by Rachel Kane
“I don’t spend enough time out here,” says Val, his face tilted toward the sky.
“You’ll have more time now.” Charlie leans against him. Their hands seek each other out. His head finds Val’s shoulder.
It feels like there should be more to say. Charlie’s head and heart are so full, it feels like he could talk for hours. Yet there’s something about being out here, the grand old house behind them providing the only light other than the winter moon, something that stills him, that makes him want to stand here silently with Val.
Except that there is something he wants to say, and this seems like the right place for it, the right time.
“Can I tell you something?”
“Mm?” Val murmurs.
“I think, before I met you, I was lying to myself. I told myself that I was fearless—not so much that I was brave, but that there was nothing in life to dread, nothing to fear. I told myself the universe was good, that it was a place full of kindness and mercy. But do you know, I’m not sure I really believed it. I wanted to believe it. I wanted peace, I wanted tranquility.”
“You’re a very calm person,” Val reassures him. “Much calmer than me.”
“I don’t think I knew what peace was, until these last few days with you. I don’t think I knew what fearlessness was. That feeling that I’d always have to look out for myself, protect myself, that everyone in the world wanted a piece of me… I tried so hard to hide from it, to pretend that everything was okay. But it wasn’t okay, Val. It tore me up…I just didn’t want to admit it. I wanted to run away. But now…”
“Now?”
“Now I’ve got you. You can protect me, I can protect you. Together, nobody can ever hurt us.”
“I believe you are peaceful, kind and good,” Val says. “It’s why I love you. No one has a heart like yours, Charlie.”
His hand reaches up, touches Val’s chest. Presses his face against Val. “I love you too,” he says.
That’s all he needed to say, really. The world returned to its quiet, as the two men spent a little longer on the dock, holding one another as the winter stars shone down on them.
28
Epilogue
Christmas had been the warmest day I have ever known. I don’t mean in terms of weather. It was actually quite cold, and the snow gave everything a silent winter’s glow.
No, I mean emotionally warm. Having Charlie with me made all the difference. We’d sat next to the tree in my apartment, drinking cocoa and talking about how next year we would have to be sure there were presents under the tree. “No melodramatic fights next year,” he said, snuggling next to me. He had on his elf’s hat, just to be silly, and I touched the bell with my finger.
“There is one melodramatic fight we’ll need to have,” I said. “Although not with each other.”
“Oh no,” he said. “Who this time?”
“Well, I was thinking. I don’t want you to give up your bus.”
“I don’t want to either. I have big dreams for that thing.”
“What if we brought it down to the lake?”
“To your brother’s house?”
“We could remodel it there, get it in good working order. Put on the solar panels, plan the plumbing—”
“Will Theo agree?”
I laughed. “That’s where the melodramatic fight comes in.”
* * *
The weather outside was frightful, but the appalled look on Theo’s face was delightful.
“Val, you can’t park a school bus on the property.”
“Do you mean as a matter of physics, or of law? I’ll remind you that your boyfriend is a lawyer, and could tell you—”
Micah looked up from the sofa and said, “Don’t put me in the middle of it!”
Charlie laughed. “I’d say don’t put me in the middle of it either, but, well, it’s my bus.”
“You already have a place to live,” said Theo. “Val, your apartment is great! And I should know, because I picked it out for you, decorated it for you… Why would you give that up to live in a bus?”
It was one thing to have a brotherly spat about where to put a vehicle. But to answer his question would require more thought. I knew why I loved the bus so much…but how to describe that properly?
I took Charlie’s hand. “All my life,” I said, “I’ve been devoted to bigger. Taking over the company, making it grow. Building on to the family fortune. More money, more property, more companies. So much complexity, so much to think about. But that’s not my life anymore. Now I want something simple, Theo. I want my boyfriend by my side, I want to go outside and look at the stars, I want…I want…”
Theo looked at Micah, then back at me. He was silent. Everyone was.
Letting Charlie’s hand slip from mine, I walked to the window. Outside, snowflakes danced, some landing on the glass, sticking, their intricate forms becoming invisible.
“You can’t love a company,” I said. “You can’t love a fortune. That’s what I was missing, when I would walk the halls of the office at three in the morning. My life was full, it was busy, but it had no love in it. I don’t want that life anymore. I don’t want a big apartment that looks like everyone else’s big apartment, a home that exists mostly to show off how much money I have. I want a little place I can love, where I can spend time with the man that I love…and, though it absolutely pains me to say it…I want to live near my brother. Who I also love.”
What I didn’t expect was that my words would move them all. When I felt the hand on my shoulder, I thought it was Charlie’s…but it was Theo’s. My brother pulled me close. But then Charlie was there too, and he wrapped his arm around my waist. Even Micah came up.
“We love you too, Val,” Theo said. “I never thought I’d hear you say that. I never even thought you could love us.”
“I could’ve told you all about how Val can love people,” said Charlie. His eyes were closed, his head against my chest. “But maybe if we’re here, if we’re nearby, you can get to know Val again, Theo. He’s a lot deeper than anyone gives him credit for.”
“I guess that’s true,” Theo said. With a sigh, he pulled away and said, “All right. But…you’re the one who’s going to explain it to Mother.”
My face lit up. “Why do you think I waited to ask you, until she had already flown back to Nick’s house?”
* * *
The weathermen say this is a polar vortex. We’re expecting ice and snow all winter. Not a good time to do architectural work on the bus. But that’s okay. When it warms up and the ice melts, we’re going to hire a crew to spruce it up. Until then, Charlie has drawn up a million excited plans for how we will share the space.
Theo says we should call the bus The Island of Misfit Boys. The suggestion made Charlie laugh, but I didn’t understand what it was referring to.
We are spending a few days here at Theo’s house. For some reason I feel the need to be close to my family right now. Is that strange? Call it a side-effect of Charlie. He’d said no families and yet here he was, fitting right in with Theo and Micah, laughing, joking…and instead of me being on the outside, he pulls me right into it.
Have I mentioned how much I love this man?
But now we’re outside, walking through the snow, just me and him. The sun has come out, but it’s a thin light, just enough to brighten the fog when we breathe.
I have something for him. A small gift, and a question. I am trying to think of how to do it. I lay awake much of the night, trying to think. It’s something I’ve never done before.
He’s walking a little ahead of me, tromping through the snow in his big boots. He has on his winter coat, and underneath are his flannel shirts, and under that the tank-top that shows off his throat and his collarbones; I can’t stop thinking about what’s underneath, no matter how many layers he puts on.
I catch up to him on a little rise that gives us a perfect view of the lake, the sunlight sparkling on the ice.
“I have news,” he says.
“I spoke to Wendy this morning.”
Even as I stiffen up, he grabs for me and laughs. “I hope she apologized,” I say.
“Oh god, Val, you don’t know how many times she said she was sorry. We had a good talk. She and I aren’t that different, really. Do you know why she throws herself after guys like me?”
“Because you are so cute in an elf hat?”
“Because we’re safe. She’s had some bad, pushy people in her life, and she’s scared of getting close to anyone like that. So she picks guys she knows she has no chance with.”
“I question her logic,” I say. “Are you sure she’s not going to cause you any more trouble?”
“Positive,” Charlie assures me. “That’s all over with. She says she wants to see the bus, when we’ve got it set up.”
If I’m honest, the news relieves me. I knew Charlie had been bothered by how his friendship with Wendy had broken, had felt there were loose ends that needed tying up. Could she be trusted to be on good behavior? I suppose I’d have to rely on Charlie’s good sense.
“But wait,” he says, “that’s not actually the news.”
“There’s more?”
He laughs. “Guess who is no longer working at the mall.”
“You.”
“Well, yes, but guess again.”
“Gino the Santa Claus.”
“You’re really not getting into the spirit of this guessing game. It’s Rumson.”
A name to chill the blood. “Rumson.”
“Apparently,” says Charlie, “someone ran a background check on him, that turned up a lot of bad stuff in his past. And apparently a copy of that background check was sent to the owners of the mall. So he’s out on his ear. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Me?” I say, innocently. “What would I have to do with any of that?”
“Yes, it’s quite the mystery,” agrees Charlie. “But at least he won’t be hitting on any more elves.”
We are walking again, circling the lake, the snow softening our footfalls. I never spent enough time out here, never explored the way I should’ve. Suddenly I’m overwhelmed with gratitude for a chance to come back here, to make it my home again, to experience this land as though it’s for the first time, through Charlie’s eyes.
Maybe it is this sense of gratitude that gives me the courage to say what I need to say. The thing I have wanted to say all morning, the question I wanted to ask.
“Charlie, as you know, I have a list of things I have wanted to do, now that I am free of the company.”
“Sure, of course I do. After all, I was the one who got you to try the liquid hand soap.”
“I was glad to cross that one off the list. How people stand the gooey feeling, I don’t know. Give me a firm bar of soap any day—wait, I’m straying from my point. The point is, I’ve added a new item to the list, but I’ll need your help for it.”
“The driving one? Sure, I can help you learn—”
“Ahem, no. Oh, why did I try to introduce this topic by talking about the list! What I mean to say, Charlie, is that I’ve added an item about you to it.”
He paused beside a fallen tree whose trunk was thick with snow. His eyes shine in the morning light. “I’ll stop interrupting, then.”
I took a breath.
I have given a thousand business presentations in my time. I have stood before other CEOs, dignitaries, government officials. My words have caused millions of dollars to course through the economy, have brought life to small towns whose core industries needed help, have shaped the future of our region.
Yet I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared to speak, as I was now. I had none of my props. No assistant to work the projector, no screen behind me with graphs and illustrations. Just me, and the snow, and the truth.
“I don’t know how you do it,” I told him, “but you make me feel so warm inside. Somehow you make everything okay. It’s almost like you were truly an elf, with some magic power to make my life better…to make it make sense.”
He stepped closer to me, without saying a word.
“I used to think nothing could make me happy but being the CEO of my company, and when I stepped down, I truly thought I’d never be happy again. But I was wrong. I had never truly been happy back then. Oh, yes, it was interesting, moving money around, all the steps and plans. But you’ve shown me what real happiness is.”
Now he spoke, and his voice was quiet. “You make me happy, too.”
“If you’d told me when I stepped down, that soon I’d fall helplessly in love with a Christmas elf, and for the first time really experiencing joy in my life…well, I’d have to believe it, wouldn’t I? Because it’s all true.”
The gift was in my pocket. But not my winter coat pocket. No, for all my great planning skills, for some reason I’d had it in an inner pocket, and I scowled trying to find the small box. Finally, with relief, I pulled it out into the light. “Charlie,” I said.
“Oh…Val…what is that?”
“A token, nothing more. A symbol.” I opened the box. A small, handcrafted silver ring. If you looked closely, you could see the intricate design, tiny stars that reminded me of him, his story of lying under the night sky, staring up a the stars. “Not just a symbol, though. Also a promise…and a wish.”
“Tell me,” he whispered.
“The wish is that you would be with me forever. That you would marry me, and be mine. The promise is that we will be partners, equals.”
I slipped the ring onto his finger. It fit perfectly. He lifted it until it was in the sunlight, and watched the way it glimmered. There were tears in his eyes, and for a moment he just looked at the ring, gathering his thoughts before turning back to me.
“I never thought I’d meet anyone like you,” he said. “I never thought I’d find someone who understood me, who would listen to me. Yet here you are. How did you get to be so perfect?”
“I’m far from that.”
“Shhh. To me, you’re perfect. So yes. I will spend forever with you. I can’t tell you how much I want that. Nothing else matters.”
He wrapped me in his arms, and lifted his lips to mine. They were such warm lips, for such a cold morning, like he had the sun inside him, like he was lit from within.
Soon enough we would go inside. There was more cocoa to drink. There were cookies, and firelight, and plans. Our charity needed to be coordinated, our bus needed to be brought here, a million tasks lay before us.
But for a while, all I wanted to do was stand out here in the snow and kiss the man I loved. All I wanted was to be close to him.
So much of my life has been spent saying that’s not the sort of thing I do.
That had all changed with Charlie. Suddenly I was the kind of person who did try new things.
And the thing I wanted to try, most of all?
Being in love. Forever. This Christmas, and for every Christmas to come.
A selection from ‘Spring Forward,’ my newest gay romance!
“I assume you’ve seen the house,” said the old lawyer, looking up from his legal pad. The edges of the pad were frayed and dog-eared; he had been rubbing them with his thumb ever since Liam came into the tall, sparsely furnished room. It made Liam wonder if the lawyer were nervous about something. Or maybe Liam was projecting his own nerves. The whole drive down, he had been agitated, expectant, even if he didn’t know what he was expecting. He stared at the edge of the yellow pad. Those pages looked like how he felt right now.
“Sorry, I haven’t,” Liam said.
The older man’s bushy eyebrows rose. “No? You’ve never been? They’ve never taken you?”
Liam’s head shake might have been meant to communicate No, no one ever has, but his eyes couldn’t stay on the lawyer’s. Instead, they traveled past him, looking at the clock on the wall. How many hours had he been away from home now? Was everything okay? What was it that required him to be here, now, in this office, with everything going on back home?
He made himself focus back on the lawyer, made himself force a smile. No reason not to be friendly. “I don’t think my family knows anything about this, Mr. Edwards. I never heard of a Great-Uncle Silas, until your secretary called to make this appointment. I’m still not convinced I’m the man you’re looking for.”
The lawyer’s teeth disapproved, making a clicking tsk, as if Liam should know that family was the most important thing—even very, very distant family that had been dead for some time. Liam wondered if Mr. Edwards’ home was covered in family pictures, generation after generation, back to the very beginning of photography. Maybe paintings as well. Here is a cave-painting of Great-Great-Great-Grandpa Grog. Really captures the eyes, doesn’t it?
He kept his laugh to himself, but had to remember to tell that one to Judah and Noah when he got home. They were probably still in shock that he, of all people, would drop everything and rush to a town he’d never been to, down in the flattest, most parched land Georgia had available, all to talk about an inheritance from some uncle he’d never heard of.
“I can take you to see it,” Edwards said, pushing the legal pad to the side. “It’s out of town a ways.”
This whole place is out of town a ways, Liam thought. The car he’d rented for the drive was covered in orange dust, and its air conditioning had kept threatening to quit, the minute he’d left the interstate and started on the long, plain back roads that lead him to Superbia. “Can we take your car?” he asked.
A clanging sounded from his pocket, like a recording of church bells falling onto pavement, just as they stepped out of the law office and into the blinding-white sun. Liam blinked and pulled out his phone. “I didn’t realize I had reception out here,” he said.
