SYLER MCKNIGHT: A Holiday Tale

by Brent, Cora

  “I won’t.” He groaned with one mighty thrust after another. “Fucking hell, it’ll kill me but I won’t.”

  Syler held out until I came again before he reached the brink and needed to pull out. I held on tight as the spasms destroyed him and felt the hot release spill out onto my belly.

  We were silent in the aftermath, lazily running our hands over each other’s sweaty skin. There wasn’t much time to bask in the glow or think about what it meant because a sudden commotion at the front of the house heralded the return of Gemma and the kids. We dressed in a hurry and Syler said he’d leave first to make sure the coast was clear. I nodded, not really eager to explain to anyone why Aunt Katty was exiting Uncle Syler’s room with her sweater on crooked and her hair all messed up.

  Before Syler left the room I pulled him in for a brief kiss. He winked at me. I smiled. I ran my palm over the door after he left. I heard him enthusiastically greeting his sister and her kids and asking where his share of the tamales were.

  Maybe I had lost my mind.

  The verdict was not yet in.

  But I could admit that I felt incredible right now.

  And what I’d said to Syler had been about more than the heat of the moment.

  “I like you, you bastard.”

  I did like him.

  Far more than I’d ever acknowledged.

  13

  Chasing Beansy

  Syler

  This was not my scene at all. Being here was like being trapped on the set of one of those holiday baking shows. And the contestants were all people from the various and occasionally sordid corners of my past.

  Alice Deveraux, the girl I took to the junior prom, eyeballed me with suspicion as she kept one hand on her heavily pregnant belly. I knew she was married to some guy she’d met while attending veterinary school at Cornell but plainly she still held a grudge for the prom fiasco when I’d ditched her to go smoke out in my car with Kendra Lipman. In my defense, Kendra had offered me all her weed plus access to her sizeable tits, along with a hand job.

  Okay, so that might not be much of a defense.

  Meanwhile, my high school calculus teacher, Donna Gardner, who’d encouraged me to apply to MIT, waved happily after she uncovered a large plate of rainbow cookies. Hers was one of the more pleasant faces in sight so I didn’t mind waving back.

  Deanna Barnes Coleman huddled in a corner with a few pals. They held matching glasses of wine and cackled obnoxiously every three seconds. One of the Deanna followers was Alta Benoit, sister of disgraced principal Ophelia Benoit. Deanna thought she was being cute by wearing a Crush The Spirit Killers v-neck shirt. She noticed me watching and raised her glass in a mock toast. I had to guess this was revenge for insulting her the day she showed up to revel in Gemma’s broken marriage. I stifled the urge to flip her off. No middle fingers should be extended at Gloria’s Cookie Capers. This was a G rated event.

  My job was to make sure the soda table was adequately stocked, clean up any garbage people decided to throw around and behave like a gracious host. That last bit was giving me some trouble. Charm was not one of my natural qualities. I was more useful down on the floor mopping up drink spills, which is exactly what I was doing when a boot nudged me in the ribs.

  “Heard you were in town,” a deep voice said. I looked up to find the dark, good humored face of Dorien Parnell grinning down at me.

  “Hey, man.” I stood up and we fist bumped. Dorien was a buddy of mine in high school but we’d drifted apart since then. The guy was a crack up though, one of the few people who could make me bust a gut laughing.

  He was a big shot Manhattan executive now, only back in town for the holidays to visit his widowed mother. He’d heard about my Spirit Killer infamy and agreed that Adam Free was a pompous pox on humanity. Then he looked around the room at the Maple Springs citizenry and tendered a few dry comments about some of our former classmates that had me struggling to keep a straight face.

  He became serious when he caught a glimpse of Gemma chatting with the animal rescue squad.

  “Reese was always a thick-headed tool,” he noted.

  “Agreed.”

  “And he caught an unearned break when your sister married him.”

  “Then he fucked it up in legendary fashion,” I grumbled.

  So much for the evening’s G rating. I had trouble holding my tongue where my brother-in-law was concerned.

  Dorien snapped his fingers. “That reminds me, my mom plays Bunco with two members of the school board. It seems Travis Casterly applied for the high school principal job. Looks like he’ll get it too.”

  Travis ‘Stoner’ Casterly was last seen passed out on the fifty yard line the morning of his graduation from Maple Springs High. He was a year ahead of Gemma and given how his name was synonymous with hard core partying, I was surprised he’d ended up in the education field. I was even more surprised that the Maple Springs education board would select him as the new principal. Then again, the sudden departure of Principal Benoit had created something of an urgent situation. There probably weren’t qualified people lining up to be a small town principal.

  “So tell me about your life,” I said to Dorien. “Married? Kids?”

  He shook his head. “Neither.”

  “A girl?”

  He gave me speculative look. “A guy. His name is Liam and he owns a restaurant downtown. We’ve only been together a few months so we decided to spend the holidays with our own families. Looks like he’ll be a keeper though.”

  “No kidding, good for you.” I was surprised only because we’d hung out a lot back in the day and he’d never said a word about being gay. He always had one girlfriend or another clinging to him.

  Dorien raised an eyebrow. “And you? Anyone special?”

  Instinctively I searched the crowd for Katrina. She was in her social butterfly element tonight, greeting everyone with smiles and hugs. At the moment she was chatting up two town council members. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but the sight of her was enough to stir my dick and wreak havoc on my pulse.

  “You could say that,” I said, still staring at the one girl in the world who had ever been capable of doing this to my heart.

  So far there hadn’t been a chance to deal with the impact of yesterday’s raunchy quickie in my room. After Gemma and the kids got home there was a long list of baking, cleaning and furniture rearranging to be done in preparation for tonight’s festivities. At one a.m. Gemma and Katrina were still in the kitchen busily decorating cookies. I said good night from the doorway and my sister smiled at me but Katrina’s face was impossible to read. She’d stared down at her gingerbread creation and murmured, “Night, Syler,” without looking up.

  I had hoped that she’d come knocking on my door before dawn but that didn’t happen. Today we hadn’t exchanged more than five words. It seemed like every time I walked into a room she turned on her heel and sped right out of it. Like she was allergic to me. That might be my imagination but I didn’t think so.

  I wanted to tell her things, like how I wasn’t at all sorry about what happened between us yesterday. I hoped like hell she wasn’t sorry either.

  A few minutes later, Dorien’s mom came around to pull him away because she wanted him to write a check to the food bank. I nodded to a few people who greeted me, tossed away some scattered garbage that these slobs couldn’t find the time to throw in the trash can themselves and hunted for Katrina. I poked my head into every room, even checking in the den where all the kids were hanging out under the supervision of Drew and a couple of other teenagers, but Katrina was nowhere in sight. Eventually I gave up and retreated to the kitchen in the hopes I could kill some time in there before rejoining the fray.

  Katrina must have had the same idea because there she was in the kitchen all alone. She was completely absorbed in her phone, obviously texting someone, and a smile still played on her lips as she finished her message.

  “Hey you,” I said.

  She jerked,
startled. She blinked. Finally she smiled.

  “Hi. I think everything is going well tonight, don’t you?”

  “Sure. Grandma Gloria would be proud. What are you doing in here?”

  Katrina set her phone down on the counter. “My boss at the network was trying to call. It’s tough to talk out there so I ran in here but didn’t catch the call in time. He just left a message to call him back right away but he didn’t say what he wanted and now, wouldn’t you know, it’s now going straight to voicemail.”

  “Oh. I guess your boss wasn’t the guy you were texting with?”

  She thought the question was odd. Because it was odd. I sounded like a possessive boyfriend.

  “No. Ryland’s worried about Gemma. He must have gotten my number from her at some point because he called last night to find out if she and the kids were really doing okay. I just sent him some photos of the party. He was glad to see it was still happening in spite of everything.”

  “Ryland could have stuck his head out of the scientific sand and called me if he was worried about our sister.”

  Katrina shrugged and leaned against the sink. “I thought you two weren’t close.”

  “You two aren’t close either,” I pointed out. “Right?”

  What was this twinge of annoyance in my gut over the mention of Ryland?

  Ah, jealousy.

  I remembered it well. Though we had little to do with one another I loved my brother even if I’d always wished he didn’t have to be quite so relentlessly perfect. And I sure wished Katrina hadn’t grown up worshipping him as a god among men.

  Katrina sensed my irritation. “Look, I swear it was nothing. We really don’t keep in regular touch. He’s just worried about Gem and the kids.”

  That was almost certainly true. Ryland thought Katrina was more likely to have the scoop on the family well being than I would. And she could talk to whoever she liked. Even Ryland. But that didn’t mean I needed to jump for joy.

  “I see. Let me just grab another trash bag and get out of your way so you can keep texting with Ryland.”

  Yup, I sounded like a petty jerk.

  Yup, I was just going to keep right on going.

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re being ridiculous.”

  “If you say so.”

  She made a face. “We should talk.”

  “We are talking. Do you mean the kind of dirty talk we had fun with yesterday? This might be an inappropriate time.”

  “Syler!” The way she said my name. Like she wanted to beat me over the head with it.

  I mocked her. “Katrina!”

  “We can’t argue in the middle of Cookie Capers.”

  “We’re not. We’re arguing on the outskirts of Cookie Capers.”

  “You need to give me a break.”

  “And you probably need to go call my brother back. I’ll leave you to it.”

  She grabbed my sleeve. “Syler, wait. This is going badly. I’m sorry. You think I’ve been avoiding you since yesterday.”

  “Yeah, that’s because you’ve been avoiding me since yesterday.”

  “No.” She was distressed, shaking her head. “Not exactly. I do really want to talk to you. But we’ve got a house full of people and I was afraid that anyone who saw us together would be able to tell that something was up.”

  “Oh. And that would be so embarrassing for you?”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “What did you mean?”

  She pursed her lips. “Gem has enough to deal with. We don’t need to pile on bawdy town gossip about her best friend and her brother.”

  I understood. Gemma never had a clue that Katrina and I were anything more than chronic adversaries. I’d never told anyone about our long ago reckless night and up until now Katrina would probably rather slice off one or two of her fingers rather than confess to the world that I’d made her come a half dozen different ways. If we were somewhere else then no one would likely care, but this was Maple Springs, where people had elephant memories and held grudges dating back to preschool. It would be a topic of interest if Katrina and I were spotted together.

  But so what?

  So what if they saw and wondered and gossiped? I’ve never been one to worry about public opinion. And thanks to that Bath Bomber nonsense, Katrina had endured far worse than a small town rumor. She must be telling the truth about thinking only of Gemma. Either that, or she was feeling some walk of shame regrets.

  In either case, this probably wasn’t the right time to sort it out.

  “All right,” I said.

  She placed a comforting hand on my arm. “Let’s just get through tonight first.”

  I reached out to brush one of her long curls over her shoulder, feeling some satisfaction over the way she instantly trembled.

  “And then what?” I whispered.

  My fingers skimmed her neck, traced her collarbone. Her blue eyes shut for a second and she inhaled sharply. Then her eyes opened and looked up at me. She had no idea how powerful her eyes were. I was possessed by the urge to do anything in the world for her if only she’d keep looking at me like that with those eyes.

  She licked her lips and started to answer. “And then-“

  Her crucial next words were cut off because the door swung open and a pack of noisy children barged in.

  “I can’t find Beansy!” wailed Gretel, distraught over the loss of her favorite doll.

  Chloe solemnly held her little sister’s hand. “We looked everywhere.”

  “I looked in the bathroom,” Evan offered.

  “I even checked the yard,” Drew said and shrugged. “Couldn’t find it.”

  Gretel sniffed. “She’s missing. She’s scared. Where’s Mommy?”

  I had taken a step back from Katrina the instant the door opened and I didn’t think the kids had seen anything. Katrina bent down and hugged Gretel.

  “Don’t worry, sweetie pie. Let’s go have some cookies and as soon as everyone leaves for Christmas caroling we’ll keep looking until we find Beansy. She’s got to be here somewhere.”

  Katrina glanced over her shoulder at me before exiting with Gretel, Evan and Chloe. Drew was the only one to hang back. He gave me a funny look.

  “Were you guys, like, kissing?” he asked, obviously disgusted over the idea of adults having physical contact with one another.

  I blew off the question. “No.”

  “You kind of seemed like you were kissing.”

  “Aunt Katty had something in her eye. I was helping her.”

  My nephew snorted. “You’re full of it, Uncle Sy.”

  I tugged his baseball cap over his eyes. “I might be full of it but keep that to yourself.”

  Back at the party, the cookie portion of the evening was ending. Guests were collecting their plates and wrapping themselves in winter garments before committing to the short trek to the town square.

  Unfortunately, after a quick search around the house Beansy was still AWOL. I volunteered to keep searching so Gem and the kids wouldn’t miss the caroling.

  Before leaving, Drew offered a helpful hint. “I could have sworn she had the doll with her when we were all in the backyard building a snow fort this afternoon.”

  “Do you remember seeing it after that?”

  He shrugged. “I dunno.”

  I grabbed my jacket. Gretel would be devastated if her beloved Beansy wasn’t found by the time she returned. I couldn’t have that. No, I wouldn’t sit down until I found that damn doll.

  There were still some people left in the house but from the looks of it Katrina had everything under control. She said goodbye to the elderly sisters who’d served as the town librarians for the last half century and then noticed that I waited nearby.

  “Going Beansy hunting,” I told her, grabbing a flashlight from the drawer in the entryway table. “I heard a report that she might be lost in the snowy wilderness.”

  Katrina flashed a smile. “Such a devoted uncle.”

  “I try.”


  We shared a long look that was full of all the things we still needed to figure out. Then her attention was sidetracked by the sound of a shattering plate. Someone had gotten a little too enthusiastic about grabbing cookies and knocked a table over.

  “I’ll deal with that.” She rolled her eyes. “You start the Beansy rescue party.”

  “Kiss for good luck?”

  She scoffed. “Don’t push it, McKnight.”

  “I wouldn’t push anything at the moment. Maybe later.”

  Katrina glared, blushed and hurried off to deal with the table fiasco.

  I was grinning on my way out the door. Once outside I had to stop and zip up my jacket. Hell of a cold night to go out Christmas caroling. Or search for a wayward doll.

  Drew had mentioned his last glimpse of Beansy was in the backyard so I made my way in that direction, leaving the sound of the departing guests behind. Once I was through the gate that separated the front and back yards I needed to switch on the flashlight. The only light out back would be the rather bleak bulb above the kitchen door. I was surprised to see a figure standing right underneath that small glow.

  Deanna Barnes Coleman watched me approach while continuing to calmly smoke her cigarette. Her coat was flung over her shoulders. She still had the manner of a stuck up high school girl trying to look cool.

  “You looking for someone?” she asked, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

  “Gretel’s doll. Have you seen it?”

  She tapped ashes out into the snow. “Nope.”

  “Nice shirt, by the way,” I said, hoping my voice dripped with sarcasm.

  Deanna laughed. “It was a joke.”

  “I’m laughing real hard on the inside.”

  She was enjoying my irritation. “I’m glad we ran into each other. Earlier the girls and I were comparing notes on you.”

  That did not sound promising. “What kind of notes?”

  “We were surprised to realize how many of us had the brief pleasure of your company back in the day. It seems you weren’t at all particular, Syler.”