by Cat Kane
"To murderous reindeer."
Riley laughed, tapping his cup against Jase’s. "To the best gift caretaker who doesn’t actually go to my school."
For a split second, it seemed as though the sharp edge to Jase’s smile was back in full force, but it disappeared as soon as it came, and Riley couldn’t be sure if it was there at all or just an illusion from the twinkling lights.
"So, what are you going to school for?" Jase asked. "Your aunt seems pretty proud of you."
Not great even with something as tame as mulled wine, Riley switched out the plastic cup for his hot chocolate. "Business management."
Jase whistled softly. "Impressive." He leaned in, close and conspiratorial. "I’m gonna bet you look hot as fuck in a suit."
Riley tried to duck into his coat, basking in a heat that had nothing to do with the hot drinks. "I don’t know about that…"
"Oh, no doubt, you’d pull off the hot, megarich CEO look in a heartbeat."
"I’m not looking to be a hot, megarich CEO," Riley laughed. "Okay, the megarich part would be nice, not gonna lie, but mostly I want to work with people. Training, or relations, something like that. I like helping people achieve what they want to achieve."
Jase smiled. "That sounds like it’d ‘suit’ you too."
"Oh god," Riley groaned through his laughter. "That’s terrible."
"It does, though. I mean, doing all this"—Jase waved a hand at the fair—"and you seem like you’ve got your hands full with those kids, too. Most people…" Jase didn’t physically withdraw, not exactly, but something shuttered behind his eyes. "A lot of people say they want to help, but they don’t actually mean it. They don’t follow it through. You do. That’s something pretty special."
"I don’t know about that…" Jase sent him a look, exasperated but gentle. Riley shook his head ruefully. "It’s not about me, though. I just enjoy it. And I owe Bree big time. I’d kinda dropped out after I moved out of my mom’s place, so going back to get my diploma and then getting a marketable qualification was part of Bree’s terms for living with her."
"How long have you been living with them?"
"I moved in with them six years ago," Riley said, gaze fixed on the reflection of the street lights on the top of his hot chocolate. His fingers tightened around the mug, and the reflection wavered slightly. "I wasn’t getting on with my mom’s boyfriend at the time, and Bree needed help with the house and the kids after her husband left. Carly was just a baby and Bree needed to go back to work sooner than she’d expected, so… it worked out."
"How old were you?"
"Almost seventeen." Riley smiled a little. "It wasn’t meant to be a permanent thing, but… my mom ditched the asshole boyfriend but then moved out of state with a new one, and I wasn’t part of those plans. Then Bree’s divorce got messy over the kids, so I guess we both needed that stability. I don’t know if I was actually responsible enough to be taking care of three kids under five, but Bree trusted me."
"I can’t imagine anyone not trusting you," Jase said.
"Oh, believe me, back then I was… well. I wasn’t in a great place. I don’t know where I’d have ended up if not for Bree. She got my ass back in line, and she’s sacrificed so much to keep me there. That’s why I want to pay it forward, y’know? Do for other people what she did for me."
"I’d say you do that and then some," Jase observed.
"It’s not always easy, but I wouldn’t trade them for anything. They’re crazy, but they’re my crazy." He smiled. "And especially this time of year, when the kids get so worked up over Christmas, and Bree pulls out all the stops for them…" He trailed off at the pinched expression on Jase’s face. "Sorry. I… I keep talking about the holidays all the time. I’ll stop."
Jase snorted a quiet laugh. "We’re drinking hot chocolate next to a Christmas tree at a Christmas street fair. I don’t think you not mentioning the holidays is gonna make much difference."
"But you don’t like it though," Riley near-whispered, as if the very idea was accusatory. Jase just shrugged.
"I like it fine, for other people. You, for example. Watching you light up even brighter than the damn tree when you saw all this stuff…" Jase smiled, fingers brushing Riley’s as he reached for his own mug of cocoa. "I like that a lot."
Riley blushed. "I just don’t want to make you feel uncomfortable."
"Trust me, this is the most comfortable I’ve felt in a long time." A far-away look crossed Jase’s eyes, dark now in the shadows from the twinkling lights. "I don’t think I’ve given this much of a crap about the holidays since I was a kid. We didn’t really do celebrating in my house. A whole lot of drinking and screaming, but none of that involved celebrating."
"But you’re okay now though, right? I mean, you’re out of there now?"
"Yeah. I pretty much did the same as you, kinda. Except there wasn’t a kind aunt to take me in and keep my ass in line."
"I’m sorry."
Jase looked genuinely bewildered. "What for? You didn’t do any of it."
"But still."
"And don’t ever dare apologize for having people who love you enough to want to watch out for you like that. You’re an amazing person, Riley. It’s the least a guy like you deserves."
"It’s the least anyone deserves."
Jase blinked, as though Riley had said something meaningful and profound. After a moment he dropped his gaze to the table, with what seemed an awful lot like a shy smile.
"Yeah, maybe."
They worked through the crate of snacks in cosy silence, listening to the hum of the crowd, the laughter, the music.
That horrible evening outside the store, Riley had felt absolutely useless. He’d been given a simple responsibility, and he couldn’t even see that through without screwing it up. But when he looked back at it now, he couldn’t quite remember the hurt, or the disappointment, or the shame. When he tried, he skipped straight to the surprise of seeing Jase – and the shopping – sprawled on the porch instead. Everything began there. Even this afternoon, helping out and meeting these amazing people, would never have been on his radar if not for Jase. He’d have spent it at home instead, listening to the kids bicker over who got to watch which holiday movie for the fifth time that week.
But he was here, with a sweet, gorgeous guy, enjoying a Christmas Eve he could never have imagined only a few days ago.
He glanced at the Santa candle, and smiled to himself; there’s definitely a Santa Claus…
The band kicked into a slow, jazzy version of one of the old Christmas standards, and Jase turned to him with a smile.
"Wanna dance?"
Riley laughed, looking around at the secluded little corner where Shauna had set up their table. "Here?"
"Why not?" Jase stood and held out a hand, and Riley took it without hesitation. "You nearly fell on your ass skating with me yesterday, dancing seems a whole lot safer."
"You say that now. You haven’t seen me dance!"
"I haven’t seen you do a lot of things." Jase’s grip on his hand tightened, pulling him up and closer, the timbre of his voice low enough to make Riley shiver. "Hopefully some of that’ll change."
"Mmm, guess that depends on how well you dance, doesn’t it?"
Jase chuckled. "I guess it does."
Riley wound his arms around Jase's shoulders, as Jase's hands slipped around his waist under his coat. It wasn't so much a dance as a sway, but it was perfect. Every point of contact between their bodies made his pulse feel like a live wire, crackling with sensation. Even the brush of his own scarf against the bare skin of his neck as Jase held him closer sent a tingle down his spine. And Jase must have felt it too, because he pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to the exact same spot, and Riley's knees almost buckled under him.
"That doesn't count," he managed breathlessly. "That's not dancing."
"But I do it well though," Jase murmured wickedly, "right?"
Oh, he really, really did. And Riley desperately needed to know what else
Jase did well, so when Jase said, with an uncharacteristic hint of vulnerability, of shyness: "My place isn’t far, I mean… if you wanted…?" Riley couldn’t nod fast enough.
"Yeah… I wanted." Riley shook his head as though that might help clear the sudden haze that wound its sinuous way around his thoughts like crisp winter mist. "I mean, I want."
"Good."
They spent the walk not speaking, not touching, just sneaking glances and feeding off the electricity that crackled the air between them. Riley tried to think about anything else, because pouncing on Jase in the street wasn’t going to be helpful. Finally he settled on how much more of the city he was seeing with all this walking. He and Bree shared her rickety old car, and watching the world go by wasn’t easy when all his attention had to be on the rebellious gearbox and the intermittent wiper blades.
Of course, walking with Jase came with its own distractions. At least he was never tempted to throw himself at the car. He doubted the car kissed as well as Jase.
Fourth Street was dark, except for the lights of the gas station, and the ratty tree they had in the window. Jase’s building was foreboding and drab, only a couple of windows were lit at all, and none with any Christmas lights.
Yeah, he really had to do something about that. Later.
Jase tugged him close as soon as the lobby door closed. Riley didn’t see much of the lobby, except that it seemed to be nothing more than a grey-walled stairwell with ancient mailboxes along one side. He wondered fleetingly what sort of friend Jase was house-sitting for, to be stuck in a place like this. Bree’s poky little house was hardly a palace, but at least it was a home.
The kisses drove any coherent thought from his head, his whole body magnetised to every brush of Jase’s hands, drinking in the touches. He clutched desperately at anything he could reach, thrilling at the strength of Jase’s shoulders when Riley’s fingers dug into them, and the jolt of pleasure as, every now and then, a well-placed shift of their hips made their clothed erections brush against each other.
He couldn’t remember navigating the stairs, which was just as well; if they’d tripped on the narrow concrete steps, it’d put a dampener on things. The hallways upstairs were probably as bleak as the rest of the building, if Riley had been paying attention. But the world around him had taken a backseat, every sense focused on Jase. Riley’s hands tugged at his coat, lips straying from Jase’s mouth in short little meanders to his jaw, his throat, and back, drowning in those deep sweet kisses that made his head spin.
It was the seeping cold that eventually cut through the daze, as the stumbled through Jase’s apartment door. Riley tried not to shiver, and hoped that if he did, Jase would assume it was because of the kisses, not the chill. It was only a half lie. Anything that made Jase stop what he was doing now would be a worse fate than the cold.
When his teeth chattered hard enough to accidentally nip Jase’s lower lip a little harder than he intended, Jase pulled back with a rueful smile.
"Sorry…it’s probably warmer outside than it is in here." He let go, stepping away, and it certainly wasn’t just the lack of body heat that almost had Riley whimpering.
"No, it’s fine, I…!"
Jase laughed at the frustration in Riley’s voice.
"I’m coming back, I promise. Lemme just make things a bit more comfortable, ‘kay?"
Riley mumbled a shy little "’kay," in return and watched Jase cut a few quarters from a small stack of coins next to a device on the wall that looked like a parking meter. He got his heat for this bleak room from a meter? Why the hell did a place like this need house-sitting, anyway? The thought of leaving Jase here alone over Christmas almost made him shiver from worse than the cold.
"Okay." Jase turned back to Riley as the pipes began to creak their protest. "That’s—"
"Come spend Christmas with us!" He hadn’t planned to blurt it out quite like that, but it seemed as good a time as any.
Jase stared at him, train of thought utterly derailed, and Riley wondered if there would ever have been a good time to be quite as presumptuous an idiot as he’d been.
* * *
"Spend Christmas with you guys?" Jase repeated after a moment. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard that right. He didn’t know which would be worse, having imagined it, or for the invite to be real.
He’d have given anything for an invitation like that. Anything. And the thought of spending the day in that warm, tiny little house with Riley, and Bree, and even with the kids, had him embarrassingly close to flustered.
It would have been perfect, if not for the fact he’d have to look at those gifts and those tacky decorations, and he’d know what he was keeping from Riley.
"Riley, I…"
"It’s okay." Riley shook his head, smiling a shaky smile badly disguised as bravado. "You don’t have to, I just thought, maybe—"
Riley made a muffled little sound as Jase pulled him close, kissing him desperately. If they didn’t have to talk about all that, he thought frantically, then maybe it’d be okay. Maybe he could get through it.
"I’d love to," he murmured between kisses. "Thank you."
The sound Riley made this time was soft and pleased, and it warmed Jase to the core, brushing deeper than the slow wispy heat that was being cranked out ever could. The openness, the sweetness humbled him. He didn’t deserve someone like this, but damned if he wasn’t going to hang onto it with both hands.
Right now, both hands were skimming under Riley’s coat, trying to burrow under his sweater, hungry for contact with skin. Riley hissed softly against the kiss at the first touch of Jase’s fingers against the small of his back, cold caresses on warm skin, and Jase murmured apologies as he feathered kisses along Riley’s jaw.
He’d never known anyone quite so responsive before, but he couldn’t brush the lightest of touches without some kind of reaction from Riley, some kind of whimper, some kind of shudder. It was addictive, and the biggest ego boost Jase had ever experienced; he couldn’t help but know he was doing right by Riley.
Patience had never been one of Jase’s few virtues, but he tried his best, making sure Riley was as warm as he was ever going to get in this room. He should have put all the quarters he had into the meter; he should have made certain the room stayed warm for days. But the machine had a habit of jamming on the coins, and besides, he hoped they’d soon be generating their own heat.
The thin sheets of the messily made bed warmed up quickly enough when he tumbled Riley back against them. He’d gotten rid of their jackets and Riley’s sweater, but that infernal scarf remained steadfastly wound around him, wrapped as tightly as Riley. Jase knew which one he preferred. He tugged the quilts over them even though they were mostly dressed, burrowing them into a cocoon of blankets. It made removing the rest of their clothes more difficult prospect, but at least it kept Riley warm.
There’d been no-one whose happiness mattered this much. It was dangerous thinking if he’d been thinking at all. But having Riley beneath him, all unselfconscious moans and soft warm skin wasn’t exactly conducive to coherence. Jase took his time learning and mapping that expanse of skin with lips, tongue and hands, tracing collarbones, nipples, and a place just under Riley’s ribcage that made him laugh and squirm. It still wasn’t quite enough; he wanted to know everything there was to know about this man.
It was funny, he’d half-expected Riley to be a passive creature despite his claims about a sketchy past, but the sweetness was proving to be a cunning disguise. Riley’s hands were in his hair, directing the ministrations, and it dawned on Jase that those sounds were as much a barometer of where and how Riley wanted to be touched than anything involuntary. He grinned, nipping Riley’s shoulder as he slid up against him for another kiss. He should have known better than to presume anything about this guy.
Riley felt warm enough to Jase, as he fought off his own shirt, sucking in a breath at the first touch of skin on skin, his heartbeat racing against the reassuring rhythm of Riley’s.
Pants would be an issue without getting out of the nest of blankets. Riley really wasn’t helping him out any with all the squirming either, but it was so adorable, Jase figured he’d probably forgive both the indiscretion and the fact it made his life more difficult. It was a nice sort of hardship, all told.
So was the erection nudging against him, demanding attention the moment he worked the rest of Riley’s clothes to his thighs. Riley turned his head, lower lip caught between his teeth, and Jase decided to take pity on the sudden reticence, giving him what he evidently couldn’t ask for with words.
That was okay. Sometimes words just got in the way.
The cocoon limited his angle and his movements, but that meant he could give the matter in hand more thought than usual. It meant he could start off with a lazy pattern of licks that ran along the juncture of Riley’s thigh, one hand wrapping around his erection, the other sliding up his chest, stroking, tickling, teasing till Riley’s squirming was making the bed creak.
At the first lick, the tip of Jase’s tongue barely dragging along the side of Riley’s cock, the squirming stopped, Riley’s body as still and tautly coiled as a guitar string. Just as well that Jase had a fair idea of how to make him sing. And hell, this was Riley; Jase wouldn’t have been surprised if that turned out to be a literal kind of singing.
Smiling wasn’t helpful as he tilted his head, lips parting around the head of Riley’s erection, tongue swirling as he took in the satin-soft hardness. But it wasn’t easy not smiling around Riley, he’d challenge even the most miserable bastard to stay grumpy after a while in this man’s company.
His lips slid down as his fingers stroked upwards, both twisting against the rhythm of the other, trying to increase the sensation. Hands on Riley’s thighs, he could feel the tension rising in the tightening of the muscles beneath his touch, gauging when to pick up the pace, and more importantly, when to slow down.
Riley made a sound of pure frustration when Jase drew back, trying to push him back, hips arching.