by Cara Dee
Martin wasn’t alone. He was sipping drinks in the kitchen with my grandmother. Something was cooking on the stove, Christmas music was playing, and they were fucking giggling.
“What the fuck is going on in here?” I demanded.
Nan yelped in surprise, and Martin jumped. Then they were right back to giggling.
“Hi, sugar.” Nan was having the time of her life, evidently. “Henry! There you are. Come in, come in. Dinner is almost ready. Martin and I are making lamb chops.”
I dropped the bags in the entryway, torn between worry, amusement, and irritation.
“That’s great, Nan, but you shouldn’t be on your feet.” Joining her behind the kitchen counter where they were preparing a salad, I took her glass from her and gently cupped her elbow. “Let me help you to the couch.”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Zach.” She batted me away and stole back her drink. “You treat me like I’m over seventy.”
She was over eighty. That was the whole point. She’d been sick most of the fall, and her memory was getting worse. It worried me to the point where my stomach twisted and revolted.
“Honey, do you trust me?” Martin asked, and there was understanding and compassion in his eyes. I swallowed and managed a nod. He and his sister had been through this with their parents. “Ruth and I are having a blast gossiping about you two and the boys. Let us. I know what I’m doing.”
I looked over my shoulder to meet Henry’s gaze. He nodded in encouragement. Then I eyed Nan’s walker that stood by the fridge. Okay, Martin had it under control.
“All right…” I took a step back, only to inch forward again and kiss Nan’s cheek. “I like your dress, Nan.”
“Thank you.” She smiled happily and smoothed down the red velvet. “Martin helped me pick it out in town today.”
“He has good taste,” I agreed.
“Except for in men,” Henry said behind me.
His comment broke the tension, and I could excuse myself to unpack, shower, and get my shit together.
Our dining area was in a nook on the other side of the living room, past the fireplace, Christmas tree, and the stairs. And as I headed down, feeling tons better, Henry was guiding my grandmother from the kitchen, and they used the walker as a tray for food.
“This is the last of it,” she told me.
I nodded, pausing on the last step so they could pass me. Up until now, I had completely ignored the dogs and Eagle, so I sat down on the steps as Diesel and Lady ventured over to see if I was still in a fit.
“You guys know I’m usually not a bitch,” I whispered. “It’s just been a wild few weeks, right? I want my family together and no craziness—yeah, I know, oxymoron.”
Diesel huffed and sniffed my cheek before returning to his spot by the fireplace. Our little first lady wagged her tail as I picked her up, and then I think we both got the shock of a lifetime when Eagle moseyed over.
“He’s seeking out another human, Lady Mo.” I reached out my hand, and Eagle stepped under it to get his head petted. “This is astonishing.”
That was all I got, though. Eagle flicked his tail and went back to the couch.
Rising from the stairs, I carried Lady toward the dining area, only to pause again in the alcove. Technically, this was what I wanted. Ty and Mattie weren’t here yet, but it was a start. Martin sat down next to Nan as he was telling her an inappropriate joke that had her in stitches, and Henry was lighting the two candles in the middle of the table.
Yeah, it was a good start.
“You still haven’t told us why you arrived early, Martin.” Henry began filling Nan’s plate with roasted potatoes, braised vegetables, and Mary’s little lamb. Setting Lady down on the floor, I joined Henry at his side and took my seat.
Martin poured wine for everyone. “It’s wholly unfair to ask that question when Ruth and I have spent the better part of the evening sampling your collection of sherries, Henry. Where are your manners? You know my tongue is looser when I’m tipsy.”
I snorted. “Your tongue is always loose.”
“Yours could be looser, sugar,” Nan pointed out. “I had to hear from Mattie and Ty that you’ve gotten engaged.”
“Oh, shit,” I cursed. “I’m sorry, Nan. I forgot.”
“I’m sorry too, dear.” Henry inclined his head. “We should have called.”
“Let’s discuss this in great detail,” Martin suggested.
“No, no.” Nan patted his hand. “Tell your friends about your promiscuous ways.”
This was gonna be good. I grinned to myself and filled my plate, the food smelling amazing. Henry, on the other hand, was resigned and steeled himself to deal with whatever Martin said.
“Don’t look at me like that, Henry.” Martin lifted his chin, indignant. “I actually took your advice this time. You are looking at an out-and-proud polyamorous man, and I did everything by the book. Or whatever you said. I accept that monogamy is not for me. My love is simply meant to be shared freely and to many.”
I pinched my lips together, barely refraining from making a slut joke.
Henry lifted a brow. “Go on.”
“Well…” Martin waved a hand. “I was dating three fine men, and then it turned out your advice wasn’t very good.” I assumed his car-stealing ex was one of them. “They left me, so I decided I wanted a break from LA.”
Henry took a breath and lowered his utensils. “Martin,” he said slowly, “did you tell them you were dating others at the same time?”
Anger lit a spark in Martin’s eyes. “But I was out and proud.”
I laughed through a groan.
Henry pinched the bridge of his nose, seemingly struggling to keep his cool. “I cannot believe I have to tell you what being out entails.” He released another breath and faced Martin. “You have to communicate with your lovers because, unlike your sexual orientation, whether you’re monogamous or polyamorous isn’t stamped on your damn forehead!”
“This shit is golden,” I chuckled and raised my wineglass. While Henry and Martin were in the middle of the staring contest, Nan and I clinked our glasses together. “Merry almost Christmas.”
Two days was long enough for me to shake the remnants of jet lag and travel stress, and Henry and I finally had everyone gathered at home. Nan spent most days with us, though she preferred to sleep at home in her apartment.
Up until Christmas Eve, all we did was lounge around the house, play games, listen to music, eat way too much, and turn the floor around the tree into a mountain of gifts. Henry and Nan rarely left the kitchen, unless Martin coaxed her to the couch with a bottle of sherry.
I’d never seen my grandmother so drunk before. Even Mattie was a little shell-shocked at the sight. And if she liked creative curses when she was sober, oh boy, it had nothing on when she was three sherries to the wind.
It was perfect.
We took family photos and Instagram selfies, we felt up each other’s stockings, we took the dogs outside for long walks, we tried and failed miserably to make Eagle wear a Santa hat.
I got my snowball fight.
Today was Christmas Eve, though, and it was time to leave the house again. At least we weren’t going far. Henry, Mattie, Ty, and I were meeting up with Adrian and Dominic to bring gifts to Adeline’s organization.
Martin and Nan were gonna nap, chat, and knit, not necessarily in that order, so the rest of us loaded up the Jeep and drove out of Westslope and toward Ponderosa. Mountain cabins, lodges, and ranches morphed into mansions and trendy spectacles that sat on the hillside of the richest part of Camassia. It was where Mattie and Ty had gone to high school, and it was where the Benningtons came from.
“I was going through the photos from last night earlier,” Henry mentioned as he drove up the mountain. “We should pick one of them to be our holiday card next year.”
“Sure, as long as you don’t write it.” I looked up at the estate we drove past, happy I didn’t live here. Sometimes, architects went nuts. “Then again, you
r handwriting is unreadable, so maybe it doesn’t matter.”
Mattie chuckled in the back.
“What’s wrong with my handwriting?” Henry asked, insulted.
“It’s all…” I gestured with my fingers, unable to find the word for the little swirls he made. Not swirls, but… “Fancy and tilted to the extreme. You write in italics, man.”
“It’s called cursive,” he said with an eye-roll. “A lost art.”
“Good riddance!” I grinned and wiped my hands. “Anyway. We can’t have you jinxing us next year. You sent out, oh…two hundred holiday cards to your nearest and dearest this year?” He knew an insane number of people. “You wrote how we were all doing and that we were going to spend December and the holidays together—take it easy and shit. Well, look what happened.”
“Lord,” he muttered, ignoring the boys’ laughter. “Are you seriously blaming me for your photo shoot in Mexico? Or Mattie’s spur-of-the-moment trip to the East Coast to become a rock star?”
I nodded. “You jinxed us.”
“I wonder who’s gonna sleep on the couch,” Mattie said quietly to Ty.
“That would be Zachary,” Henry informed us.
I puckered my lips at him.
“Damn it.” He slowed down and checked the rearview. “You made me miss the exit.”
I made him miss it? Pfft.
“We didn’t miss it, did we?” Ty pointed straight ahead. “It’s up there.”
Henry sighed and put the car in reverse. “No, I was supposed to bring more coffee.”
So we headed back to pick up some caffeinated dope for the adults who drank that stuff. And Mattie and Ty. They guzzled it as if it were Violet Haze.
There were only a few cars in the parking lot of the fancy grocery store in Ponderosa, and I halted Henry from unbuckling his belt.
“I’ll go.” I leaned over and gave him a loud smooch, then exited the car.
“I’m going too,” Ty said. “I need floss.”
Wasn’t that why everyone braved the stores on Christmas Eve?
“I usually bring something extra,” Henry hollered as I closed the door.
I nodded at him.
Ty and I entered the store and grabbed a cart for coffee and “something extra.” Oh, and floss.
“I’ll find you,” he told me and turned for the hygiene aisle.
“I’ll miss you while you’re gone,” I sang.
He laughed. “Nerd!”
Grinning to myself, I went straight for the coffee and picked out eight packs. How big was Adeline’s staff? There were six full-time employees that I knew of. Maybe…okay, fifteen packs of coffee would have to do for now. Next, I moved on to cookies. The two times I’d briefly met Adeline’s husband, and one of those times was at an upscale fundraiser, he’d been dipping cookies into his coffee. It was a grown-up thing. Henry did it sometimes too.
Twenty boxes of different cookies and sweets. Good ratio.
I cocked my head at the sound of Ty’s voice in another aisle. His words were hushed and carried a note of impatience, and my first thought was that he was on the phone. Then, not so much.
“Because I’m finally happy,” I heard him hiss.
That set me into motion, and I hurried to the end of the aisle and started looking down the ones he could be in—there. Great, tampons everywhere. And toothbrushes, toothpaste, fucking floss… Then Ty and his uppity grandmother.
“There’s still time, Tyler,” the bitch was urging. “You can come home—”
“Ty!” I jerked my chin and stalked closer. Relief and worry flashed in his eyes, but he had nothing to fear. I had this covered. Draping an arm around his shoulders, I eyed his grandmother. “Hello, ma’am. It’s not every day I get to run into the First Hag of Camassia.”
Her eyes grew comically large at my audacity, and Ty choked and looked away. His shoulders shook in what I hoped was laughter.
Mrs. Bennington recovered and glared at me. “How dare you?”
“Trade secret,” I whispered behind my hand. “But we’re done here, yeah? I’m sure you have a banquet to attend, and we queers gotta go do queer things.”
“You are out of line,” she spat. “Someone needs to teach you respec—”
“Don’t utter that fucking word.” I was towering over the woman in one step, sheer rage unfurling inside me. “You know absolutely fuck-all about respect. Do you realize how you made your youngest son feel for years? He was ashamed of who he was. Or how about the shit you put Ty through? What am I talking about—of course you don’t know.” I picked some invisible lint off her Jackie-O suit and enjoyed how she flinched. “Take your abusive, bigoted bullshit out of my sight before I really get started on respect.”
Visibly shaken and angry, she took her basket and hurried away. It didn’t escape my notice that her maid was waiting for her farther down the aisle, and she hadn’t interfered.
“By the way, your nose job looks like shit!” I called.
I could cross “Harass the Elderly” off my list.
She had it coming.
“You okay?” I studied Ty.
He nodded once, swallowed, and let out a breathy laugh. “I can’t believe you did that. Thank you, Zach.”
“Anytime.” I hugged him to me, knowing he was still struggling with some of the crap his grandparents instilled in him. “How about we don’t mention this to Henry, though? He’s all about turning the other cheek, and I don’t think this qualifies.”
He chuckled and nodded again. “Deal.”
The only problem was if Henry had spotted his mother as she left the store, but when Ty and I had paid, bagged our purchases, and walked out, it was a casual expression on Henry’s face we met.
Ty got in the back, and I stowed the bags on the floor of the passenger seat.
“Did it take that long to buy coffee?” Henry peered into one of the bags.
“Takes time to pick out perfection, baby,” I responded.
“You bought Ho-Hos.”
“Like I said, perfection.”
He snorted and stole a kiss before restarting the car.
We arrived at the gated estate where Adeline ran her organization, and we had to sign in and show IDs to be allowed entrance. It didn’t exactly ruin my mood, but it was a good reminder. The security was for the men, women, and children who lived here and had spouses or parents who couldn’t respect restraining orders.
“You know the rules in here, boys.” Henry pulled into the small parking lot and parked next to Adrian’s car. “Some of these residents have severe PTSD.”
“Yeah, no sudden movements or sounds,” Ty answered.
I unbuckled my seat belt and stepped out into the light snowfall.
Upon seeing that Adrian and Dominic had brought their daughter, I grinned and held up a fist for her to bump. She was particular with touch, but we’d learned fist bumps worked great.
“How are you doing, sweetheart?” I asked, squatting down in front of her.
She smiled and signed something, and Dominic translated.
“She says she knows Santa’s a lie,” he chuckled. “Okay, now she’s saying she’s doing well.”
“You are too cute,” I told her and straightened again. “We ready to be fake Santas?”
With everyone carrying a couple bags—and Henry and Adrian putting Santa hats on Dominic, me, and the boys—we entered the facility. The lobby was a small space with a waiting room that opened up to the estate’s common room. It was noisy and high-spirited, so maybe those who needed peace and quiet were in their rooms or in the TV room on the second floor.
“Hi, guys!” Adeline walked over with a camera in hand, and she looked like she’d been running around all morning. She was a gorgeous brunette and a fierce shortie, and she kinda needed to be fierce with the family she had. Not only was she wrangling a husband, two boys, a daughter, and this organization, but she’d been at it from a too-young age. According to Henry, she’d adopted Jesse and Abel when she was in her early
twenties. Jesse had already been around ten at the time.
“How are you, dear?” Henry kissed her cheek and looked at her in concern. “If you need more help, you’re supposed to call me, you know.”
“Thank you for telling me I look like shit.” She blew him a kiss and winked, amused by Henry’s contrite expression. It was sorta funny. “It’s all better now that Lincoln’s here. He had a hellish deadline in Seattle—”
“Hellish client.” The correction came from an approaching Lincoln, a tall dude with ink peeking out from the neckline and cuffs of his Henley. “Some people are cunts.” He shrugged, then nodded hello to us. “Thanks for coming.”
I grinned a little and scratched my head through the Santa hat.
“Of course,” Adrian said. “Where do you want us?”
“Loaded question,” Dominic joked.
I looked at him over my shoulder. “You speak my language.”
“Okay, so we have two areas.” Adeline had our attention again. “As you can see, everything’s going well down here.” Yeah, kids running around, parents talking and drinking coffee and having cookies. There were cartoons on the flat screen, a big tree, and music playing. “Then there’s upstairs. We need two more people there, and this is going to sound so freaking bad, but I’d like to ask Zach and Dominic—preferably with your daughter, hon.”
“Tell them why, wifey.” Lincoln smirked and folded his arms over his chest.
“You suck,” she whispered to him. Next, she sighed and faced us again, and she was visibly flustered. “We have a few newcomers—two siblings from Chicago, and a mother with three kids from Nashville. They’ve been through…let’s just say, a lot. And—Adrian, you’re one of the most caring and gentle souls I know, but…”
Adrian seemed to understand, and I saw him nodding. “I get it, honey. Appearances.”
I finally caught on. Ink, beards… Lincoln, Adrian, and Henry were the tallest, all with stockier frames. If these people had triggers and bad experiences with men, they had to be careful when choosing volunteers. Made sense.
“You’re immense, love.” I patted Henry’s stomach.
He narrowed his eyes at me.
