Must Love Christmas (Glasgow Lads on Ice)

by Avery Cockburn

  “Can I be the one to decide that?”

  “You should be with someone who’ll put your needs first,” Garen said. “Like your mum and dad.”

  Simon felt his chest tighten. “Do you want me to leave?”

  “What? No!” Garen sat up. “Why would you think that?”

  Simon looked at him. Had Garen not heard his own words? “You just said I should go and live with my parents.”

  “I said you should do that, not that I want you to. Although…” Garen looked away.

  Simon held his breath, his stomach going cold.

  “When we woke up and you couldn’t move,” Garen continued, “I felt paralyzed too. I’d no idea what to do. And I thought, fuck it, I can’t handle this. It’s got to end. He’s got to go.” He sniffled. “I honestly wasn’t even thinking about your welfare, not primarily. I was afraid for myself.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “Proving once again that I’m incapable.”

  Simon adjusted his pillow so he could look directly at Garen. “You’ve done a bang-up job since I came home.”

  “And it’s been exhausting. Having to remember so much stuff, having to be constantly conscientious.” Garen spread his hands. “I’m not cut out for this sort of thing. What happened this morning proves it.”

  “Only if you’re looking for proof. If you want me…” Simon’s throat threatened to cut off his words. “If you want me the way I want you, then you’ll see this morning as just something that happened. It wasn’t our best moment, but we can learn from it and move on.” He forced his eyes to meet Garen’s. “But if you don’t want me, then yeah, I guess you can use my setback as an excuse to push me away. Just don’t ask me to pretend it’s for my own good, because it’s not.”

  Garen held his gaze for a long moment, his face slowly softening. Then he lay down behind Simon and wrapped his arm around his waist. “Okay,” Garen whispered.

  “Okay what?”

  “Okay, I want you.” He kissed the back of Simon’s earlobe. “I’ll try and do better.”

  “Don’t do better.” Simon put his hand over Garen’s. “Just do you.”

  Chapter 16

  Garen sank onto the comfy couch at the Shawlands Rink warm room, regretting his promise to spend the day here alone to receive door-prize deliveries. All he wanted was to be home, monitoring Simon’s condition and attending to his needs. Catriona the physiotherapist had assured them that episodes like this morning’s pain and immobility were common during GBS recovery, but Garen couldn’t see how something so dramatic could ever be normal.

  What if it happened again when Garen wasn’t there? Or what if it happened again when he was there, and he made even more of a state of it than the first time?

  He checked his phone for messages from Simon, on the slight chance he hadn’t heard the designated ring tone during the bus ride here.

  Nothing. He sent another one anyway:

  How are you feeling? If you’re extra hungry you can have my half of the leftovers. Yes the stuff in the red containers is yours--consider it a one-day special!

  He added several emojis, then deleted most of them, not wanting to look any dafter than he already sounded.

  Then Garen put his phone back in his pocket, determined to make good use of his time. He had plenty of Jingle Bell Rocks tasks to distract him here, apart from waiting for parcels.

  He pulled out his laptop to review the games and giveaways that were to take place during the shorter, non-meal breaks between Saturday’s draws. Garen had assigned himself this task, thinking it would be fun, but it had turned out to be a supreme pain in the arse. He’d ended up asking for help from Oliver, who had a sideline gig as a party clown.

  Garen sent a few more emails to volunteers, asking them to help coordinate the giveaways on the day, then ran a final check on the opening draws. Satisfied he’d included every team and matched up none who shared a coach, he sent the festively colored diagrams to the office printer, then went down the hall to retrieve the documents.

  When he came back into the warm room, Garen stopped to look out onto the ice. With the lights off in the rink, the sheets looked almost eerie. The stones were lined up against the back of each sheet rather than along the sides, making room for the ice-maintenance crew to scrape and pebble the sheets before tonight’s wheelchair-league games.

  The warm room, however, looked as inviting as ever. It truly had been a home from home for Garen since his parents had left Glasgow years ago. During the summer months when the rink was closed, he often felt unmoored without his curling community. He wondered if next summer he would still see Luca every week, or if his best pal would drift away during their curling hiatus without a shared living space to tie them together.

  His phone blooped with Simon’s ring tone. He pulled it out to see his message returned:

  Simon: Feeling fine are you sure you don’t mind me eating your half of our leftovers question mart

  Garen: I’m sure! And if I forget you can show me this message as proof

  Feeling a bit better, Garen took a quick survey of the warm room’s Christmas decorations. They were the same as ever—silver and gold streamers descending from the drop ceiling, along with dangling origami curling stones made from red and green paper. A tiny artificial tree sat on the registration table near the door, and there was a statue of a snowman holding a banjo on one end of the bar.

  “Sorry, this won’t do,” he told the empty room. The decorations were sufficient for most Christmases, but this year’s deserved better.

  Garen lifted his phone. If he had to spend the day away from Simon, he had a choice: He could fret his way into madness, or he could use that energy to make a wee bit of magic.

  Thankfully, all the door prizes were delivered by three o’clock, so Garen made his way home, stopping at the local bakery for a pair of coffees and an assortment of biscuits.

  He entered the living room to find his flatmate slumped over the dining table, his head on his arms.

  Garen shouted his name as he hurried over, nearly dropping the coffees.

  Simon jolted, then sat up, looking dazed. “Hey. I was just having a quick nap.” He yawned as he tapped one of the keys of his laptop to wake it up. “Oh thank God, it’s only quarter to four. I didn’t sleep through the meeting.”

  Garen joined him at the table, his pulse still pounding. “How’s your first half-day of telecommuting?”

  “Boring.” Simon yawned again. “Catriona warned me it’d be hard to focus at first.”

  “Brain fog? That’s me on most days.” He set the coffee tray and biscuit bag next to Simon, noticing a crisp white Oxford shirt and a chocolate-brown tie with a tan pattern draped over the chair nearest the window. “Caffeine and sugar help.”

  “Is that your scientific opinion?” Simon asked as he opened the bag.

  “It’s scientific fact. Caffeine and glucose help make dopamine, which helps us do tedious things that require decisions and willpower. Shall I get plates for the—oh, you’ve got some.”

  Simon held up a large clean plate from a stack on the table. “Considering how long it takes me to get to the kitchen, I decided to keep some basics here. Napkins, cutlery, et cetera. I have to carry my food in bags for now, since I need both hands for the walking frame.”

  “That’s brilliant.”

  Simon shrugged. “Helpful tip from my online GBS support group.” He poured the contents of his coffee cup into his empty travel mug, which had a contoured, easy-grip handle and read World’s Greatest Mug in block letters. He went to take a sip, then set down the mug, looking troubled. “Would it be an enormous bother if I asked you to help me put on that shirt and tie for this meeting? I still can’t do the buttons.”

  “Yes!” Garen practically leapt out of his chair. “I mean, sure, nae bother.”

  “Ta.” Simon wrenched himself out of his green henley shirt, not asking for help with that. “I’m not required to wear a dress shirt and tie, but it makes me feel
more, I don’t know, on, I guess?”

  “Makes sense.” Garen held out the Oxford shirt’s left sleeve so Simon could insert his arm. “When I put on one of the museum shirts for work, it hits that ‘professional’ switch in my brain. I’m glad I don’t need to choose what to wear each day, or it’d take me twice as long to dress.”

  Once Simon had both his arms in the shirt, Garen moved around front to do up the buttons. For some reason, dressing Simon felt even more intimate than undressing him.

  “Talking of work,” Simon said, “have I ever told you, you’re not what I imagined a zoologist to be like? You’re such a people person.”

  “Zoology was just something I studied.” Garen turned up Simon’s collar so he could button the top button, noticing the neck had a loose fit now. “Originally I thought I’d travel the world and do field research. But then I got an internship at the museum and discovered what I really liked was teaching people—not just about animals, but other science-y things, too. There’s no law says what you study at university has to dictate the rest of your life.”

  Simon looked surprised, as though he’d never considered the idea before. “Isn’t that the whole point of uni, to give you direction?”

  “A bit. But it’s like offering you a globe rather than a road map.”

  “A globe…” Simon stared intently at his laptop screen, which displayed what looked like a database management program. “I started as an intern too, at the same company I work for now. I’ve never worked anywhere else, never done anything else.”

  Garen looped the tie loosely around his own neck, knowing he’d never be able to tie it properly from the opposite direction. “And now you’ve been away for a month…”

  Simon frowned, then picked up the bag of biscuits and poured them onto the big plate, using his other hand to shield his pristine laptop from the crumbs. “I lost so much weight in hospital, and now half my trousers don’t fit. My job feels kinda like that.” He bit into a chocolate digestive biscuit, holding a small plate beneath his chin. “But maybe I’ll grow back into it, like my trousers.”

  “Or maybe, unlike your trousers, your job never fitted you to begin with.”

  “It did fit me, before. But this whole experience has changed me.” He fixed his gaze on the Advent calendar hanging on the wall beside the window. “Not exactly changed—more like expanded who I am and what I can be. That sounds weird, doesn’t it? You’d think it’d be limiting.”

  “Not necessarily.” Garen examined the knot he’d twisted Simon’s tie into. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do. “You told me last week you wanted to believe this happened to you for a reason. Maybe it was to show you another path in life.”

  “But what would I do if not this?” Simon gestured to his laptop.

  “You could still do this,” Garen said, “just for different people.”

  “Maybe.” Simon’s phone dinged beside him on the table. “But in ten minutes, I’ve got a teleconference with these people.”

  “I’ll leave you to prep, then.” Garen put the tie around Simon’s neck, carefully tightened it, then straightened his collar. “There, now you look unimpeachably respectable.”

  “Thank you.” Simon grasped Garen’s wrist and met his gaze. “Really. Thanks a lot.”

  Garen melted inside a tiny bit. “You’re welcome.” He created a biscuit sandwich, putting a Jaffa cake between two pieces of shortbread, then pushed the big plate toward Simon. “Here, work on getting back into your trousers.”

  “Isn’t that your job?” He looked up with faux-innocent eyes. “Getting into my trousers?”

  “It’s more of a hobby, really.” Garen leaned over and kissed him, relieved beyond words that this morning’s mishap hadn’t been the end of them. The fact Simon was wearing the reindeer socks Garen had given him was further proof he’d been forgiven.

  Still, when bedtime neared that night, he found himself torn between his desire to be near Simon and his fear of being a danger to him. So he made excuses to stay up late, attending to Jingle Bell Rocks business that could’ve waited until after work the following day.

  Simon’s room was dark when Garen finally readied himself for bed. After an agonizing argument with himself, he went to his own room. Simon needed a good night’s sleep to recover from yesterday’s exertions and this morning’s setback.

  No sooner had Garen got into bed then his phone screen lit up with a text from Simon:

  Come to me

  Garen shivered at the direct order, and it took all his self-control not to gallop down the hall. Instead he replied, Why? followed by a winking emoji.

  A few moments later he heard the distant beep of Simon’s dictation mic.

  Simon: Why not?

  Garen: Hey that’s my line

  Simon: Then I guess it’s time to put your money where your mouth is

  Garen: And where shall I put my mouth?

  It was nearly a minute before Simon’s reply arrived, in the form of a photo. Garen typed his response, his whole body tingling with desire. A wicked part of him considered pretending he was Simon’s boss, threatening to sack him for sending a late-night dick pic. But that would’ve been cruel—and probably would’ve deflated the very thing Simon was promising.

  Garen: Are you sure?

  Simon: I want you

  Garen: I want you too. And I miss you. These long distance relationships are so hard :(

  His phone rang. He answered the call. “Hiya.”

  “Get over here,” Simon said.

  “I would do, but I’m afraid I’ve just missed the last train.” He started stroking himself through his sleep trousers. “I guess the phone will have to suffice.”

  “God, you’re ridiculous,” Simon said with another laugh that made Garen’s skin shimmy.

  “Ooh, tell me more.” He reached inside his boxers. “Tell me the ridiculous things you want to do to ridiculous me.”

  “So we’re having phone sex from twenty meters away. Interesting.” Simon paused for a moment. “I want to finally taste your cock.”

  A promising start. “Go on.”

  “I want you to sit on my chest and fuck my mouth, put it all the way in.”

  “That sounds good.” Garen grasped the base of his shaft as he stiffened. “Feels good too.”

  “And while you’re doing that, I think I might fuck you with my fingers.”

  Garen’s cock jerked in his hand. “Mmm. You definitely should do. What else?”

  “You’re gonna feel my tongue all over you while you go in and out. And your knees are gonna shake, and you’re gonna think you can’t keep going, but you will, cos it feels so good.”

  Whimpering, Garen closed his eyes and began to stroke. “What else?”

  “And you’ll think, ‘I’m gonna come down his throat.’”

  “Yes,” Garen hissed, his grip tightening reflexively at the description.

  “But that’s not what’s gonna happen.”

  Garen stopped. “Sorry?”

  “You know what I’m doing right now, Garen?”

  “Touching yourself, I hope. Else I’m on my own on this lovely journey.”

  “I am touching myself. Remember, you left the lube here. I’ve got it all over me fingers, and you know where they are?”

  Whoa. “I’ve an idea,” Garen said hoarsely.

  “They’re inside me.” Simon let out a moan. “That’s where I want you.”

  Garen froze for an instant—but only an instant. He dropped his phone, threw back the covers, and staggered halfway down the hall. “Shit.” He doubled back to grab a condom before finally completing the journey to Simon’s open door.

  Sure enough, Simon lay on his back, knees up and parted, as advertised.

  “Wow…” Garen stepped to the foot of the bed to get a better view. The faerie lights glinted off Simon’s naked body, and in his eyes as they fixed upon Garen.

  “Take off your clothes.” Simon pumped his hand, his chest heaving. “I’m read
y for you.”

  Garen stripped quickly, stumbling a bit as he pulled his feet out of his flannel trousers. Then he climbed onto the bed between Simon’s splayed thighs.

  Unable to resist, he bent over and took Simon’s cock in his mouth. He felt Simon’s legs encircle his waist, felt how they trembled each time he took him deep.

  Wait—should his legs be trembling that much? Is he okay? Is this more than he can handle just now?

  Simon moaned, and Garen couldn’t help hearing this morning’s cries of pain.

  I broke him.

  Feeling his own erection fading, Garen pulled back and tried to stroke himself to full hardness. He gazed at this beautiful man in front of him here in the present, trying to imagine him in the very near future, clutching Garen close as their bodies moved together.

  But all he could see was the past, and Simon crumpled on the floor.

  Finally Garen sat back in defeat. “I can’t do this.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “No, I literally can’t.” He displayed the sad remnants of his hard-on. “Sorry.”

  “Are you not into topping?”

  “I am into it, just not…” He hoped the truth wouldn’t hurt Simon’s pride. “I guess I’m afraid of hurting you?”

  “Look, nothing from here to here”—Simon gestured from his pelvis to his head—“was ever affected. Just my arms and legs.”

  “I know, but—”

  “But what? You think I’m fragile?”

  “You are fragile,” Garen said. “That’s why I think it.”

  “What happened this morning was—”

  “A setback, I know. You said we need to learn from them. I’ve learnt we need to be more careful.”

  “‘Careful’? That doesn’t sound like the Garen I know. Also, that’s not what I learnt from this morning.” Simon ran his hands over his own lean torso. “I learnt that feeling good doesn’t last, so I need to grab hold of it while I can.”

  “And that doesn’t sound like the Simon I know.” Garen bent over and kissed him softly, making sure to keep his weight off Simon’s body. “We don’t have to be careful forever, just a wee while, okay?” He slid his palm over the smooth planes of Simon’s chest. “Neither of us is going anywhere, so we’ve got time to do everything, again and again, until we achieve legendary status amongst all the world’s sex-havers.”