Glass Tidings

by Amy Jo Cousins

  Eddie started to feel like a narc again after five minutes of keeping an eye on the kid. Like, he took his job seriously and didn’t want anyone stealing from Gray’s shop, but he also didn’t want to stare-stalk the kid around the room like he knew he couldn’t be trusted.

  Maybe he was just a nervous, edgy teenager. Or maybe he was holding and too new to firing one up not to be paranoid that everyone could tell. Shit, with Eddie’s luck, the kid was probably gay and trying to hit on him.

  Or maybe he’s just a fucking weirdo, so ignore him.

  But as soon as Mrs. Wasserman slipped out the front door, leaving the coat on the counter, waving cheerfully at Eddie and wishing him a “Merry Christmas!” the kid put down the sequined Eiffel Tower he’d been pretending to examine and slinked his way up to the front counter.

  “A hundred fifty.” Lank, long bangs fell across the kid’s face, hiding his eyes as he leaned his chest against the high counter. His fingertips on the edge were white, squeezing tight.

  Eddie hip-checked the register door closed. The kid jumped.

  “A hundred fifty what, kid?”

  A dark flash of eyes through the bangs. The kid threw his shoulders back, full of bravado, but his lip trembled when he opened his mouth to speak.

  The bell over the door tinkled as Gray pushed back into the shop, white paper bags in hand. The gust of cold air that entered with him made Eddie shiver.

  “Meet me out back,” the kid muttered, then shoved his hands deep in his pockets and slouched out the front door.

  “No thanks!” Eddie shouted after him.

  Gray watched him go with a wrinkled brow. “What’s that kid’s deal?”

  Pretty sure he just offered to blow me for drug money didn’t seem like the kind of thing he should say in a shop that was regularly filled with the squeals of eager kids.

  “I think he’s gay,” Eddie said, because that part at least was true. “Maybe his gaydar is pinging when he comes in here.”

  The grimace that flashed over Gray’s face spoke volumes.

  “What? Are you not out here?” He’d just assumed. Fucking awesome. Just what Eddie needed. To be stuck in a town where he had to watch out or get his ass beat.

  “I’m not in. Not out. I’m not anything here, really.” Gray shrugged. “I’m everyone’s favorite, sexless bachelor uncle, feels like sometimes. We used to go on date nights, Brady and me, and show up to all the town festivals and things together, but it’s like they forget he even existed.”

  Ugh. The Ghost of Christmas Past strikes again.

  “I’ll be back in a minute. Just going to take the trash out first. And wash my hands.” And brush my teeth. Because it wouldn’t do to come back reeking of cigarette smoke after managing to hide his bad habit from Gray all this time.

  “You really ought to quit. You know that, right?” Gray said as he slid behind the counter, dropping the bags of cookies next to the register and blowing Eddie’s mind all at once. Then the man stood up and proceeded to wink at Eddie, tossing in a little grin too, just for shits and giggles. “Plus, I hear kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.”

  Holy shit.

  Gray was officially fucking flirting with him.

  Maybe that shouldn’t come as such a surprise, considering Eddie had been slipping into Gray’s bed every night for a week. But it did. Gray flirting was a new thing. Maybe those cookies were magic. Or maybe Eddie was the one who’d started it, blurring the lines these last couple of nights, not making Gray wait until Eddie came to him after midnight. Touching him before they left the fire, even.

  A zing up Eddie’s spine left him with a goofy fucking grin on his face, one he tried to hide as he took out the trash and hustled back inside at full speed.

  No way was he missing out on flirty Gray.

  “What was that earlier?”

  “Hmm?” The look Eddie turned on Gray was all innocence, but Gray hadn’t imagined watching one of his regulars walk into the shop with a thick winter coat across her arm and leave with nothing but a paper shopping bag a few minutes later. The bakery was only across the street, and he had stupidly been unable to stop looking over his shoulder the entire time he’d stood in line there.

  “Why is Mrs. Wasserman bringing you clothes?”

  “Oh that. Well, her son finally cleared out some old stuff to donate. Pretty great condition too. Barely worn.” Eddie’s chatter bubbled cheerfully as he lifted a box of pressed-tin ornaments on the counter and began unpacking them for display. Cheerful babble was not a good sign with Eddie. It meant misdirection. Playing a role. “We were talking about winter coats the other day, and she couldn’t believe I only have a hoodie. So she said she’d bring me his coat. Wasn’t that nice?”

  Gray crossed his arms, frowning. “I offered you one of my spare coats three times.”

  The tips of Eddie’s fingers were turning black as he unwrapped the ornaments from the newsprint the artist had wrapped them in. “Yeah, but I don’t want to put you out.”

  “You wouldn’t be. That’s why I offered it.”

  Eddie waved a hand in the air, brushing away Gray’s objections. “I can’t take anymore gifts from you.”

  Which wasn’t any kind of answer at all, but Gray let it go because putting Eddie on the spot in the shop seemed like a good way to make Eddie leave for his studio in the garage.

  By the time they got home that night, Gray was still dancing around the topic, more insistently now. Eddie, however, was pretty much one hundred percent done with antsy and had moved all the way into Casa Pissed Off As Hell.

  Feeling like he was losing control of the conversation the crankier Eddie got, Gray kept trying to get things back on track. Dinner stretched forever in a tense silence that lasted through their coordinated attack on the dirty dishes. “You know it’s not that I think Mrs. Wasserman shouldn’t give you the coat her kid outgrew, right?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Eddie snapped, dropping the wood cutting board on the counter just hard enough to slam. “Do we have to keep talking about it?”

  “I’m not trying to be a dick about this.”

  Eddie did his best to express with an eye roll that Gray was doing an excellent impression of someone who was indeed trying to be a dick. “There’s nothing wrong with letting a nice lady give me a coat.”

  “I know there isn’t. But you don’t just . . . take it without giving anything back.” He tried to think of a way to explain the rhythm of small-town life, the ebb and flow of kindnesses and small debts that got traded back and forth but could never be allowed to accumulate lest the whole social structure collapse. “People are generous here, yes, but we make a point of reciprocating.”

  “Stop eyeing me like I’m some kind of alien life-form.” Eddie twisted off the faucet and wiped his hands dry on a dish towel before turning around.

  “I’m not. It’s just . . . that’s what small towns are like. Maybe you’ve never lived in one, so maybe you don’t see it.”

  Gray wasn’t sure he’d ever actually seen that many teeth before in a smile that looked like it wanted to bite him.

  Eddie leaned back against the counter’s edge and crossed his arms. “There’s nothing I love more than having it pointed out that I don’t fit in. Or understand how to act like the decent folks.”

  Whoops. Smooth move, Gray.

  “So what am I supposed to do? Offer to mow her lawn or something?” Eddie ground his teeth together, the muscles in his jaw bunching. “Bake her some goddamn cookies?”

  “I don’t know. Part of it is getting to know people so you can figure out what they need too.” Gray was practically parroting Eddie’s own goddamn words back to him. Fabulous. Could he sound more parental? “Maybe you could make her a present. An artist’s special.”

  “Yeah, but—” Eddie had plenty of objections at the ready. Gray was starting to wonder if Eddie would always be braced to push back, to argue. “—that coat has gotta be worth, like, a hundred bucks. I can’t do anything that will mak
e us equal.”

  “It’s not about making it an equal trade.” Gray sighed, not sure if he was doing a shit job of explaining this or if Eddie just didn’t want to understand. “It’s about participating in a community where we all support each other and not just taking from people.”

  Eddie snorted. “Right. Like I’m a part of ‘the community.’” Even his air quotes were sarcastic.

  And there it was. Gray’s daily wake-up call that Eddie was counting down the hours until he could hit the road again.

  God, you’re such an idiot. What do you think is going to happen? That you’re going to lay your life out in front of him like it’s some kind of prize he could win? He doesn’t want your dull, stick-in-the-mud world.

  Gray cursed under his breath. Shit. Even his own thoughts were being assholes. He valued his small-town life. It had meaning. Preserving his family’s business mattered to him and to his town. There were families that had been coming to the Christmas Shoppe every year for three generations now. He was a part of their holiday traditions, damn it.

  He hadn’t realized he muttered that last bit aloud until Eddie snapped back at him.

  “You’re the guy who runs the cash register, and if you and your shop weren’t there, they’d go to Walmart out on County Line,” Eddie said.

  Gray’s inhale was so sharp it drew a line through the middle of the room.

  Eddie froze. He looked stunned at his own meanness. After a moment, “Hey.”

  Get. Out.

  Gray’s skin was hot, as if someone had set him on fire. He flexed his fingers wide, then tried to relax them, but they wouldn’t. Jaw aching from clenched teeth, he turned his back on Eddie and left the kitchen.

  “Gray. Wait.”

  He didn’t look to see if Eddie was following him upstairs and hoped to god he fucking wasn’t.

  He’d never wanted to hit someone so hard before in his entire life. Fuck. He still wanted to go back downstairs and shout and throw things and that kind of loss of control shook Gray. Shook him hard.

  He didn’t do rage. Or shouting, or throwing, or anything like that. He simply did not let himself get in so deep with anything—with anyone—that that could happen.

  At least, he hadn’t in a very, very long time.

  It took most of an hour for him to let go of all the anger and hurt swirling in him, as if Eddie had dripped black ink over everything Gray held dear. He sat on the edge of his bed, head in his hands, digging his nails into his scalp until the pain made him wince.

  Physical pain to match the emotional blow Eddie had delivered.

  Because Gray had pushed him.

  And no, Eddie wasn’t blameless. It was a hard, shitty thing he’d said to Gray, and letting go of the resentment that had surged in him at the harsh words wasn’t going to happen in an hour, a day, a week. Gray knew he’d hear those words in his head for a good long time, and he’d hate them every time.

  But he wondered, now that he was calm enough to remember what had led up to Eddie’s blow, how long Eddie was going to be hearing Gray’s words in his own head.

  You don’t just take things. You don’t see it. Taking things.

  He knew Eddie felt like an outsider. Hell, Eddie had told him, repeatedly, even during that clusterfuck of a conversation, that was how he felt. And Gray had just hammered it home how true that was. With good intentions, yes. But intention didn’t matter much if what you were actually doing was pushing on a sore spot over and over again until it ached.

  Apologies were required all around. He needed one from Eddie so he could start letting go of some of his own hurt, but he owed one as much as he needed one.

  As soon as he walked out of his bedroom, he felt it.

  The house was quiet. Too quiet.

  Empty.

  The first night Eddie had come home with him, Gray had started listening for them—the sounds of another person in his home, moving through the rooms, making them his own.

  Gray had told himself it was only the novelty at first of having someone else there, in the spaces he’d left for Brady, who was never coming back home again. He’d told himself that he hadn’t been listening for Eddie as much as for anyone.

  But that had never been true.

  From that first night.

  Shoes. Coat. He forced himself to stop and put them on after standing in front of the open door to his guest room—Eddie’s room—staring with disbelief at the gaping closet door, hangers empty, duffel bag missing.

  The bus stop was downtown, but Gray headed in the other direction, fearing he wouldn’t be able catch up in time. Knowing somehow that Eddie’s urge would be to get away from the town as quickly as possible. To move out, not in.

  Hitchhiking on the highway maybe. Gray had seen enough shitty made-for-TV movies in the eighties to know what a dangerous choice that was.

  That was how badly Eddie wanted to get away from him. How badly Gray had fucked up with his lecturing and pushing and trying to shape Eddie into someone who fit in Gray’s circumscribed life.

  How stupidly he’d pushed Eddie into doing the thing Brady had done with no pushing at all.

  His boots crunched through the hard crust of the snow that had fallen since sundown. Melted, then refrozen again with the fluctuating temperature. His footsteps crackled, faster and faster, until he was jogging down the sidewalk in a straight line away from his house.

  Three blocks from home, he spotted the silhouette ahead of him. His breath caught in his chest with the ache of relief.

  Every second of his chase, he’d doubted his choices. Until he saw Eddie.

  He wasn’t going to call out until he was closer, but before he made it to the end of the block, the figure ahead of him stopped walking.

  Turned. Waited.

  Gray slowed to a fast walk.

  He still hadn’t figured out what to say by the time he came to a halt a few feet from Eddie, who shoved his hands in the pockets of his hand-me-down coat and kicked at a chunk of ice thrown up from the street.

  “It was obviously time for me to hit the road.”

  Gray didn’t say a word.

  Eddie laughed uncomfortably. “Told you it wouldn’t take long to get sick of me.”

  Gray meant to be conciliatory. “Goes a lot faster when you’re trying to be a dickhead.”

  So much for conciliation. Apparently he was still fairly pissed.

  His face red, Eddie glanced down. “Sorry ’bout that.”

  It was tempting to wallow in the superiority of being the one getting apologized to, but Gray reminded himself of his earlier realizations.

  “I’m sorry too.” Eddie looked as if he expected Gray to go on some kind of dad rant about I’m sorry you aren’t responsible enough to blah blah blah, so Gray didn’t let his pause stretch. “I was lecturing you pretty hard. You’re a grown-up. You don’t have to act like I do. Just because it’s the way I like to interact with people, doesn’t mean you have to think the same. I mean, I know Mrs. Wasserman isn’t sitting around thinking, ‘Jeez, how come that guy didn’t do anything nice for me in return?’ That’s not how she thinks.”

  Eddie slumped, letting his bag slide off his shoulders and onto the sidewalk. “It made me feel shitty. Thinking that was how you saw me.”

  “I don’t.” He wasn’t lying. Eddie worked hard, didn’t complain. So what if he occasionally lured you into doing something you hadn’t thought about before he hinted at it. Fuck. Gray had enjoyed that pizza too, and it would be fucked up for him to blame Eddie for something Gray had been happy to do. Just like Mrs. Wasserman had been happy to offer up a coat she’d probably have sent to Goodwill otherwise.

  “The thing is, I wouldn’t have felt shitty if it wasn’t something that was maybe a little true.” Before Gray could argue with him, Eddie shook his head, frowning. “I mean, if you’d been all, ‘Dude, you suck because you put too much sugar in tea,’ I’d’ve been all, ‘Fuck off, I don’t care what you think. And, also, we need some fucking coffee.’ It wouldn�
��t bother me for a second. But maybe . . .” He grimaced and looked away. “Maybe I do take advantage. Some. I mean, not in a mean way.”

  “No.” Because that was true.

  “But, like, it’s easy to make nice people do things for you, because they’re nice.”

  Gray considered keeping his mouth shut, not wanting to fuck this up a second go ’round. But now was not the time to be a chickenshit. “Yeah, but you’re right. You aren’t a part of this community.”

  Eddie flinched. “Ouch.”

  “Wait, that wasn’t . . . You could be. If you want to.”

  “Yeah, I doubt—”

  Before Eddie could argue with him more, Gray spoke over his words. “I’m just saying. If you were staying, maybe you’d want to be a part of things. More.”

  “Right. Like people are going to be all, ‘Honey, make sure to invite that drifter that showed up when Lily Rose died to the potluck dinner at the school.’”

  “Lily Rose isn’t dead, and none of that’s your fault anyway.” Gray scrunched his forehead. “Wait. Do you want to go to potluck dinners at the high school?”

  Eddie shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Because if you show up with food, the door’s wide open. Just saying.”

  “Maybe.”

  Gray took a breath. Held it, then let it out with a rush. “So you should come back. I mean, there’s one more week until Christmas. I could use the help.”

  Eddie dropped his gaze, looking even more embarrassed than before as he whispered, “I can’t.”

  Cold radiated from the frozen ground, creeping up through the soles of Gray’s boots and making him cranky with the ache. “Why the hell not?”

  “I broke the thistle cup.”

  “What?”

  “I was so pissed when you left that I accidentally put the dishes in the sink too hard, and I broke it.”

  Gray ignored the pang in his heart. “Did you throw it at the wall on purpose to smash it?”

  “What? No!”

  “Then . . . accidents happen. I wish it wasn’t broken, but it’s just a cup. It’s not the end of the world.”

  “But it’s your mom’s.” Eddie’s voice was tight, as if he had swallowed a rock and it had stuck in his throat.