, swearing and laughing and teasing each other until they had everything down.
“You know I make cookies too, right? Twelve different kinds.” Randy wiped a smudge from Ethan’s cheek, a devilish twinkle in his eye. “You’ll have to tell me what your favorites are.”
Ethan took Randy’s face in his hands and kissed him languidly, not caring that they were both sweaty and dirty—in fact, he intended to make them sweatier. His heart was full to bursting as he peeled Randy’s shirt from his body and shrugged out of his suit coat and vest, aiming them toward the shower.
He was going to have Christmas. A real Christmas, with Randy. He wouldn’t be waiting up late, watching holiday movies until Nick’s family was asleep and he could call, and having Christmas with him two weeks early or three weeks late. He would have a tree, and lights, and silly, cheesy decorations.
No, Ethan thought, grinning as he pushed Randy under the spray, neither one of them would be lonely at all this Christmas.
Chapter Three
FOR A WEEK after discovering Randy’s attic Christmas trove, every day of Ethan’s life was filled with Randy’s Christmas magic.
He loved watching Randy fuss over how he wanted to put things out, worrying over whether or not Ethan would mind his dictates. At first he tried to include Ethan, but eventually he couldn’t hold back and unleashed his inner Martha Stewart.
“I want the garland to drape over the doorway, and the nativity looks best on the entertainment center. The angels go on the end table and the Santas on the shelf—I take down the other decorations and put them in storage. The tree goes in the window. That way you can see it from the street. I need to get a new timer, though. And of course half the damn lights don’t work.”
“Why don’t you make me a list,” Ethan suggested, “and I can go out and pick up what we’re missing on my way home from work tomorrow?” When Randy bit his lip, looking as if he was holding back a floodgate of commentary, Ethan quickly amended himself. “Or, if you’re not too tired, we could head out to Walmart right now.”
“I prefer Target,” Randy said.
“Target it is, then.”
Once they got in the car, Randy casually mentioned what he liked best was to shop around at some out-of-the-way places, and he hadn’t done so in a long time, which led them to scour parts of Las Vegas Ethan hadn’t yet discovered. Soon his car was loaded with lights, timers, and Christmas tins and cookie containers. Now they were in the outdoor display area of a home and garden store, where Randy examined the evergreen wreaths, trying to decide which one he wanted for the front door. Ethan, when confronted with the gigantic blow-up snowmen and Santas and trains and presents, made a confession of his own.
“I always wanted outdoor decorations.”
Randy glanced up from the wreaths, surprised. “Well, sure. We have some lights for the outside of the window, but we can get some more. Maybe a lighted garland wreath too? We could wrap it around the prickly pear.”
Ethan blushed, but he also gestured to the gaudy decorations. “I meant something more like those.”
Now Randy laughed. “Oh yeah? I mean, hell, I’m game, but I never would have thought it of you. I’d have figured you’d call them tacky.”
“They are. But they’re…” Ethan shoved his hands into his pockets. “I always got so excited about them when I was a kid. I wanted to be one of those yards where it was all lit up, where people would slow down to look.” He pushed his hands deeper. “And roll down their windows to see if there was music.”
“So did your yard in Provo have plastic deer, spotlights, and piped-out music?”
Ethan shook his head. “I didn’t have a yard. I had a condo. I put a small tree on top of a bookshelf, and that was it.”
Randy’s grin turned wicked. “You have a yard now, Mr. Ellison. What would you like to do with it?”
All Ethan meant to do was get one or two yard decorations, but he should have known better. By the time Randy was done with him, it seemed as if they’d been to every store in the city that sold blow-up decorations, and their final damage report was three light-up deer, an inflatable four-foot-high present with a penguin that popped out joyfully at regular intervals, a plastic Santa in sunglasses riding a Harley with a sidecar teeming with gifts, three spotlights, and a speaker with a long extension cord that Randy swore would attach to his stereo.
“We’re going to look ridiculous,” Ethan murmured as they stood in line at the checkout of the fifth store, two carts heaped high.
“Absolutely,” Randy agreed. He sounded very pleased. “Everyone’s going to come to gawk, and I do mean everyone. They’ll peer through their curtains and say, ‘Look at that house, those queers with their yard full of shit. Will you just look at them?’” Randy laughed. “And all the kids will make their parents drive by over and over. God, I can’t wait.”
That was exactly what happened. Between what they’d purchased together and decorations Randy already had, they ended up with a winter wonderland in the front yard. Randy came back from a craft store with a huge roll of white quilt batting and made them some snow. It would be ruined if it ever rained, but it was worth it. It looked amazing. Cheesy, ridiculous, and tacky, but amazing all the same. Everyone did indeed slow down and point.
And smile.
That same week Randy began baking cookies. As promised, he made Ethan confess what his favorite cookies were—spritz, Ethan admitted after some erotic interrogation, the melt-in-your-mouth butter cookies pressed into cute shapes and dyed red and green with food coloring, but he hated to put Randy to the trouble. That comment had earned him an exasperated look and the most drawn-out, torturous blow job Ethan had ever received. He also had a plate of sample spritz waiting for him the next day when he came home from work.
They were adorable, and delicious.
Randy went all out on his cookie making, and he enjoyed every moment of it, but the volume he produced blew Ethan away. Certainly one man could never eat these cookies by himself. There were sugar cookies and peanut butter blossoms and gingerbread, Ethan’s requested spritz, some sort of chocolate fudge cookie with a molten center, mint fudge, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies—Ethan thought it would never end.
“What are you going to do with these?” Ethan asked as he reached for his fourth gingerbread man. He was starting to question which cookie was his favorite.
Randy shrugged as he shifted a cookie sheet to a higher shelf in the oven. “Eat them. Give them away. Damned easiest Christmas present. Fifty bucks’ worth of baking supplies and half a day’s work gives you an almost endless supply.” He nodded to the cookbook on
the table. “Look this one up for me, will you? Around page two hundred. Fudgy bonbons, upper left. What temperature does it say?”
Ethan spun the cookbook around. It was the red one he’d seen Randy working in the other day, and at close inspection he realized it was a very old church cookbook, the kind Ethan’s mother had used when he was a child. Ethan marked the page with his finger and flipped briefly to the cover. St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Detroit. Ethan shook his head, smiling, and turned back to the recipe pages, rifling through for the one Randy had asked for. “Three seventy-five,” he announced. “Four to six minutes.”
“Right,” Randy replied with derision. “In this shit oven, it’s more like seven. Make sure you keep swapping trays between the racks, and don’t turn your back.”
It wasn’t the first time Randy had complained about the oven, and Ethan wondered if he should make an oven a Christmas present.
Perhaps, he thought, watching his husband swear again at the lack of counter space in his tiny kitchen, he needed more than just an oven. Maybe Ethan should look into a different house for them. It didn’t have to be something extravagant. Something modest, with a little more room for Randy to cook, for the cats to spread out and play.
When he went into work the next morning, he asked Sarah to look into some real estate options for him.
“Nothing too fancy. A nice neighborhood, a small yard where we can make an enclosed area for the cats to enjoy the outdoors while still being safe. I wouldn’t mind a pool, but it’s a lot of work, so it’s not required. The kitchen is a must, though. It needs to be spacious with a great oven and extensive storage and counter space.” He looked around to confirm they were alone. “And please keep this between the two of us. I’m just exploring my options right now, and above all, I don’t want Randy to know. I want this to be a surprise, if I manage to find something.”
“Of course,” Sarah told him. But Ethan should have known. Honestly, he should have seen it coming. Before he closed out the ledger for the day, Crabtree burst into his office, no trace of a Santa Claus smile on his face whatsoever.
The Twelve Days of Randy Page 3