by Cat Kane
"I…I’m sorry, about all that."
"Ah, don’t worry about it." Jase waved it off. One elbow on the table and his chin in his hand, he regarded Riley with a combination of mischief and curiosity. "She didn’t know your stuff’d gone missing, huh?"
Riley did blush then, at the smile and the uncannily close guess. "No, she didn’t."
"What were you gonna do, then? If you don’t mind me asking. I mean…" Jase trailed off, frowning slightly. "You thought the cops’d find your stuff or something?"
"No." Riley shook his head. "I kinda got the brush off by the guys at the store, so I doubt anyone’s gonna follow up on anything. ‘Sides, if it was kids screwing around I don’t wanna get them in trouble right before Christmas. And I got everything back, thanks to you." He smiled. "I don’t know what I’d have done. Sold stuff to raise the money and tried to buy it all over again, I guess. I’m kinda glad I don’t have to, though."
"It’s nothing, really." Jase looked decidedly uncomfortable by the gratitude.
"No, it’s something." Riley persisted. "Most people would have dumped it, or sold it off themselves."
"Yeah, well…" Jase chuckled softly, the sound not quite amusement. "I’m not most people."
"But you are Jase, right?"
"Yeah." The laugh was lighter this time, more sincere. "And you’re Riley."
"Yeah. And sorry about Bree, she’s kinda…protective."
"So who is she to you? In case she accosts me again sometime. I mean, she’s not your Mom, right?"
"She’s my Aunt."
"Ah," Jase said. "Can’t really see the family resemblance."
"That’s just as well." Riley laughed softly. "So who are you really? Except for a good Samaritan and not actually going to my college?"
"Ah…" There was that evasiveness again. For someone who seemed quite adept at charming the pants off strangers within moments of meeting them, the guy seemed reluctant to talk about himself. "Y’know, the usual. Trying to get by, hanging out in store parking lots in case people’s carts go missing."
"You didn’t go out of your way to bring this stuff back, did you? Cause I’d give you a ride home, but Bree’s taken the car now, and—"
"Nah, it’s fine. I’m staying at a friends’ place over on Fourth Street while he’s out of town over the holidays. Other than that I’m kinda… in between things." He paused, a strange look crossing his face. "And… am I still concussed from the reindeer thing, or can I smell something burning?"
Riley blinked, sniffed.
"Oh shit, the cookies!"
Despite the panic, he made a note of the fact that Jase followed him as he bolted towards the kitchen. It seemed like an important detail to remember for future reference, somehow.
It felt…nice.
The cookies hadn’t fared so well. They lay curled into charcoal-black piles that resembled turds more than snowmen. The acrid smoke began to billow from the tray as he turned to douse them in the sink.
"Lemme get that." Jase leaned past him to open the window when Riley couldn’t reach without dropping the tray, lava hot despite Bree’s frog-shaped oven mitt. He glanced at the cookies, and bit back a chuckle. "Funny, you don’t look like the baking type."
"They’re not mine." Riley protested. "They’re Bree’s. Besides, what does the baking type look like, anyway?"
Jase did laugh then. "True. Not like you."
Riley tipped the ruined cookies into the trash, before depositing a new unbaked sheet of fresh cookies into the oven, praying they didn’t smell of smoke at school tomorrow. Bree’d be pissed. She’d only entrusted two simple things to him, and he’d almost screwed up both. He would have, if it wasn’t for Jase.
"Thank you. Again."
"Well, can’t have the Christmas cookies ruined." There was an indefinable edge to the words, in spite of the ever-present charm. If Riley didn’t know better – and he didn’t, really – he’d have called it bitterness. "You guys really go all out for the holidays, huh?"
"Bree does," he said, "mostly to keep her kids entertained."
"You don’t like it?"
"Not all the stress of it," Riley admitted. "But Bree takes it so seriously, and I can’t even do stuff like shopping and cookie baking properly."
"Seems you’re doing a fine job to me," Jase said. "But in that case, we should go do something that’s non-stressful for you."
Riley looked up, stared. "We should?"
"Absolutely," Jase said. "My treat. Cause I get the feeling you deserve it, and no-one should feel on edge over the holidays."
"Oh, I couldn’t, I mean—"
"Sure you could." The same persuasive charm that had left Bree so smitten was back in full force. "C’mon. Trust me, hanging out with you guys tonight has been the best time I’ve had over the holidays in a very long time. And that’s counting the part where you tried to kill me with a plastic reindeer and nuked cookies." The self-effacing grin was back too, and Riley wasn’t faring well under all these reinforcements. "It’d be fun, right?"
He didn’t doubt it would be.
Ever since he’d made the decision to knuckle down, get through school and make Bree proud, dating hadn’t really been on Riley’s radar. He’d messed around enough in his teens, gotten away with taking stupid risks with even stupider people, so at the time it hadn’t felt like much of a sacrifice. Most of the attention he drew at college was from the girls anyway. He suspected they just wanted to ask about his hair.
Jase, though… dark hair and dark eyes, a wicked smile and skin that looked like it’d be honey-warm to the touch, he was gorgeous enough not to care whether Riley’s hair color was just an attention-seeking tantrum from a bottle. He was also playful and easy-going enough to go along with Riley’s mess of a lie even when he had no reason to.
Jase would be a lot of fun. Riley just wasn’t all that sure it’d be the sensible kind of fun he’d been trying to stick to lately.
"Well… okay, I guess."
"Good." Jase grinned, evidently satisfied with himself. "What’re you doing tomorrow?"
The smile curled Riley's lips all of its own accord.
"Something with you, apparently."
"Well, wanna go for lunch? Then we can figure out what else to do that’ll work off your stress."
Oh, the images that careered through Riley’s mind at that suggestion. Jase better be flirting. It’d be pretty embarrassing if Riley jumped him, otherwise.
"Okay."
"Then it’s a date."
FOUR
All the way home, in between shivering and cursing the winter in general, Jase wondered what the hell he’d been thinking, asking the kid out.
Maybe it was the smile. Maybe it was those eyes. Maybe it was the unguarded happiness on Riley’s face when he realized his gifts had been returned. Maybe it was the adorable defensiveness when Jase had ribbed him about the cookies.
It didn’t matter. Fact was, he’d started this whole thing off with a lie, and he knew it. Though lord knew, he hadn’t lied to Riley about anything else, right down to telling the kid where he really lived.
Lived being a subjective term.
He didn’t bother turning on the lights as he got home. He didn’t want to see the drab peeling walls, or the unidentifiable stains the previous occupants had left on the carpet. Instead he pretended the sickly glow from the gas station across the street were the sparkles from the Christmas lights in Riley’s window, and shivered himself to sleep.
If he dreamed, he didn’t recall. When he woke it was to the grey light of morning, and his breath misting in front of his face.
He hardly planned on bringing Riley back to this hole, but found himself picking up the place anyway. A raid on the pockets of his pants as he folded them away found a stack of quarters for the old heating meter, because if nothing else, he was certain Riley wouldn’t like it here if it was this cold. The quarter stash meant he had to entertain Riley for a day on the grand total of seven twenty-six, but hell, there had
to be good shit to do around this city for free.
If not, well…
He endured a cold shower, for the benefit of making the quarter stash last as long as it could. It helped that the cold quelled the sparkling flares of eagerness that trailed along with every single thought of having Riley here with him.
Not that he was expecting anything. Unusually for him, he hadn’t been lying when he told Riley that just hanging out in that decked-out little house had been the most fun he’d had in a long time. At the back of his mind he knew he was only getting himself into an even deeper mess – there was a difference between living vicariously though someone else’s shopping, and doing it with their actual home – but he couldn’t imagine staying away. Not if Riley wanted him there.
He’d been feeling pretty damn confident as he strolled over to Riley’s, steps memorised from the night before. It was as ass-numbingly cold now as it had been then, but the thought that he was going to that bright, cosy, weird house instead of leaving it for that dingy room kept him warm.
The reindeer had been righted, and was back grazing the yellowing grass in front of the house. Jase sent it a rueful look, taking a careful step over the cable that, in daylight, lay rather obviously across the path.
Riley opened the door before he had a chance to knock. The kid really needed to quit being so cute, or the homicidal reindeer was going to get more of an eyeful than Jase intended.
"Hey."
"Hey yourself," Riley said, running a hand through his hair in a sweet gesture that Jase was rapidly finding addictive. He pretended to scan the yard, a mock-frown creasing his brow. "What, no surprise presents? No demolishing our front yard? Not like you, Jase."
"Ah, it’s too early in the day for both." Jase shoved his hands in his pockets, rocked back on his heels slightly. Damned if he didn’t feel as though he was going courting. If schmaltzy Christmas songs began playing from the ether, he was going to have to strangle himself with the reindeer cable.
"Oh, yeah, about that…" Riley began, looking sheepish.
"You haven’t changed your mind, have you?"
"No, no it’s nothing like that." Any minute now, Riley was going to start squirming, and then Jase would be completely lost. It was like dating some cute thing from the front of a Hallmark card.
Dating. Hallmark cards. What the hell was wrong with him?
"I kinda promised Bree I'd drop by this bake sale at the kids’ school. I mean, you don’t have to tag along if you didn’t want to, we could meet up later or something if—"
"Are the infamous cookies gonna be at this bake sale?"
Riley laughed. "Yeah."
"Then I’d love to go." He grinned, then paused thoughtfully. "Think I can cadge a free cookie since I helped save them from being nuked?"
"Probably." Riley smiled, turning to lock the front door. "Don’t tell Bree though. She doesn’t know I almost burned down the house, and the smell had mostly gone by the time she got home."
Jase followed him off the porch, past the reindeer, and out towards the street. Riley had to stop every few steps to rewrap the long loose ends of a home-knit scarf around his neck, and every time Jase watched him, he had to fight the urge to do the wrapping himself, just to make sure Riley was warm enough.
"Won’t say a word. Scouts honour."
Riley gave him a `yeah, right` look over his shoulder.
"Were you really a scout?"
"Yep." There he went again, telling the truth. It was unsettling. "For about two weeks. Then I put my knot-tying badge to use tying a kid called Bobby Wilson to a sign post while the neighbourhood kids were playing hostage negotiator."
"They kicked you out for that?"
"No, they kicked me out ‘cause I tied him so well they had to call the fire department in the end to cut him free. And that was after the local stray dog’d taken a deep and meaningful liking to Bobby’s leg."
Riley stared, then burst out laughing. "Wow. You sound like a devious kid. Am I gonna be safe out with you?"
Yielding to that temptation, Jase reached out, tugging at the ends of Riley’s scarf, before tucking them snugly around his collar.
"Yeah. I think you are."
That adorable blush graced Riley’s cheeks as he smiled, and despite the way it clashed horribly with his hair and the multi-colored mohair of the scarf, it was still one of the prettiest things Jase had seen.
"Good," Riley murmured. "’Cause you know, if you don’t behave yourself, I have a reindeer and I know how to use it."
The children’s elementary school was only a few blocks away from the house. The late morning was brisk with shoppers and traffic, but Jase didn’t mind the meandering stroll; it was unexpectedly pleasant, walking together in comfortable silence. Part of him wished they could keep doing that forever.
Jase hadn’t been inside a school since he’d left his own high school six years before, but it was like being thrown into a particularly unpleasant time warp. There was a pervasive smell of paint and bleach, and everything sounded so much louder than it should as it echoed through the halls. The walls were lined with paintings of things he wouldn’t dare attempt to identify for fear of upsetting some poor kid who’d drawn a dinosaur that Jase thought was a spaceship.
He almost wished he’d taken up Riley’s offer and waited this out. But Riley seemed so happy and enthusiastic to be here, Jase was just glad he was there to see it.
"So how many kids does your aunt have?"
"Two boys and one girl." The affection and pride in Riley’s voice wrapped around Jase like a warm blanket. "They all go to the same school, so that makes it easier."
Jase considered attending three different bake sales, and suppressed a grimace.
They rounded a corner, and the chatter of high-pitched voices hit him like a nose dive into a brick wall.
"You can still leave you know." Riley glanced at him.
"And miss the cookies when I’m this close?" Jase mentally steeled himself. "Never."
They’d barely made it through the doors of the large classroom that served as bake sale central, before Riley was ambushed by a three-foot-tall, blonde-haired miniature whirlwind.
"Riley, Riley! I’ve sold seven of Mom’s cookies already!"
Some of the other parents milling around the festively decorated tables looked over at the proclamation, glancing at Riley and evidently coming to the same mistaken conclusion as Jase—that Riley was possibly the youngest dad in the place.
While Jase hadn’t seen the resemblance between Bree and Riley, the little girl tugging at Riley’s sleeve and dragging him off through the crowd was a tiny blonde version of him, right down to the huge ocean colored eyes. Jase heeded to that playful pleading look in Riley’s eyes, following them towards one of the tables.
The little girl was still talking a mile a minute when Riley held up a hand. "Carly, hold on a second, I want you to meet a friend of mine."
Finally noticing Riley wasn’t there alone the little girl peered up at Jase with all her mother’s scepticism distilled into a wide eyed stare.
"Who’re you?"
"Hey." He tried to hide the nervousness. Kids were like dogs in that respect; they had a well-honed radar for fear. "I’m Jase."
She blinked, nonplussed. "I’m Carly. How do you know Riley?"
"From school." Riley shot Jase a look. Jase was hardly going to argue. He hadn’t been coming up with much in answer to that question.
Carly giggled, curly blonde pigtails bouncing.
"You’re too old to go to school!"
It was Jase’s turn to shoot Riley a half-hearted glare at his badly-stifled laugh. He doubted the instinctive `hey, I’m only twenty three!` response would have much effect on Carly, so he faked a put-upon sigh.
"Oh I am, huh? I think you’re too little to be in school."
"Am not!" She tried bristling through another giggle. "I’m six!"
"Six is little."
"Is not!" Carly tilted her head with an assessing stare
. "You’re funny."
Jase made a face, all the while feeling as though he’d passed some secret test he hadn’t realized he was taking.
"Really?"
While Carly dissolved into giggles again, Jase snuck a glance at Riley, almost blushing himself at the soft smile. Then Carly’s giggles ended in an abrupt squeal as she caught sight of someone behind them. Bracing himself for another round of questions, Jase followed the direction of her frantic waving.
The taller of the two boys approaching was an older, surlier version of Carly. He scowled at Jase as though he’d made some kind of territorial threat. Hell, maybe he had. They all seemed remarkably close to Riley. Jase’s experience of family was something altogether different. The younger boy hung back, shoulders drooping, shy gaze darting around as though he wanted to find something bigger than his brother to hide behind. Jase dreaded another series of introductions, but it turned out he didn’t have to say a word.
"This is Jase, Riley’s new friend!" Carly announced. The older boy just looked surlier, the younger boy managed to look more anxious than before. At least these were reactions Jase understood, even if animosity from two kids under ten wasn’t the nicest feeling in the world.
"This is Dennis, and this is Craig." Riley gestured to the older and younger boy in turn, sending them both a look. He didn’t say `be nice` but Jase could hear it in the tone. It didn’t help much with the trepidation in facing these three miniature judges.
"Where’s Mom?" Dennis did a great job of ignoring him altogether.
"She’ll be here later. We stopped by early cause we’re heading off to lunch."
Little eyes shot daggers at Jase, and he couldn’t help imagine the kid could see right through him, see through all the lies. Craig continued to watch in anxious silence, all big eyes and hair a shade darker than his siblings.
It hit him then, that he could have royally screwed Christmas for these kids. And mature as it made him to wish he had ditched Dennis’s gifts just for being a brat, seeing Carly and Craig upset would have made him the biggest bastard in the universe.