The Santa Project

by Elinor Gray

  Adam picked up, mentally berating himself. He was being an asshole, and he felt like he couldn’t stop.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hi,” David said on the other end, his voice soft. “How’s it going?”

  “Good,” Adam lied. He didn’t elaborate; he didn’t owe David an explanation. Right?

  “Good,” David said, and he sounded like he meant it. “Hey, I don’t mean to be a pest, but am I going to get to see you tomorrow before I go?”

  “I don’t know,” Adam said. “I’ve got work, and my lunch break isn’t very long.”

  He heard the noise of David moving, cloth against cloth, like he was already in bed. Adam could picture him now, shirtless and muscular, his glasses folded up on the nightstand, his face sleepy but serious.

  “Okay,” David said. “I’ll be back on the twenty-ninth if you want to get together then.”

  “Maybe,” Adam hedged. He was standing in his kitchen, folded in on himself. His neck had started to hurt, holding the phone in this position. He straightened up. “If I’m free.”

  David was quiet for a moment, and then he said, “You’re mad that I’m leaving town.” It wasn’t a question.

  “It’s none of my business what you do at Christmas,” Adam said. “You’re entitled to go see your family.”

  “Yeah, I know,” David said, “but that doesn’t mean you’re not mad about it.”

  “Why would I be mad?”

  “Because you hate Christmas.”

  “That’s my prerogative. I guess your experiment on me didn’t work. Sorry about that.” He didn’t feel sorry at all.

  “You’re holding on to that pretty hard.” David’s voice was still soft, but there was an edge to it that Adam didn’t like. “I think something else is going on, and you’re using Christmas as an excuse.”

  “There’s nothing going on!” Adam burst out. “Don’t psychoanalyze me. My birthday always sucks. This year is no different. End of story.”

  “Listen,” David said, “you’re entitled to feel any way you like, but you can’t enjoy being miserable about it.”

  “Maybe I do,” Adam muttered.

  David ignored him. “I’m going to give you some space. I won’t call, I won’t text, I’ll just let you be. And I’ll be back next Thursday. If you want to hang out again, I’m up for it. If not, I respect that. You’re right; this was an experiment. It doesn’t have to be anything more than that.”

  Adam was silent. The inside of his face hurt, somehow. His stomach felt too tight.

  “I like you,” David said. “I hope we can spend more time together.”

  “Yeah,” Adam said. It wasn’t a good answer, nor was it really an agreement, but he didn’t like the idea of ending the conversation in a flat denial. He liked David. He hated this experiment. He should have known that from the start.

  David sighed. “Good night, Adam. Let me know if you change your mind.”

  Then he hung up.

  Adam looked down at the phone in his hand. David had used some elementary schoolteacher psychology shit on him, and not gotten mad the way Adam had expected. Adam shouldn’t have expected David would get mad. From what he’d learned about David over the last few months as a customer and three weeks as a… something else… getting mad wasn’t his style.

  He didn’t sleep well that night.

  Two Days Before Christmas

  IT HAD stopped snowing by the next morning, even though another two inches blanketed an already two-foot-deep layer of snow that wouldn’t melt until March. The roads were being methodically cleared even as Adam went into the Emporium and discovered he was covering for his own manager, Tina, who had come down with a head cold. Convenient, as she had out-of-town family and a plane to catch. Even if he had wanted to see David before the end of the day, he wouldn’t have had time. He ordered a sandwich from the place down the street on the Emporium account and ate it at the register as he rang people up.

  It was miserable, and Adam knew he deserved it. At least it was Gift Card Season now and most of the sales were a quick round number. The snow came back, streaming past the windows and blowing in onto the floor every time the door opened. Three o’clock came and went, then four, then five, and Adam tortured himself with picturing David’s plane taking off, leaving him behind.

  At seven he finally closed and went home. He ate some leftover lasagna for dinner and sat in front of the television, watching back-to-back episodes of the political thriller he was trying to catch up on before the new season started in the spring, and knitting. Looking around his dark, quiet house between episodes, he thought maybe he should get a pet. Dogs didn’t care about Christmas.

  Around ten he found himself thinking about David landing in Philadelphia and his brother picking him up. He pictured the family staying up to greet David in whispers, so as not to wake his niece and nephew, and the way the Christmas tree would probably fill the whole corner of the living room. He remembered his own family Christmas tree saga: the fighting that would ensue over the fake tree that came out of the box, its placement, the decorating style, and whether they even deserved a tree after all. He could picture his brother crying about it, a broken ornament in his hands. It was all very dramatic.

  He took a CBD edible before bed, determined to sleep and not dream.

  CHRISTMAS EVE didn’t start out much better. The snow was coming down even harder, and Adam finally thought to look up the name of the winter storm dumping on the town of Whitesprings. He walked to work rather than drive—at least Sasha was there—and spent the day in a morose haze. They closed early at three o’clock, and Adam trudged home again, head bent against the snow. It was a relief to get inside again, even if he was destined for another night of lasagna and television. He ought to be looking forward to it. His birthday was tomorrow, and he had the whole day off to do whatever he wanted.

  What he wanted was across the country, living it up with his family, probably drinking spiked cocoa and laughing that deep, full laugh of his. Unfair. He’d only been trying to help Adam lighten up a bit, and, for the most part, it had worked. There was a card from the Santa Project in his mailbox, thanking him for his generosity and his contribution to the community. He had changed a child’s life, it said. Adam wondered if there was charity for feelings, if people could just give him goodwill instead of wishing it upon him.

  Sitting on his couch, in the very spot he’d pinned David and sucked his cock, he scrolled back through the photos stored on his phone. He’d taken a few at the tree lighting of the crowd and the tree, and just one of him and David together, grinning and looking a little shy. They were standing close but not obviously touching, still in the very early stages of being hot for each other.

  Well, not that early. But it was cute. Adam could tell his smile was genuine: it was the goofy version of his smile, crooked and with his teeth showing, his eyes crinkled up at the corners.

  There was a video that he had taken of David while they’d been ice-skating the previous week. David had never skated as a child, but as an adult he’d gone all in on learning and could skate backward, do crossovers, and even do a quick turn from moving forward to moving backward. In the video, he was showing off his turn, except that as he turned he caught the back of one skate on the other, fell down, and didn’t get up again. Adam had skated up to him, alarmed, but he’d found David lying there laughing too hard to stand. The video ended in the middle of Adam telling him off for scaring him, leaving Adam in a quiet room again, alone.

  He could have this, the thing on his phone: David laughing and Adam scolding him, the two of them trying silly stuff together. He didn’t have to spend the weekend sulking and resenting everyone. He could be in David’s good graces when he got back. He could get a call tomorrow from David wishing him a happy birthday. But he would have to apologize.

  He opened the message thread with David. The last messages were David’s request that Adam text him when he got in, and Adam’s disingenuous and cowardly late
reply. David had promised not to contact him over the break. He’d have to take the first step, not wait for things to go his way.

  Hey, Adam typed out, crafting the message slowly, I’m sorry for being a jerk. I hope you’re having a good visit with your family. If you have time tomorrow I’d love to talk.

  He sent it before he could sabotage himself any further and put the phone away. The phone vibrated almost at once, and kept vibrating. Adam picked it up in surprise.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey,” David said.

  “You didn’t have to call me right away,” Adam said, feeling guilty. “I’m sure you’re busy.”

  David snorted. “I know. No, unfortunately, I am not busy.”

  Something was wrong. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” David said, “I’m just still at the airport.”

  Adam stood up. “What? From yesterday?”

  “Winter Storm Tyrone,” David said wryly. “My flight was delayed yesterday, and then delayed again, and then canceled about midnight last night.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “I came back this morning to try to get another flight, but everything’s been grounded.”

  “That’s awful,” Adam said.

  “Yeah.” David sighed. “I’m about to give up. You busy?”

  “Uh.” Adam looked around his living room. It really could use cleaning. “No, not doing anything.”

  “Good,” David said. “I’ll come over, and you can apologize for real.”

  “Oh, yes, okay,” Adam said, taken aback.

  David’s voice softened. “If that’s okay.”

  “Yeah,” Adam said. “I’ll see you soon.”

  He had a little less than an hour to get the house looking decent—wash the dishes, pick up the living room, make his bed—and he decided twenty minutes in that he should make something to eat too. David wouldn’t have eaten well at the airport, so it was the least he could do. It was Christmas Eve. Adam had nothing in his fridge.

  “Shit,” he said to himself, and threw on his coat.

  He managed to get to the grocery store, through the crowds, and back home in twenty-five minutes: a personal record. As he pulled up in front of his house, another car was just pulling up. Adam parked, and David got out of the other car with a duffel bag over his shoulder. He shut the door, and the car drove away.

  David looked at Adam with his eyebrows raised and said, “Going somewhere?”

  “I didn’t have any food,” Adam explained, going around the car to get the bags out of the back. “And I decided I needed to feed you.”

  David’s smile came on slowly, and he huffed out a little laugh. “Thanks, man.”

  “I mean, food is love, right?” Adam felt his face heat. He hadn’t meant that. Had he?

  “I’ve heard that,” David agreed as he followed Adam up the sidewalk.

  Inside, Adam unpacked the grocery bags onto the counter and into the fridge. David set his duffel bag down inside the door and hung his coat in the closet. When Adam looked over his shoulder, he was sinking down onto Adam’s couch and covering his face in his hands, looking exhausted and like he belonged right there.

  “Tell me what happened,” he offered, as he started to open packages and dump things onto plates.

  David did: how he’d hauled ass to the airport to make the flight, the car-share driver a champ in the snow; how he’d worried about a delay but without any notification had convinced himself it would be fine; how he’d stood in the boarding lounge, waiting and waiting; how they’d almost started to board before they’d found out the flight was being pushed back; how the whole airport was in an uproar; how there were no other flights that would get him to Philly by midnight. Everything was waiting on the weather, hoping it would clear, and it just wasn’t clearing. Normally a few inches of snow wasn’t an issue in this part of the country, but these winds were too strong and ATC had refused to let anything take off. Planes were being diverted, and the mess was expanding as the night went on.

  As David relayed the story, Adam put the pigs in blankets in the oven and plated crackers with cranberry spread and goat cheese to hold them over. When David saw what Adam put down in front of him, he groaned and reached out for the front of Adam’s shirt, pulling him in for a kiss.

  “Now this is an apology,” he said, as he started shoveling crackers into his mouth.

  “I—” Adam said and hesitated. He sat down next to David on the couch. “I was an asshole.”

  David glanced at him and finished putting a cracker into his mouth. With his mouth full, he could neither confirm nor deny Adam’s assertion and just waited for what was coming next.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  While he was chewing, David reached out and squeezed Adam’s knee. Once he finished eating the cracker, he said, “You’re not in a great place about Christmas and your birthday.”

  “No,” Adam agreed. “I never have been.”

  “I can see that. I’m sorry I made it a game.”

  “No, that’s—” Adam began, but David cut him off.

  “It’s not okay,” he said. “I didn’t know you well enough to be doing that kind of shit with you. You need more than an experiment.”

  Adam looked down at David’s hand, still on his knee. The warmth of David’s hand seeped through the fabric of his jeans. “Thanks,” he said softly.

  After a moment, David asked, “You wanna check on your piggies?”

  There was a distinct cooked-meat smell from the region of the oven. Adam jumped to his feet and hurried into the kitchen. Heat billowed out of the oven when he opened it, and inside the pigs in blankets were cooked perfectly. He pulled the pan out and set it on the counter to cool to a manageable level. While he was there, he took a minute to recompose himself. He hadn’t expected the apology to be returned. David continued to surprise him. He wondered what it was like to be so emotionally intelligent.

  He plated the food and took it back to David on the couch. David, to his surprise, had pulled his knitting out of his duffel bag and was holding it up to the light.

  “What do you think?” David asked, grinning at him.

  Adam put the plate down and had a closer look. “It looks pretty good, honestly. There are a few places here, these holes, where you added a stitch by putting the yarn over the needle, and it looks like right here you put it down mid-row, and when you picked it up again, you were going the wrong direction.”

  “I knew it!” David said. “I knew there was something wrong that time.”

  “Always finish the row.” Adam found himself smiling. “But you’ve been practicing. I can tell. It gets a lot more even up here, like you feel comfortable with the stitch.”

  “Yeah, I think so. What’s next?”

  “The purl stitch. Do you—do you want to learn that tonight?”

  “I’m not doing anything else,” David said wryly.

  “I’m sorry you’re not with your family.”

  “Me too. It’s going to suck to miss Christmas. I was really looking forward to it. But I’ll go back home later. Maybe when the storm passes, for New Year’s. Maybe in the spring. We’ll see.”

  “You’re… not upset about it?”

  “Sure I am,” David said, shrugging, “but that’s not going to help. The storm grounded the planes, and I’m out a few hundred bucks, but I might get a credit, and we’ll have another Christmas next year. It sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.”

  Adam thought about that. He actively came up with reasons not to visit his family, but if he liked them as much as David liked his, he could see himself doing the opposite.

  “Teach me this purl stitch,” David demanded. “And then, maybe, if I can stand to put my knitting down, we could go to bed.”

  “Okay,” Adam agreed, feeling his face get warm. “So, when you purl….”

  IT WASN’T late when they finally put down the knitting and finished all the snacks and went into Adam’s bedroom, but with the snow falling
and it being Christmas Eve, the whole neighborhood was silent. There were no cars on the road. There was no sound from the adjacent houses; the only sound was the wind and the barely perceptible whisper of the snow against the windows.

  Adam was glad he’d made the bed, because David kicked off his shoes and climbed on top of the covers. It was warm in here; warm enough that they could get naked without shivering. David rolled onto his back and propped himself up on his elbows, giving Adam a slow, heated once-over.

  “So,” he said, “you going to make up for my rotten twenty-four hours at the airport?”

  “I’ll try,” Adam said, putting one knee down on the bed, and then the other, and crawling until he was propped on his hands over David, gazing down into his face.

  David lifted his hands and skimmed them up Adam’s sides, pushing the bottom of his sweater up around his ribs. “You’ll have to do a lot,” he murmured, grinning. “It was a very trying twenty-four hours.”

  Adam bent to kiss him, fitting their mouths together with a soft sound of desire. David kissed him back, lifting his chin up and grasping the back of Adam’s neck with one warm hand. David’s tongue was in his mouth, licking slowly; Adam could have sworn he felt it in his toes and his dick and on every inch of his skin. He went down onto his elbows, and David pushed up his sweater again, pulling his shirt out of his jeans and letting the air touch his bare skin.

  “C’mere,” David said against his mouth, grabbing at his thigh and pulling it over his own. Adam managed the move without jamming his knee into David’s crotch, which felt like a win; even better was the feeling of David’s half-hard cock against his thigh and his own stiffening dick against David’s leg as he rested his weight on top of David’s body. David spread his legs wider, angling the one into the bulge of Adam’s burgeoning erection, and giving Adam more room to rock slowly against him.

  The friction got intense quickly as they kissed and rubbed against each other. Adam’s cock was fully hard by the time he pulled away again, breathing hard. His pulse was pounding in his throat and between his legs, and he had to get his clothes off.