The job he'd got at Sacred Heart was something he fell into by accident. A friend of a friend mentioned that the private school was looking for a fill-in English teacher for a while and would Chris be interested in temping there for a few weeks?
A few weeks had turned into a few years and Chris couldn’t have been happier.
The kids he taught were respectful and listened to him, his fellow teachers were friends as well as colleagues, and he had even fallen into a closeted relationship with one of them. Whitman Hamilton-Keyes III, son of one of the board members, had all the classic good looks and silver-edged air to him that Chris aspired to.
That had all gone to shit. An email had been found and the contents of it meant he was asked to leave with nothing more than the box of his personal items and a warning not to set foot in Sacred Heart again. Working now for his best friend since moving to the city had been a fallback until he decided what to do. That had been online training courses in literacy, which kept the wolves from the door. He gave up on keeping his small apartment and took the room above the café. There was always hope. He’d hired a lawyer with what remained of his meager funds but at the end of the day the funds ran out just as the school handed him the ultimatum: Stay quiet and we won’t make a fuss.
Hot chocolate would probably help. Or rather the distraction of making the drink would make it seem like he was taking a natural break instead of giving up. He padded down the stairs, his feet sockless against the wood floor and his head spinning with what ifs and maybes.
“You’re up late—you okay?” Ame was at the bottom of the stairs, two empty muffin baskets in her arms and a concerned look on her face. He could lie. He could spend an awfully long time standing in the cold evening air trying to convince his best friend that yes, everything was okay. He knew one thing would always be true though, she would see through it in an instant.
“Did you have a good time at your mom’s?” Chris was an expert at deflecting attention from his own troubles.
“Too much food, football, the usual lovely family time. Don’t change the subject.”
Great. Ame had that face going on. The one that wasn’t going to let this lie.
“I’ve been better,” Chris said. Best to get how he was feeling out of the way. Better to be honest. “I had the final letter from the Board at Sacred Heart waiting for me when I picked up my mail yesterday.”
“What did it say?”
“What they said it would. Thanking me for my work there and sorry to see me go.”
“It’s over then?” Sadness colored her voice, and she placed the baskets on the floor, freeing her arms to pull him into a tight hug. Grief balled in his chest. She knew what he had decided. She may not have agreed with him rolling over and taking it all, but she at least hugged him when he got low. He wasn’t stupid; everything they said was a lie, but lies stuck like mud on a blanket. Rumors were enough to stop any future school—state or private—from giving him a job. No, he was going to keep his head down, keep his nose clean, and not take chances by going back into teaching.
Seeing the words in black and white though, that had hurt. Details under the exclusive prep school’s letterhead, wishing him luck for the future and thanking him for his understanding. It had been too much. He relaxed into her embrace. Amelia might be six inches short of his five eleven, she may well only be two-thirds his weight, but hell, she could hug like a bodybuilder on steroids.
“I’m sorry, Christian,” she added soft and low in his ear.
He shrugged as she released him and he got a look at her face in the dim light of the hallway. “It’s fine. Knew what they were going to say—just seeing it is hard.” They stood in companionable silence for a few moments. He didn’t know what else to say; having someone with him who understood that he needed time was enough.
“Maria had her scan today.” Chris widened his eyes; he hadn’t even thought to ask about the woman he was temporarily replacing.
“Is everything okay?”
“Baby is fine, but Maria’s blood pressure is through the roof. They told her no working now ‘til baby comes, or they may have to perform a Caesarean. It looks like it may be preeclampsia. At any rate, we won’t see her before Christmas.”
“Poor Maria,” Chris said immediately. He had a lot of affection for the fiery Italian and her family. They had been trying so long for a baby. Maria falling so ill with only six weeks before the birth didn’t seem fair.
“Will you stay here with me for longer—now you have the dismissal in writing from the school that is?” Chris knew what she was asking. Would he stay here with her, in the room over the bakery, would he continue to cover for Maria, would he want to be here? This little café halfway down Grand Street attracted tourists and businesspeople alike and was always busy. The distraction was good, he at least earned a bit of money, and he loved Amelia.
“I wouldn’t ever leave you in the lurch, Ame.”
“I know that, babe, just… will you try for another position? Maybe at another school? A public school?” That wasn’t the first time she had said this. She was of the opinion he was wasted anywhere outside of a classroom. He wished he could feel the same.
“No.” Chris shocked himself at his quick response. He was normally a lot more restrained. None of this was Amelia’s fault. “Sorry. I don’t mean to… look, I’m not working with kids again when at any given time I could have the finger pointed at me for being gay.”
“Chris—”
“I’ll work the online thing, grading, maybe write some textbooks,” Chris said. He was being stubborn and he knew it, but although he had been friends with Ame for five years, she didn’t know what he really felt inside.
“Isn’t that a waste?”
“I’m not putting myself through all this shit again. I’m just as happy working in the background.” He knew his hurt and anger filled his lying words, Ame couldn’t miss that. For an instant she frowned at the words. Shit. Obviously he wasn’t doing a good job of hiding how he was feeling.
“You’re welcome to stay here. Both in the room and working downstairs,” she finally said, leaning to pick up the two baskets and heading back into the main shop area. He followed. “You know with Maria not here I could always use the help. But you also know you don’t have to stay if you want to move on to something else. I can always hire in help up to Christmas.”
The shop itself was dark, the blinds pulled, and the only lighting came from the machines that fed their part of NYC with coffee, green and red LEDs lending an unearthly glow to the ghostly interior. The shop was calm before the next day with its Black Friday shopping rush.
“Thank you, Ame. I want to stay and be focused on something, and I’ll work Maria’s shifts. Hell, I have the time. You don’t need to find anyone else.” Amelia stopped by the counter and shook her head. It was enough of a reaction to make Chris want to run back upstairs. Here came the lecture.
“Thank you for that, babe,” she started calmly enough, “I won’t say no. The run-up to Christmas is always busy as hell, frantic, a mess, but—” She paused, and Chris winced, knowing what was coming from his fiercely protective friend. “You’re wasted here. You should be teaching, working with kids! It’s what you are good at, and I could cry that they took it away from you.”
“Ame—”
“Promise me you will fight this, Christian, make some sort of stand, show them they can’t do this to you.”
“Ame—”
“I’m serious. You graduated top of your class, you bleed English literature, you need it, your passion, and you teach those kids—fuck, I’m so pissed at Sacred Heart.”
Chris moved to gather his friend in a hug, not sure who was comforting whom at this point.
“I said I won’t fight them,” he began quietly, “the deal was I just walk away quietly and they don’t press charges.”
“Of course they won’t press charges. They can’t. You didn’t do anything wrong!”
Ame pulled back and jab
bed him in the chest, punctuating each word with her finger.
Chris shrugged again. Seriously, what was the point in dissecting this over and over? He hadn’t done anything wrong, hadn’t done any of the things he had been accused of. But to fight Sacred Heart, a private school, a highly respected institution some two hundred years old? He wasn’t strong enough to do it, and he had no support there to even try. The accusations hurt, his fellow teachers and their condemnation hurt.
Above everything else, the fact that he had to leave his students hurt like a knife to his heart.
“I’m tired, Ame. I just wanted a drink. I need my bed. Can we talk about this tomorrow?” He was fighting exhaustion, and sentences longer than four or five words were beyond him.
He was lying to himself and her. Tomorrow he would find another excuse not to talk about it; he knew it and she would know it. Tonight, with the copy of his severance letter from Sacred Heart laid flat on his desk, he needed more than anything to hide and lick his wounds. She tutted and let out a noisy sigh, still tutting and sighing as he made himself a hot chocolate and slipped quietly out of the kitchen with a gentle goodnight to his friend.
Chapter 3
Sunday, November 25th
Amelia’s Coffee Shop was quieter this morning. Looking out the window Chris could see that the sidewalks were slippery wet with patches of overnight ice. That would explain the slower foot traffic on this road. The sound of traffic had softened as vehicles moved more carefully to avoid black ice. There was still a steady stream of tourists passing by but there were no huge lines and everyone was smiling. The smell of Christmas in the City was in the air and with it the expectation of the season.
Chris found his calm headspace, put a smile on his face, and slipped into his coffee-shop-Chris persona effortlessly. He could serve and smile and talk and exchange Christmas greetings and still plan texts on Dickens in his head.
Chris didn’t see Daniel at first. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed him before he was standing here in front of Chris. It wasn’t easy for Daniel to hide in a crowd, he was a head taller than most, wider in the shoulders than most, but Chris guessed it was because he had never expected to see Daniel again, nor had he been expecting Daniel in uniform. But that is what he got. Daniel. In the line. Daniel with two cops. Daniel in uniform. Daniel is a cop?
“Hey,” cop-Daniel said hesitantly, and it was all Chris could do to roll his tongue back into his head.
“Hey,” he replied and then stopped, his gaze flicking from cop-Daniel to short-cop and wide-cop.
“Alex and Mikey, my colleagues,” he introduced. “They loved the cranberry muffins,” Daniel supplied helpfully, pointing at his cop-buddies and smiling, “said I’d show them where.”
“Oh.” Shit. Why wouldn’t his brain connect to his mouth?
“So… erm… do you have any more?” Daniel was looking at the glass case hopefully, his gaze scanning from cream-filled buns to cookies and back again.
“No,” Chris said instantly and then felt like banging his head on the coffee machine. No? What kind of response was that? It was rude and sharp and dammit, Daniel was frowning.
“What can you recommend instead?” wide-cop interrupted, and Chris was never more thankful for someone pushing the conversation along.
“Caramel… chip… muffins,” Chris finally suggested. Great, a coherent sentence was really not happening this morning any more than it had the other day.
“I love caramel muffins,” short-cop offered helpfully, and Daniel nodded his obvious agreement.
“We’ll take fifteen,” Daniel ordered and tapped on the glass case, “caramel chip muffins. Please.”
Chris packed the muffins in one of the larger boxes they kept for bigger orders and handed it over to Daniel. This time when Daniel handed over the bills Chris calculated there wouldn’t be any change, and he experienced a pang of instant sadness that he wasn’t going to be touching Daniel’s hand.
He managed to smile. Well he tried to smile, but seriously, what was he supposed to do? Daniel-freaking-Bailey had returned and was standing right in front of him in the store, his face reddened with cold, his hazel eyes sparkling with light. And he… he was in uniform. Uniform!
Daniel in uniform with sparkling eyes and that dimple was every fantasy Chris had ever had, all rolled into one package. Chris had no blood left in his body—it had all rocketed in the direction of his dick.
“Have a nice day,” he finally managed to call after the retreating cops. Daniel glanced back, a thoughtful expression on his face, and he nodded in answer.
Daniel. Uniform. Chris was fucked. What a damned idiot. All he had to say was something along the lines of: How are you? What are you doing now? Why did you decide to be a cop? He could have kept it in the realms of academia; after all, that was how they knew each other. Even a ‘did you actually manage the entire four years at school without fucking up?’ would have worked. But, hell, all that had come out had been some inane crap about caramel muffins. He was seriously screwed if he couldn’t even come up with one sentence that didn’t include the word ‘muffin’.
There was some kind of commotion at the door and the crowd parted up to the counter. Daniel had returned, in his uniform, all striding and confident, back here to Chris, who gaped, all staring and shaking inwardly like a leaf. Words. Remember your words, came a faint voice inside his head.
Apologizing to the macchiato and toffee-pecan-pie-slice man who was in the middle of ordering, Daniel leaned over the counter. Said customer just took one look at the tall cop and stepped back.
“I would love to catch up, Chris,” Daniel said. Expectation was etched into his face, and Chris blinked at the statement. He needed to string that sentence together, that vital sentence that said ‘ yes please ’.
“Yes.” Well, one word wasn’t bad.
Daniel looked around the shop with a wry smile. “I would say meet for coffee but I’m guessing you are probably all coffee’d out?”
“No, coffee’s fine—” Oh damn, not here though. Ame would be watching the whole time, probably with sniggering, snide comments tossed in freely. “Not here though,” he added quickly. Daniel nodded in quick agreement.
“I’m on late shift, day off tomorrow or the next?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll be here—if you want to meet here?” Sentences. Without the word muffin.
“What time do you finish your shift?” Daniel asked.
“Two thirty,” Chris lied. He didn’t actually have shifts as such; he just covered where he was needed. The time had floundered to the surface of a brain that was questioning every move he was making. Two thirty wouldn’t seem too eager, would it?
It was less lunchtime focused and more midafternoon. You need to let Ame know, his confused mind shouted.
“Here at three thirty then?”
“Yeah.”
Daniel grinned widely. “It’ll be good to catch up.” He apologized to the macchiato guy and then with a wave of his hand, he walked through the shop as people parted to let him through again.
“Excuse me? Hello?” Chris blinked back to the here and now and realized the customer in front of him was staring and had an irritable expression on his face.
“Sorry, sir. What was it you wanted?”
The day was long and Chris was ready for a shower and a good book by the time the doors shut at seven pm. He took advantage of Ame not being in sight and took the stairs two at a time to his room. The last thing he wanted was to talk about was what had happened today, and Ame was an expert at getting information out of him.
“So tell me about tall-dark-haired-friend-from-college, turns-out-to-be-a-cop Daniel.” Ame was waiting for him at the top of the stairs with her arms folded over her chest and a smile quirking her lips.
“Nothing to tell,” Chris said. He even opened his hands palm up to indicate innocence in all things Daniel. He though he had her believing until she revealed what was on the small table next to her. Two bottles of wine. That only me
ant one thing.
Chris sighed at the inevitability of it all.
“For your sake I so hope he’s gay or at least bi.”
“Ame.”
“Seriously, Chris, he looks hot and unrequited lust for experimenting straight guys is your raison d’être. You need to get out and actually have some of that real butt sex the school was accusing you of, with an actual gay man.” He opened his mouth to speak but she hushed him with the gentle touch of one of her fingers on his lips.
“For god’s sake, Ame—”
“A night in, I think,” she said.
“I’m tired—”
“Some guy walks up and has you nearly falling to your knees with your tongue on the floor? I wanna know details.”
With a sigh he gestured her in. She scrambled up onto his bed and then arranged herself against his pillows, like every other night they shared wine and pizza. Speaking of which…
“Did you already call for pizza?” Daniel asked. He couldn’t help the attached sigh.
“Double Pepperoni, extra peppers, it’s fifteen out. Now pass me a glass.”
He kept two wine glasses in his small bedside table, just for nights like this. He couldn’t imagine having a man in this room, this symbol of his failure, but he could enjoy what Ame affectionately called her ‘girls’ night in’. After Chris handed her the first glass, she filled it to the brim with red wine and passed it back to him. She repeated the same for her glass and then with a sigh he sat on the edge of the bed and swallowed a huge mouthful of grape goodness. It would be him that went down to get the pizza at the back door but for ten minutes or so he could let the wine dull his thoughts. Having a muddled brain with no sense in it made it all that much better to give Ame the truth.
New York Christmas Page 2
