by Joe Satoria
“What?” Spencer’s chin dropped to his chest. “You what?”
Eyes averted still, Gio nodded slowly. “Yeah, I don’t know. Like, I wanted to know what it would feel like. I’ve never—I’ve never felt that way about a guy before.”
“If you wanted to kiss me, you didn’t have to come all the way here and sacrifice your Christmas,” Spencer chuckled, sitting beside Gio on the bed.
“Weird thing is,” he continued into a sigh. “I hoped getting away from the flat for Christmas would stop me thinking about it.”
“Then you decided to come with me.”
“Then I took it as a sign,” he smirked. “The first opportunity I could kiss you, and I took it.”
“You really did, huh?”
It was true, Gio initiated the first kiss, he took it, right as Spencer’s parents were watching, he kissed him without warning, like he would do anyone else he was in a relationship with—even a fake one.
“What did you think?” Spencer asked, turning to see Giovanni’s side profile, unmoving to look back at him. “Must’ve been a good kiss.”
“It felt like I was going down a waterslide.” He revealed as his mouth opened into a wide smile.
“A what?”
“The feeling,” he said. “I didn’t expect the second kiss, but I had the same feeling, and I wanted to do it again, but I—” his breath hitched, “I—I didn’t have the courage until after the first gin.”
Spencer stared ahead at the bedroom wall while Gio turned to see his side profile. “I didn’t know you were counting too.”
“I was trying to play it off, I thought if we had something more to drink, you’d hit on me, or be all over me, and—” he hitched again, sucking in a deep breath.
Spencer shook his head. “I’m not an initiator,” he said. “And fuck—so you like me then? Or has this kissing thing satisfied your curiosity?”
They looked to each other, stared into the space pooling between their eyes.
“I—I’d like to try another kiss.”
SIX
They slept, finally. Gio’s arm wrapped around Spencer as the small spoon in the bed. Spencer fell asleep a lot faster this time, perhaps the weighted blanket of someone else’s body was now comforting instead of frightening.
When Spencer woke to the light behind the curtains splashed across his face, his hand reached to his chest. But there wasn’t the weight of an arm or hand in place. In fact, for a moment, as he laid, gulping on a lump in his throat, he thought he might’ve imagined everything that happened last night.
He touched at his dried lips, wondering whether he was losing his mind.
It was 9:23 A.M. and in the large kitchen, Mrs Grant had her entire island counter prepped with long recipe lists and assorted crockery, all the while watching over a frying pan as sausages sizzled. Gio was helping, dressing the dining table with festive Christmas plates and bowls.
Through a sleepy haze, Spencer pushed past the feeling of dread sitting in the pit of his stomach. He walked through the living room where his grandmother sat, stubbing out another cigarette butt into her ashtray. He walked through to the dining room, and that’s where he stood, watching Gio folding napkins, the bottoms of his pants were rolled up to his knees. He wore thick socks up his calves with patterns of candy canes.
Spencer’s face creased into two large frown lines until the smell of sausages caught his nose and he took a breath, inhaling and releasing the knot in his stomach.
“Morning,” Gio said, noticing Spencer stood there as his face changed like a malleable metal being blown by a hot torch. “Didn’t want to wake you.”
Spencer grumbled something incoherent.
“Spence, you awake?” Mrs Grant said, wiping her hands dry on the tea towel she had folded over the knot in the front of her red and green candy cane coloured apron.
“Morning,” Spencer offered back to them both from the back of his dry throat.
“Merry Christmas,” Mrs Grant said. “Let me get you a comb, I’ll run it through your hair.”
Spencer shook his head, running his own hand through the mess his hair had matted into. “It’s ok,” he said. “What are you making?”
“Well, I figured the smell of cooked sausages would wake you,” she chuckled. “I already heard your dad shuffling in the den, so he’s probably ripe for waking.”
Gio nodded with a large smile. “Your mum said we’ll have breakfast, then open presents.”
It was the usual routine, especially since they weren’t children anymore with the excitement to shred through paper in the early hours of the morning. In fact, Spencer had outgrown it in his early teens, it always seemed so forced and fake.
“I—I—ugh, yeah, great,” Spencer said, rubbing his eyes.
Gio moved to Spencer’s side, pressing an arm around him at the waist. “We brought some great presents.”
“We?”
Mrs Grant waved a hand at them flippantly. “Oh no, Spencer doesn’t do presents, his presence here is the gift.”
It was the same line he’d told them year on year after gifting them with fifty-pound gift cards to their favourite stores.
“No,” Gio said, squeezing Spencer. “We got some great gifts, actually.”
“We didn’t,” Spencer said in his attempt to pull away from Gio’s side. “Should I wake Coll? And when is Jack coming?”
A grumble came from behind Spencer. “I’m already up,” a rough voice wrapped in a fluffy pink nightgown, Colleen’s hair was giving Spencer’s a run for his money, stuck up in all places with a level of unmatched frizz. “We havin’ breakfast then?”
“Sausages should be ready,” Mrs Grant said. “Thank you Gio for setting the table, I’ll go wake Mr sleepy in there. Anyone want a fried egg? Remember, we’ve got to keep room for the big dinner.”
“No thank you,” Gio was first to offer.
“Pass on the egg,” Colleen grumbled, her hand at her mouth to feign vomiting.
Spencer shook his head.
“You need water,” Mrs Grant sighed to her daughter, “and one of those vitamin dissolve thingies.”
As Colleen and Mrs Grant left, Spencer turned to Gio, shaking his head, he wasn’t pleased about the comments on presents.
“What?” Gio asked.
“Stop it,” he mumbled back.
Gio shrugged. “I have them,” he said. “I can go out and take the tags off.”
“I don’t want them.”
Gio blinked back at the snap in Spencer’s throat. “Well, they’re not specific gifts. Perfume, alcohol, chocolates.”
“No, they know what I get them, it’s how it always is,” he answered. “We don’t want your gifts.”
“We?” Gio nodded. “They’re not for you, they’re for your family.”
Spencer sighed, shaking his head. “Why? So, they’ll invite you back next year? Maybe my mother’s birthday? What about the wedding?”
“Why are you being a dick?”
“What?” he snapped.
Gio grabbed at Spencer’s arm by the wrist. “Last night, I thought there was a thing, but—you’re actually just a dick.” He let out through the clenching of his jaw. “You promised you’d be nicer today.” He let go of him, shaking his head.
Spencer’s mouth fell slack as his tongue turned over in his mouth, his eyes were growing red, pink as he held back on the emotional front, as he held back the brink of tears he was on the verge of. “Whatever.” He turned away and walked back through the living room.
“Spence,” Gio said, chasing after him.
Spence rushed to the bathroom, closing the door behind himself, his heart throbbing and his chest swelling with each held breath. He sucked in and blew out through his circled lips. He looked to himself in the mirror, the tears on his waterline, blinking as they crossed his cheeks.
“Spencer,” Gio said, knocking on the door.
He didn’t answer, even as Giovanni’s name ached in his throat. His eyes looked to his hair, i
t was a mess, a nest of a mess in fact. He routed through the drawer in the cabinet beside the sink basin.
“Listen,” Gio’s voice came again, softer. “I’m intense, I get it, when someone says something, I think they’re going to stick to it. I get it, people change their minds, people wake up differently.”
That wasn’t it, that wasn’t it for Spencer. He didn’t wake up differently. He just saw Gio now, standing around with a smile on his face, helping out his family, offering gifts, and showing them what he could’ve been and done.
“Just open the door,” Gio said.
Click.
“Why do you like Christmas so much?” Spencer asked as he placed his foot behind the door, opening it an inch.
“It’s a special time,” he said. “Anything can happen, and everyone is happy.”
“I’m not happy.”
Gio pressed on the door forcing Spencer to remove his foot. “What would make you happy?”
He shrugged, letting out a deep huff from the bottom of his chest. “I hate pretending, for start.” He wiped at the stickiness from his face with his sleeve. “I told my parents I was gay when I was eight. I like to say what I feel, and I like to say how it is.”
Gio nodded, he extended a hand to Spencer, taking it in his grasp. “This is just for today, if it makes you uncomfortable we can leave everything that happened here in here.”
“No, you have your own thing going on.” He attempted to pull his hand away. “I mean, I hate pretending to my family. I hate listening to what they say and taking it on the chin, and it’s like that every single time I’m here.”
“No, no.” Gio took it as a cue and pulled Spencer in his arms, embracing him into a hug. “I thought we had something. Everything else can stay here.”
Spencer nodded. “You’re the one who wanted to kiss me,” he mumbled beneath the muffle as his face pressed against Gio’s top.
“And you said—”
“I know what I said,” he snapped back, his face warped by a smile. “No,” he said, nodding as he took his head from Gio’s top. “I’m going to have a great day, just need to fill my stomach and I’ll be alright.”
He nodded back. “And you have to do a favour for me?”
“I’ve done plenty already.”
“Fine, you have to let me do a favour for you.”
Spencer squinted at the rephrasing. “What does that mean?”
“Let me give your family the presents I have,” he said.
Spencer looked away. “It’ll make breaking up with you harder.”
“Also—”
“There’s another thing?” he scoffed.
“I want to take you on an actual date after all this.”
Spencer pulled away and looked him up and down. “The beer goggles still on then?”
“No,” he chuckled. “I told you last night, I just—” he sucked in a deep breath. “I don’t know how to explain to you, but I like you.”
Spencer’s stomach growled, reflecting both his interest in coming away from the topic and also getting to food. He patted him on the chest. “If you live, sure, but it’ll be awkward, and how would we explain it to Melissa.”
Gio held his hand. “Melissa doesn’t have to know,” he said. “If it doesn’t work, I’ll move out, everything will be normal.”
“Normal,” he repeated back, nodding.
“Nobody knows. It’s quite new for me.”
Spencer pulled a way, choking on a breath. “I will have to tell Melissa, I think,” he said. “I bet she’s messaged. I can’t lie about you coming with me.”
“You don’t have to,” he said, “and now that I’ve bared myself to you, I don’t think either of us should use this as work gossip.”
Spencer was right on board with that thought. He was also on board with storing those emotions until the end of the day. He had reached his emotional capacity and his quota couldn’t take anymore on. It didn’t help to have an emotional half-Italian oozing every lovesick thought.
After a quiet breakfast where the only one with a spring in their step was Mrs Grant, they all returned to getting ready for the guests and the postponement of opening presents. They were now waiting on Jack and his fiancé Tina.
Spencer sat on his made bed, drifting off into the mind space behind his eyes, he stared at his phone screen, looking through the messages Melissa had sent. He knew that one text would spiral into a several segments pieces all formed from verbal vomit.
“Which one?” Gio asked again, waving a hand in front of Spencer as he presented two Christmas jumpers on hangers.
“Huh?” Spencer pulled himself away from the phone. He looked at Gio as he stood topless, his naturally tanned body and the beefy abs caught him off-guard. “Um—” he looked to the jumpers. “Any that don’t light up?”
“Well, I’m wearing one and you’re wearing one,” he said. “Which one do you want?”
“Happy in this.” Spencer tugged at the black t-shirt with a snow man and ho-ho-ho written across the chest.
“But does it light up?”
“That’s the point.” Spencer smiled, pointing to his expression. “I’m lit up.”
Gio held the jumpers by the hangers, one in each hand, weighing them like the scales of justice. One red and green, the other blue, white, and black. Each of them came with a series of stitched lights and a small battery pack tucked in at the side.
“Red and green,” Spencer said.
Gio nodded, letting out a sigh.
“For you,” he continued. “I’ll take the other.”
“Great!” he draped it across Spencer’s head. “I was thinking this one anyway.” Gio pulled it over his head, tugging it in place across his torso.
“Do you ever—” Spencer struggled to get out as he pulled the jumper over his head, “—wonder what it’s like not to pretend?”
Gio preened at the jumper on Spencer, pulling his sleeves straight. “What do you mean?”
“Pretending to like everything, you know.”
He smirked. “I am happy,” he said. “I do like most things, and even if I don’t, I always think it’s better people think you’re happy even when you’re not.” He extended his head forward and kissed Spencer.
Spencer smirked. He wasn’t used to that. “Right.” His mouth opened uncomfortably against his cheeks. “Let’s show everyone how happy I am, because that’s the reason you’re here right, making me happy.”
“I’m like Santa,” he said. “Making wishes come true.”
“Well.” Spencer patted Gio on the shoulder. “I let you kiss me; I made your wish come true.”
SEVEN
Jack Grant arrived with his fiancée at noon. They sauntered in through the foyer with two designer cardboard shopping bags. Jack looked much like Spencer, except he was much taller and bald. His fiancée, Tina, was bleach blonde with long acrylics on both hands, she was tailed by a lingering sweet marshmallow scented perfume.
Spencer and Gio were both in the kitchen helping Mrs Grant when they arrived and Colleen was overseeing, clutching at the stem of a wine glass, filled with non-alcoholic sparkling champagne.
“Merry Christmas, nan,” Jack’s thick accent caught all of their attention from the kitchen.
“Jack,” Mrs Grant gasped as she rested the whisk in the mixing bowl. “Jack!” she shouted, smacking her hands down on the tea towel.
“Your brother?” Gio asked in a whisper to Spencer as they both peeled at the different vegetables.
Spencer nodded, placing the peeler on the counter and the half-peeled carrot back into the bag. “Fun and games,” he mumbled.
“Maybe now we can drink,” Colleen said, pressing her lips to the glass, by her expression, it was sour and not quite the fruitful taste she’d expected even after her sixth sip.
Gio stopped peeling the potatoes as they listened to the exchange of voices growing closer. Spencer watched Gio’s face, hoping he’d be able to understand their voices and accents.
&nbs
p; Jack and his fiancée lived in Manchester, that’s where she was from, he was an electrician and he’d been working and living there for the better part of ten years, and in that time, his voice had changed slightly as was the Manchester accent, picking in pitch at vowel sounds.
“Presents,” Mrs Grant called through the house.
A grunting came from the nearby den as Mr Grant made his appearance. He wore a matching jumper to Mrs Grant. Hers had ‘Mrs Clause at work’ on the front and his with ‘Mr Clause at work’. He’d been forced into it, needing to be convinced through a series of exchanges which resulted in him not getting any Christmas dinner if he didn’t.
“Spence brought him a boy,” Mrs Grant was overheard saying from the kitchen.
“Here goes,” Spencer mumbled, his tongue pressing against his teeth.
Gio wiped his hands on a tea towel before hugging a hand around Spencer’s waist. “It’s ok,” he said. “Happy, we’re happy.”
Spencer smiled at the reminder.
Mr Grant stood in the doorway as he greeted Jack with a hug and a couple of slurred words, most likely merry Christmas.
At the sight of his older brother, Spencer reached around and grabbed Gio by the side, reciprocating the touch.
“Coll,” Jack greeted his sister.
Mrs Grant came back into the kitchen with the two bags, trailed behind by Mr Grant, and Tina, in a long white jumper dress.
“Spence,” Jack said, “and you must be—”
“Gio,” he introduced himself, extending a hand to shake.
Jack took the hand and with pressure they stood shaking and squeezing. “Nice to finally meet someone, we thought he’d be single forever.” Close by, they appeared similar in height, but Giovanni was taller.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Gio said, smirking back to look at Spencer.
“Right, you lot,” Mrs Grant said. “Everyone here, we’re going to get the presents.” She smacked her hands together, pulling at their attention. “Then we can have a little tipple before your aunts and uncle arrive.”
“What?” Jack asked. “You didn’t say—”
Mrs Grant looked and nodded to Spencer. “When I mentioned, in passing about Spence, they wanted to.”
