Learning to Love Christmas: Audie and Calhoun 3 (Low Country Lovers)

by Julia McBryant

  Except for Quinn, who he currently decides he wants to kill.

  “Hey, Quinn.” Calhoun splashes him. Quinn turns. “Shut the fuck up, before I shut your motherfucking mouth for you.”

  Everyone suddenly quiets and stares. Calhoun never says “fuck” unless he’s in bed with Audie. Ever. And everyone here knows it.

  “Excuse me?” Quinn demands.

  “You heard me.”

  “You’ve never punched a goddamn thing in your life, Chatterton.”

  “You wanna see me start, Rutledge? Leave Isa alone.”

  “Calling in that favor, Audie. Make your boyfriend calm the fuck down.”

  Audie crosses his arms. “No.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Amory’s eyes widen.

  “Well, Calhoun, guess what your boyfriend said last night?”

  “I doubt I care.”

  “He said, direct quote, ‘I wouldn’t let many men top me, but my knees would hit the ground for Ellis.’”

  Calhoun cracks up. “I think everyone in this hot tub would drop to their knees for Ellis, you blond bastard. No fucking shock. That he said it out loud though? Fairly hilarious. So leave Isa alone.”

  “I was just trying —”

  “You were threatening her. Quit it.”

  Quinn stomps out of the hot tub. Amory shrugs and follows him. Everyone sort of stares at Calhoun. “What? I was the only one sober enough to deal with it!”

  Everyone eventually does order pizza. Isa says she’s too upset to eat, but Audie and Calhoun get her to have a salad after some puffs off Audie’s vape pen. “It gives her the munchies,” Audie explains.

  They end up curled on the floor watching a Marvel movie. Quinn eventually sidles back upstairs. He doesn’t much look at Calhoun. Isa’s pissy about it, and truthfully Calhoun would rather watch something else too, but whatever. Isa lays with her head in Audie’s lap. He plays with her hair. Calhoun leans against him. Audie closes his eyes and falls asleep. Calhoun has to wake him up to go downstairs.

  They curl up in bed together. His soft lips rest on Calhoun’s neck. “If this is Christmas, it’s not that bad. But it’s still stupid. We could just have a giant party without all this stuff.”

  “You like the Santa hat and you like that Wills gave you a stocking.”

  “Yeah.” Audie’s really quiet. “I liked that a lot. It was really nice of him. And he made me a little ornament. We could put it on Gran’s tree, next year, if you wanted to.”

  “Love, we could put it on our tree next year.”

  Audie stiffens behind him. “We’re getting a tree next year?”

  “Yes, Audie. We’re getting a tree. I want a tree. I gave you one year. But next year, we get a tree.”

  Audie sighs.

  “I liked the stocking thing. I like the Santa hats and the gingerbread houses and I like seeing our friends the most, probably —”

  Calhoun turns to him and touches his face. “Audie. What do you think Christmas is? It’s spending time with the people you love.”

  Audie’s quiet for a moment. “I guess it is, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, Audie.” Calhoun plays with his curls a little. Audie likes that. “This is what Christmas is about. Not about your parents’ stupid ideas of it. God, your parents are weird as all hell. The people you love are here, Audie. They’re at Gran’s. And next year you’ll be both places and you’ll see.” Calhoun kisses him. “Christmas won’t suck. I promise.” He plays with Audie’s hair for a long time, until his boyfriend’s deep breathing tells him Audie’s gone to sleep. That always puts Audie out.

  There’s a timid little knock at their door. Calhoun opens it to find Isa.

  “Can I sleep with y’all tonight? Baylor sexiled me again.”

  He bites back a why aren’t you sleeping with Henry? “Yeah, of course you can, the bed’s huge, and Audie’s all the way on the far edge. Just crawl in. You don’t mind sleeping between us, do you?”

  She smiles. “If you don’t mind me cuddling.”

  Calhoun shakes his head and smiles. “We used to take naps together, remember?”

  Isa keeps smiling. “Your Gran was big on naps. You’d pass right out and I’d kick my heels on the bed, and she’d come in and say, ‘Isabel, you’d best go to sleep!’ And I’d think I’d never go to sleep. So she’d tell me to cuddle up with you, and when I did, I would pass right out.”

  Isa hops into bed. She faces Audie. “Can I sleep against your back, Calhoun? Like I used to when we were little?”

  “Yeah.” Calhoun smiles a little into the dark. As she cuddles against him, that thin back against his, the long-lost memory rises suddenly: a quiet room, dust motes dancing in the afternoon sun, waking next to a sleeping Isa. He can feel her go to sleep, the slowing breath, then the deep, even breathing. She holds a bear. Isa always had a bear. It’s the same bear as when they were five, sure as the hair on her head.

  Calhoun giggles when he wakes up: Audie is spooning Isa. Her hair tangles around his face; he’s nuzzled into her neck and wrapped protectively around her. He holds her like she holds her teddy bear. He snaps some photos to torment Audie later. “Audie!” he sings. “Audie, wake up!”

  Audie starts awake and nearly leaps off the bed to find a girl in his arms. Calhoun cracks up. Isa yawns and stretches. “What the hell? I was comfy. Who threw me halfway across the bed?”

  Calhoun points to Audie.

  “Audie, dammit! You were warm! Get back here!”

  “Where the hell did you come from?”

  “I got sexiled. Calhoun said I could sleep here. You somehow ended up cuddled up with me or something so come back.”

  “It was weird as fuck! I’ve only ever slept with Baylor before!”

  Of course he’s slept with Baylor. Calhoun huffs.

  “What?” Audie glares. “You’d rather me have shared a bed with Bastian?”

  “Sure you did that, too.”

  “No.” Audie climbs back in bed and gathers up Isa. “For your information, Calhoun, we never fucking did. I always got Baylor, because I had you and I’m like, never-in-a-million-years would I hook up with a girl. Bastian’s bi. He always slept alone.” Audie nuzzles into Isa. “So go to hell. You always think the worst of them. Baylor always slept with me because no chance were we touching each other.”

  “Mmmm, you’re a good cuddler.” Isa nuzzles into him. “Stop arguing about stupid college shit. Baylor’s awesome. She teases but it’s always funny and she never means to hurt your feelings. She’d be appalled if she thought she did. If I liked girls, I’d want a girlfriend like her.”

  “What, a bitch?” Calhoun can’t stop himself.

  “That’s beneath you.” Isa rolls over to face him. “She’s sweet. She shares everything with me, do you know that, and Delia says when she asked her to come to the party she almost burst into tears. She’s terrified to move because she thinks she won’t know anyone but Audie and her cousins and she knows you hate her so she doesn’t think she’ll get to see Audie ever.”

  “I don’t hate her.” He really doesn’t. Especially since he had to yell it the other night.

  “You do. Don’t lie.”

  “Oh my god.” Calhoun throws his hands up. “What do I have to do to prove I don’t hate Baylor?!”

  “Be nice to her.”

  “What?”

  “Be nice to her. All day. Be kind and nice and show an interest in her and care and we’ll believe you don’t hate her.”

  Calhoun sighs. “Fine.”

  “Fine.”

  Audie laughs and kisses Isa’s head. “Trust Isa to come up with the solution to the problem and put your ass in your place.”

  They wander upstairs. Audie cuts a piece of pie and pours them all coffee. Isa wiggles under his arm and occasionally steals a bite. Amory’s already eating some of those Beehole thingies, which are like Cheerios but Wills swears they’re better. Everyone slowly wanders in, pajama-clad, the guys mostly shirtless. Calhoun hits the cookies
and milk.

  “I like the Christmas plates.” Audie looks up at Wills. “Nice we don’t have to do dishes, too.”

  “Crispin was smart enough to go along with it.” Wills beams. “But Henry picked the pattern.”

  “Awwwww, I didn’t know you were so good at picking china. Chinette.” Amory’s mouth twists.

  “Shut the fuck up, Reed.” Henry pours himself some Beeholes.

  “We get to do Secret Santa today!” Wills starts bouncing again. “And make ornaments. I set out all the stuff the day the party started.”

  “Oooooh, we get to use the hot glue gun.” Isa smiles.

  Audie looks down at her. “I never used a hot glue gun.”

  “Oh. It’s easy. You just burn yourself a lot.”

  Baylor and Delia start making ornaments first, then Isa. Trust the girls. There’s glue and paint and felt and scissors and glitter, all the stuff Audie probably hasn’t seen since, like, grade school. Calhoun drags him over. “C’mon, Audie. You can do this.”

  “I don’t —”

  “You do. Pick a shell and cut out a Christmas tree.”

  So Audie chooses a piece of green felt and a shell. Calhoun starts cutting out trees for the girls. Audie cuts out a big triangle. Someone yells at Amory to come over. Calhoun watches Audie. He industriously selects pom-poms and hot-glues them to his tree, cursing and burning his fingers in between. He laughs. Calhoun starts handing him trees; Audie glues on the pom-poms. He seems to take it very seriously, assuring the colors look good together. It’s unbearably sweet and he smiles and laughs and teases Isa and keeps sucking his fingers from the hot-glue burns.

  Everyone shows up to make ornaments, all twelve of them. Quinn makes one for him and Ellis and Amory in his messy writing. Calhoun smiles at it. He loves Quinn’s messy writing. They used to pass notes in class. He still has them all in a box in his Gran’s attic: stupid stuff.

  Calhoun: I hate gym class OMG it sucks Doug is such an a-hole.

  And Quinn, in his messy scrawl: I know I hope we don’t have to play effing basketball again. I hate it. I’m too short.

  Calhoun: Delia is taller than you, ha.

  Quinn: Shut up, Chatterton.

  Calhoun: I’m kidding. You’ll be taller than her one day. And you’re really like the same height.

  Sometimes they would just write song lyrics back and forth. He still has a copy of Quinn’s writing out R.E.M. lyrics on a particularly bad day. It was their way of making each other feel better when the teasing would get too bad, or when they couldn’t figure out what to say but wanted to say something. Not love notes; even when they hooked up senior year, he and Quinn were never in love with each other, but a step up from friendship into something else. He hasn’t seen Quinn’s handwriting in so long and it makes him happy.

  “Quinn.” Calhoun touches his shoulder, and he turns. “Write me an ornament.”

  “Why? My writing sucks.” It comes out angry, eyes narrowed. He’s still pissed from last night.

  “Because it reminds me of us writing notes in class.”

  Quinn smiles suddenly. “Yeah. We used to do that, didn’t we?” He picks out a shell and writes, in glitter glue, “L8R, Q,” how he signed all his notes. Calhoun laughs. He finds a shell and glitter-glues “Cya, CCC.” They both smile.

  “What’s the middle ‘C’?” Amory slugs from a bottle. Jim Beam this time. He’s hot-gluing a star onto a shell.

  Quinn cracks up.

  “You said you wouldn’t ever tell!”

  “Lips sealed. Promise is a promise.” Quinn high-fives him.

  No way is anyone hearing his middle name is Cox. Ever. Only Audie knows, and that’s from his driver’s license. Even he laughed for ten minutes.

  Calhoun finds himself next to Baylor. He sighs. Time to embark on the Be Nice To Baylor campaign. “I really like your ornament.” It’s a heart with the carefully glittered word LOVE written on it. The ornament clearly took her some time to make.

  “Thanks.” She smiles. “I made one for all my friends in Columbia.”

  Dead-end. That means this is probably for Bastian.

  “But I made this one for Audie.” She holds up one with a Christmas tree and a dove on it. “He always liked that I like birds.”

  “Yeah.” Calhoun clears his throat. Audie watches him from across the table. He wants Audie to know he’s trying. “So Audie told me to ask you about the crows?” Calhoun makes himself smile at her.

  Baylor blinks at him, like she doesn’t understand. “What d’you wanna know?”

  He asks some questions. She answers them, and it turns out she’s not vapid like he thought, not at all. She’s smarter than Quinn, and Quinn’s not dumb. She talks about theories of language and hunting strategies and tool use and mating and flocking behavior, acclimation and theories of knowledge. Then her face changes.

  “They left me a present once.”

  Calhoun cocks his head at her. “What d’you mean?” This is by far the longest conversation he’s ever had with Baylor.

  “I used to feed them in the same place every single day at the same time. They’d wait for me, the same crows. I could recognize them. They can distinguish between humans. And one day, when I came out, there was a marble, this perfect shining marble, in the middle of the table. No one went there. No one ever went there, and I know for a fact no one had been in that side garden since I had. The crows had left it for me.” She shows him her necklace. Inset in gold is an ordinary child’s marble. “I never take it off.”

  Calhoun nearly cries at the beauty of it. “That’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It happens to people sometimes. It’s not as special as you’d think.”

  “But it is.”

  Audie glances over. “I told you.”

  This story settles into Calhoun, the sheer beauty and magic of it. It’s more of everything than any Christmas story he’s ever heard. “Thank you,” he says gravely to Baylor.

  She knits her brows. “For what?”

  “For telling me that.”

  She laughs. “Why?”

  “Because it’s like this perfect little piece of magic.”

  “Only if you don’t know crows.”

  “Stop. You’re making it less. You know it’s magic. That’s why you’re wearing it.”

  She smiles a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess I do.” She’s quiet for a while. “This is the best Christmas party ever, Wills. Thank you so much for inviting me. It’s been awesome and it means a lot.”

  He looks up from his ornament. “Thanks. It’s been awesome having you.” He laughs. “Another Rutledge has been fun. Especially one who can summon crows and put Quinn in his place.”

  Only Delia and Isa, Audie and Calhoun, Baylor and Wills are left making ornaments. “You’re really lucky.”

  “I know.” Wills glows. He’s so happy this weekend. Wills can be like a mother hen. He always wants all his people in one place, like Calhoun.

  “I don’t have friends like this.”

  Wills hugs her. “You will if you stick around long enough, Kirkman. You fit.”

  She starts to cry, and Calhoun’s heart breaks. “Hey. It’s okay. I just meant —”

  “I only ever had like, a few friends at a time, and even then, like, only ever really Audie and Bastian and Tristan. Never anything like this. I never even had a friend who was a girl before, other than Delia and she doesn’t count because we’re related.”

  Wills looks at Delia. “I think this is all you, straight girlfriend.”

  “Yeah.” She hugs Baylor. “C’mon, baby.” She and Isa lead Baylor off to her room.

  “See?” Audie narrows his eyes. “I told you, Calhoun.” He gets up and follows Isa and Delia.

  “What’d he mean?” Wills asks.

  “I, um, I —” Calhoun can’t figure out how to say it. “I never got along with Audie’s college friends.”

  “How come?” Wills keeps gluing stuff. He doesn’t look up.

&n
bsp; “I don’t know. Just didn’t. They were always getting Audie in trouble —”

  “Maybe Audie wanted to get in trouble. Imma go get my suit on. You wanna get in the hot tub?”

  “Yeah.” Calhoun heads downstairs. But he can’t help thinking of that look on Baylor’s face. She wants so desperately to belong, like they belonged: like the way he knows Quinn’s writing, the way Wills knows Audie wants dog treats, how everyone will keep Isa and Henry’s secret, the way Calhoun can close his eyes and see all of their faces as children, and the ones he can’t, well, they fit anyway. He can close his eyes and they rise in his memory: Crispin shaking his curls in kindergarten, Isa in her braids holding hands with Delia, kicking sand on the playground with Quinn, Henry and Wills, Lucky and Thor, the miracles of twins, these strangely identical people. The accumulation of Audie and Amory, slipping in like nothing at all, like they’d always been there. Then Baylor, so suddenly, another Rutledge and so desperate to be accepted. She wanted what all of them took for granted: that Christmas warmth, that feeling of belonging somewhere, of coming home.

  Baylor wants somewhere to come home to.

  They all pile into the hot tub again and commence with the drinking and the smoking. Wills still refuses to smoke. Henry smokes and gets really quiet. Calhoun smokes. Calhoun smokes a good bit, in fact. He’s stopped coughing when Audie shotguns him, and he really likes it when Audie shotguns him, lips against lips, hot breath into his mouth, leaning up and exhaling then leaning back down and kissing him again. Quinn hits him for making out in the hot tub. Calhoun hits him back without stopping. Audie’s hard chest against Calhoun’s makes his nipples hard. Audie whispers in his ear. “We have to stop. They can’t see this —” he palms Calhoun “— but they sure as hell can see your nipples, and it’s not cold in this tub, baby boy.”