by TA Moore
THEY STAYED for breakfast. That was the first excuse.
After that Jason took Mallory out to look at the old house. It looked worse in daylight than it had in the dark. Mallory was less interested in his and Ben’s childhood room—behind one of the boarded-up windows and strangely small for territory Jason remembered being so hotly contested—and more in the tire swing still hanging in the backyard. Jason doubted any of the parts of the original swing were still there.
Then he brushed off the snow where she’d rolled down the hill and bundled her back into the car to drive into town. It would be a shame to have come that far and not prove he’d been telling the truth about Burke Street.
It impressed her more than he expected. Either the town had gotten less shitty since he left, or Mallory was more easily amused. In his experience, the latter wasn’t true.
“This used to be a comic shop,” he said as they stopped outside a small antique store. Old records and games were stacked up in the window, kitsch propped on top of collectibles. “Me and Tommy were barred, so your dad had to go and get our list for us. Charged us five dollars for doing it too.”
Mallory leaned in close to the window, her breath misting the glass as she squinted at a creepy diorama of naked dolls and one-eyed taxidermy.
“Life was hard before Kindle,” she said sagely. “You sure you and Tom didn’t used to date?”
Jason coughed. He could still feel the scrape of Tommy’s beard against his lips and the touch of his hands against his body. Those thoughts felt particularly skeevy when he went to sleep on Mr. and Mrs. Ryan’s lumpy old mattress. How much of that showed on his face?
“What makes you ask that?”
She leaned back from the window and rubbed the end of her nose where it had gotten cold. “You never seem to do anything without him.”
“It was… complicated,” Jason said. In his head it was a good dodge. Out loud it sounded weak—weaselly. Even Mallory had a skeptical look on her face—all squint and wrinkled nose as she looked up at him. He reached and tugged the brim of her woolly hat down over her eyes. “It’s not like we went to prom, but I loved him. I guess.”
“Stop it,” Mallory spluttered as she shoved her hat back up onto her head.
Jason braced himself for questions, but that was apparently all the answer Mallory needed. He supposed it did cover the bases. Mallory straightened her hat and glanced back into the antique shop at the display of creepy dolls.
“I think I’m too old for dolls now,” she said. “You haven’t gotten me any dolls, have you?”
“No,” Jason said with complete honesty. “I have not.”
“Good.”
They crunched their way down Burke Street. Jason crossed disturbing one-eyed, snatched- bald baby doll off his mental list of possible presents. It used to be easier. On the third of December, he’d get a card, stick whatever cash was in his wallet in there, and mail it. He figured she had presents from her parents, her friends, her parents’ friends—all the people who knew what she actually liked—and the money was better than some randomly chosen toy she was probably into the year before.
He remembered the yearly presents from Aunt Sylvie in Canada—every year a sweater that was a size too small and a toy that was a couple of years too young. They’d have been thrilled if she just sent them ten bucks in a card.
But this year he was the only game in town. He didn’t think a couple of hundred dollars and free rein at Hot Topic was going to make it a good Christmas.
“I’m starving,” Mallory said. “Can we get something to eat before we leave?”
The “reasons not to leave” game was starting to feel like a team effort. Jason supposed he should just bite the bullet and head up the road, but all his determination to leave, to stop taking advantage of Tommy, had withered when Tommy—and this was an important bit—kissed him.
“We should probably leave before it gets too late. Weather report says it will snow again tonight. We could be stuck.”
Mallory rolled her eyes. Apparently he wasn’t fooling her.
“Come on,” he said. “I’ll get you some Christmas soup.”
“How’s that different from normal soup?”
“You eat it in December.”
She sighed. They stopped at the crosswalk to wait for the signal to walk and then headed to the Sit Down and Stay Café. Mallory slipped on ice under snow and grabbed Jason’s hand to stop from going down. He hoisted her back onto her feet, and she didn’t let go. It felt, for the five steps it took to get to the glass door, like maybe he was doing something right.
Jason recognized the waitress who greeted them with a smile and a set of menus. They dated for a couple of awkward weeks when they were fifteen because people assumed they were and it seemed the sort of thing that people did. She stood him up at a party one night and then turned up with a football player. It was a relief, but he smashed the headlights on the quarterback’s car anyway. On principle. A couple of months after that, she turned up pregnant.
Her kid, Jason realized with a jolt of surprise, was older than Mallory.
She didn’t recognize him at first. When she did, there were apparently no ill feelings. She was Donna Beeny now. Jason couldn’t remember if that was the quarterback’s name, but he remembered the bright-red pickup and Tommy dragging him away before they got caught. She’d been in Malachite ever since.
“San Diego,” she said as she sat them in front of the window. “What made you settle way out there, away from your family?”
Because it was away from his family. Because the money his brother handed him on the way out of town would only go so far, and if he ended up homeless, he wanted it to be somewhere warm. It hadn’t come to that, but it was close a couple of times. He shrugged and grinned. “Good weather, better food, and hot men.”
She looked startled. It took him a second to work out why. That was probably the first time he’d admitted it out loud.
“Oh. Well.” Donna scratched her forehead with the end of her pen. “Good a way as any to choose where to live. So, umm… can I take your order?”
“You still do Christmas soup?” he asked.
“Of course.” Donna grinned, a dazzling flash of the teenager he’d known. “It’s our December special.”
“Want one?” he asked Mallory.
She looked dubious. Donna patted her shoulder. “You’ll love it, honey.”
“Okay, I guess,” Mallory said slowly.
“Coming up.”
Donna bounced off to the kitchen. When she came back in, she went around to the other tables to check on customers, her hand lifted to gesture toward Jason every now and again.
“She’s talking about you,” Mallory said.
“Small towns. To you I might be dull old Uncle Jason. To them I’m the most interesting thing to happen since someone’s cow died.”
Mallory absently fiddled with the salt shaker. She turned it around and around between her fingers. “Wasn’t it scary? Going to San Diego?”
“Yeah,” Jason admitted. He leaned his elbows on the table. “It worked out for me, but it could have gone wrong too. What about you?”
She looked up and gave him an awkward, tight fold of a smile. “I miss the gators.”
“That’s a weird thing to miss.”
Mallory laughed and wrinkled her nose. “I suppose,” she admitted.
Jason didn’t say anything in case she wanted to say more. She didn’t, and the silence dragged out, but their food arrived before it turned uncomfortable.
“Holy crap.” Mallory laughed as Donna slid the bowl onto the table in front of her. She poked the croutons on the side. “Are those potatoes?”
“Yep. The soup is turkey, parsnip, bacon lardons, and a cranberry drizzle,” Jason said. “Told you. Christmas soup.”
Mallory pulled a face. “It sounds disgusting,” she giggled.
“Well.” Jason leaned over and winked at her. “It is, but come on. It’s Christmas soup. You have to ha
ve it at least once.”
He sat back and tipped his fried potatoes into the soap. They were crisp enough to float on the mud-colored broth. It really was…. There was nothing wrong with the tastes, just something ineffably off about the combination.
“Jason,” Mallory said suddenly. She looked up from her soup. “When did you stop loving Tom? Did you notice?”
She sounded very small and very young. It didn’t feel like the sort of question he could dodge. Jason stirred his soup slowly, and the spoon clicked against the edge of the bowl as he tried to think of the answer. He could rough out the month when he stopped wondering if Tommy missed him. The first time he fucked someone new. Were either of those when he stopped being in love with Tommy?
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe it just….”
He stopped for a second and rubbed his hand over the back of his neck. There’d been jobs, there’d been lovers, there’d been his life—but if Tommy had ever called up and said, “I need you,” Jason would have gone.
“I think you never stop loving someone,” he said. “You just get used to missing them.”
Mallory nodded and wiped her hand roughly over her face. Jason reached over the table to take her hand, but he hesitated, and the moment was gone. She went back to her soup, and he pretended he’d been reaching for the salt.
“This really is disgusting.” She grimaced around the spoon.
THE REINDEER were still penned up outside of Town Hall for the winter, but Mr. Jessop wasn’t there. His granddaughter took ten bucks from Jason and gave him a bag of carrots and the news the old man had died.
“Cancer,” she said. A determinedly unfestive black hat was pulled down over her ears. Black curls poked out from underneath it. “Got through it twice, but it kept coming back. Did you know him?”
“Not really,” Jason said. “I just saw him at Christmas.”
She shrugged. “That’s about as well as most people knew him,” she said. “He liked to keep to himself. Mind the big guy with the broken antler. He’ll take all the carrots if he can glut them in.”
The next person in line handed over their money, and Jason went to join Mallory at the tinsel-wrapped pen. He gave her the brown paper bag and leaned on the top rail to watch the reindeer.
Four fat, fluffy reindeer dozed placidly on their big flat hooves. The biggest one had a broken antler and one eye on Mallory as she fumbled with the treat bag.
“What’s a bunch of reindeer called?” she asked.
“A herd.”
“That’s dull.”
“They aren’t called bucks and does, though,” Jason said. “They’re bulls and cows.”
She took out a carrot, and the big reindeer opened his other eye and padded over. He stuck his head over the railing and lipped at her fingers in an attempt to get at the treat before she could snap it in half. The rest of the small herd huffed and grumbled as they came over to see what was on offer.
Mallory snapped her carrots industriously and delivered them along the line.
“Another bag?” Jason asked.
She flashed him a grin as she petted a velvety nose. “Please.”
He bought three. If Christmas didn’t pan out, at least she’d have that.
“How much is a reindeer?” he asked the granddaughter as he handed over the last of his cash. She frowned at him.
“They’re not for sale.”
“I was—”
She shoved a handful of bags at him. “They’re not pets.”
“Sorry,” he said.
That got him an unconvinced “Hmph.”
Jason shook his head and muttered, “It was a joke.” He turned around and looked for Mallory’s distinctive bright-blue bobble and long blonde pigtails, but she wasn’t where he’d left her.
The bottom dropped out of Jason’s stomach to make way for a flood of cold fear. She’d been right there. He’d been able to see her out of the corner of his eye until he turned to pay for the carrots. A second. Maybe a minute.
He shoved his way back to the pen. The reindeers stared at him with bored, docile black eyes. Apparently the loyalty a carrot bought didn’t last long.
“Excuse me.” He caught someone’s arm. The woman gave him a sharp look that softened when she saw his face. “Have you seen a little girl? She’s blonde. Blue hat. This big.” He slashed his hand through the air at around chest height.
“No. Sorry,” the woman said. “I haven’t. Maybe she went to get some hot chocolate? By the food truck.”
Jason hurried in the direction she pointed. “Have you…?” He stopped people to ask. “…blue hat?”
Eventually one of them blinked and said, “Yeah! I did. She was over there.” He pointed. “Talking to some guy.”
Apparently there was another level of “oh crap.” Jason shouldered his way through the crowd. “Mal! Mallory!”
He stumbled out of the other side of the crowd as Mallory turned to frown at him. Behind her Tommy pulled an apologetic face at him over her head. “What?”
“Don’t do that,” he said. “Jesus, kid. You scared me.”
Jason grabbed her into a rough hug, ignoring the furious “You’re embarrassing me” she hissed into his stomach. While she squirmed, Jason scowled at Tommy. “You couldn’t come find me?”
“Just about to,” Tommy said. He was out of uniform and looked casually handsome in a heavy waxed jacket and jeans. To be fair, an unhelpful part of Jason noted he probably would have followed Tommy a long damn way when he looked like that. “Sorry. I was just getting a coffee, and Mal tackled me.”
“I wanted to let him know we were staying,” Mal said as she finally got loose. “In case he locked us out.”
Put on the spot, Jason spluttered. He might have admitted to himself he didn’t want to leave, but he hadn’t really put together a plan for how to tell Tommy.
“Well, I mean—” He checked his watch. “—we could still make Ithaca. If we left now.”
“Jason,” Mallory groaned.
“May be best if you stay?” Tommy said. He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand, the same way he always did when he tried to pretend something didn’t matter. “If the roads are bad, God knows what time you’d get there.”
“Yeah.” Mallory kicked Jason in the ankle. “That’s what I said, Tom. Jason thinks you don’t want him to stay, though, because of how bad his feet smell.”
“Not what I said,” Jason muttered. He grimaced at Tom. “My feet are fine. I just… are you sure you don’t have any plans for Christmas? A trip? Friends coming to stay?”
Tommy handed Jason a cup of coffee. The liquid inside was hot enough to scorch Jason’s fingertips.
“Here. You have this, and I’ll get another,” he said. He glanced at Mallory. “Hot chocolate?”
She nodded enthusiastically as though she hadn’t downed a bowl of blended Christmas an hour before.
“Not an answer,” Jason pointed out.
“My mom’s new husband is okay, but his family is a nightmare. Thanksgiving with them was enough. Besides, I’m on duty Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. So it’s not like you’ll be in my way.” Tommy reached up and cupped Jason’s face in one callus-rough hand. The casual intimacy of it froze Jason in place as his brain tried to deal with a dozen burning preconceptions. Tommy brushed his thumb along his jaw, and Mallory made a ridiculous noise between a squeak and a squeal. “Stay.”
It might still have been a bad idea. There were probably lots of reasons to say no. Unfortunately Jason’s brain was going through the mental equivalent of a hard reboot. That left his heart and his libido to run the show.
“If you’re sure,” he said. That got him a grin—brilliant and creasing the corners of Tommy’s pale-gray eyes—and another lazy caress of his jaw. Jason cleared his throat. “So not worried about… people, umm….”
Tommy took his hand back and shrugged. “No one really seems to care,” he said. There was a sharp edge to his smile. “Besides, I have a gun now.
So fuck ’em.”
He never knew when to back down. Jason absently took a drink of coffee and grimaced. It was laden with sugar. He took another drink anyway. The rough brush of Tommy’s fingers lingered on his skin, and he wondered exactly what he was after.
Whatever they started last night, obviously. He was clear on that. It was the “stay” that melted his brain—the casual claim of affection in Tommy’s hand on his jaw.
He’d gotten used to missing Tommy. Most of the time he didn’t even realize he still did, not until he heard that rough voice say his name and the absence stopped aching. It felt like it was the sort of thing you could only do once, though, when your heart was all elastic and fresh—not battered and with chunks taken out of it.
Mallory poked him in the side. “Are those my carrots?” she asked.
TOM HAULED three big boxes of ornaments and at least twice that many spiders out of the attic. He carried them downstairs and stacked them in the living room. The dust was thick on the cardboard and gone sticky with age. He dragged a finger through it and tried to remember when he last brought them down.
Not since… hell, not for two years. The first year his mom was still in the progress of moving, and he dragged them down for her. The year after that, he brought them down, put up a couple of garlands, and then gave up.
“Do you know what box the tree ornaments are in?” Mallory asked. She wedged up the corner of a flap and tried to peer inside. “We need a tree up for presents.”
“Umm.” Tom used his sleeve to scrub at the corner of the boxes until he found the neat Sharpie’d directions. His dad’s handwriting. That last Christmas when he was anxious to get everything sorted before he died—a never-ending series of odd jobs, hospital visits, and to-do lists. The memory didn’t hurt, or if it did, he didn’t mind as much as he had before. “Here we go.”
It was the bottom box. Of course. He lifted the top two and let her get on with unpacking. Jason slung a casual pine-sticky arm over his shoulder and leaned against him.
