by Kim Fielding
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By Kim Fielding
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Get Lit
By Kim Fielding
Uri Kessler is a bit of a klutz. Recently divorced from a guy he married too quickly and yearning to have a holiday that feels special, he decides to make Hanukkah candles. The results are literally a blazing disaster. But Uri’s mishap helps him get to know Oscar Cortez, his sexy new neighbor, and the two men instantly hit it off. While Uri finds himself drawn to Oscar, he’s also afraid to make a mess of their budding relationship. It’ll take a small miracle to make things work between them.
GLITTER.
It covered Uri Kessler’s hoodie front, jeans, and shoes and spread around his feet in an incriminating pool of sparkles. Appalled, he wanted to run away, but he knew he’d leave an indelible trail. So he stayed put until the scowling craft-store employee in the red vest appeared.
“Glitter bomb in aisle eight,” she said into her two-way radio. The response was too staticky to understand, but Uri thought it sounded annoyed.
“I’m really sorry,” he said. “I was reaching for a bag of scented pinecones, and the jar—I must have hit it with my sleeve.”
The clerk gave him a long-suffering look that said she’d heard this before. “Cleanup will be here in a sec.” She hurried away, leaving Uri stranded.
He wasn’t even supposed to be in this red-and-green aisle to begin with. He didn’t celebrate Christmas and had no desire to make a wreath or Santa ornaments or reindeer-shaped candy baskets. But he’d taken a wrong turn as he wandered. The shelf sign below the pinecones said they came in cinnamon and balsam scents, and since he didn’t know what balsam smelled like, he thought he’d give a quick sniff. And then disaster struck.
The next employee appeared, wielding a handheld vacuum and a jaded expression. “Just stay still, please.” She turned the vacuum on and, holding the nozzle relatively close to Uri, gave him a few cursory passes. Then she waved him out of the way so she could clean the floor.
Uri was still clutching his shopping list, now speckled with glitter. “Excuse me?” he said loudly, over the sound of the vacuum. “Where are the candle-making supplies?”
“Aisle seventeen.”
He made his way past rows of paper and stickers, fake flowers and weird wicker shapes, miniature stucco churches and tiny trees. When he was in fourth grade, he’d bought craft supplies to make a tiny model of a nineteenth-century Illinois farm. However, there had been a glue-gun mishap with his diorama, and when he’d tearfully told his teacher about it the next day, she’d sighed and allowed him to write a report instead. He’d gotten a B-plus.
He found aisle seventeen and gathered the items on his list: a hunk of wax, a bag of wicks, a vial of blue dye, and a cheap metal pot. He regretted that he hadn’t grabbed a shopping basket on his way in but was relieved to make it across the store to the cash registers without dropping anything.
The cashier turned out to be the same clerk who’d done the vacuuming. “I’m sorry about the mess,” Uri said.
“No big deal.” She handed him the bag. “Merry Christmas.”
“You too.”
He wasn’t the type to get tied in knots when people wished him well for the wrong holiday. After all, almost everyone around here celebrated Christmas, so it was a safe assumption that he did too. And besides, the sentiment was friendly no matter what. Still, it would have been nice to receive an occasional Happy Hanukkah.
He hesitated when he got to his car, realizing he would spread glitter into the interior. He might have been more upset by this, but his little Hyundai wasn’t exactly a vision of loveliness. Too many door dings and paint scrapes, plus that nasty dent near the front passenger-side wheel well—a reminder of his misjudgment of the distance to the carport post. The passenger-seat upholstery was stained due to a faulty seal on a container of leftover spaghetti. Sauce had gone everywhere, even launching through the vents into the ventilation system. His wonky suspension caused the speed bump in his condo parking lot to pack quite a wallop. To be honest, glitter might be an improvement at this point.
Uri pulled into his parking space seconds before his new neighbor. “Heya,” said Oscar Cortez after they’d both climbed out of their cars. As always, the sight of him made Uri’s heart race. And he couldn’t help but note that Oscar’s Nissan was spotless and dent-free.
Oscar did a double take when he got a better look at Uri. “That’s, uh, a festive look.”
Sighing, Uri looked down at himself. “Don’t come too close. It’s contagious.”
“Yeah, I know. I have three sisters who spent a lot of time on art projects when we were growing up. I swear my parents still have glitter in their carpets.”
Oscar looked impeccable, as he had the other handful of times Uri had seen him. Charcoal slacks, wine-red button-up shirt, nice jacket. His dark hair was arranged perfectly. And his smile…. Uri had been dreaming about that smile since the first time they’d met.
A short walkway led from their parking spots to their front doors, and Uri and Oscar strolled it together. A classy-looking wreath hung on Oscar’s door, and a big pot held a small evergreen strung with lights. Uri’s side was unadorned.
“Have a good night,” Uri said as they both prepared to work their locks. He pretty much ruined his attempt at appearing suave when he dropped his keys and needed to start again.
“You too. And good luck with the sparkly infestation.”
Uri shot a quick look over his shoulder and discovered Oscar grinning at him. “Thanks.”
Inside his condo, Uri toed off his shoes and stood in the entryway as he plotted his strategy. He needed to get his clothing off without spreading the glitter too much, and he also needed to get the candle supplies into the kitchen. After checking the craft store bag and discovering it was mostly glitter-free, he tossed it onto a nearby chair. Then he carefully stripped out of everything but his underwear, turning each item inside out as he went. He bundled them under his arm and was about to take them directly to his washing machine when someone knocked on the door. Shit.
“Who’s there?”
“Oscar. Hey, you dropped your phone.”
Damn. It must have fallen out of his hoodie pocket when he bent to retrieve his keys. He unlocked the door and let it shield him as it swung open. “Um, thanks.” He held out his hand.
Oscar didn’t give it up right away. “It looks like it’s okay. You must have a good case.”
“Yeah.” Uri had learned long ago that it was well worth the money to pony up for the most rugged case he could find. This one was supposed to withstand floods, zombie attacks, and being tossed off high-rise balconies. “Thanks for bringing it over,” he said, even though Oscar hadn’t yet handed it off.
“Sure.” Oscar peered around the open door and laughed when he saw Uri. Not a mean laugh—just pleasant and friendly enough to make Uri’s heart go pitter-patter. “Do you need a hazmat team in here? I work for the city, you know. I could probably pull some strings and bring one in.” His eyes sparkled.
Although the entire situation was silly—especially Uri in his underwear, bits of glitter shimmering on his skin—he decided a small test was in order. “I think I’ve got it under control. Although I wouldn’t mind a bunch of hunky guys in uniform.”
To Uri’s relief and delight, Oscar laughed. “Me either, man. Why do you think I was so eager to offer?” He slapped the phone into Uri’s outstretched hand and winked. “Best of luck.” He waved and stepped away; a moment later Uri heard Oscar’s door close.
A quick inspection assured Uri that despite the drop, his phone was still intact. He carried his clothes to the hall
way, where the washing machine occupied a small closet, and he stuffed the clothes into the drum. He was about to turn on the machine when he realized his phone was missing again. Swearing to himself, he pawed through the drum and found the phone tangled in his T-shirt. Once it was safe, he added detergent and pressed the Start button.
Okay, good. Time to get to work.
Normally he would have put on a fresh set of clothing, but the thermostat had been malfunctioning lately, and Uri hadn’t made time to get it fixed. As a result, while the outside temps were in the fifties—typical for this part of California in late December—his condo was near eighty. And that could actually be good, he reasoned. If he made a mess as he worked on the candles, he wouldn’t risk ruining anything but one pair of underwear. And it wasn’t one of the sexy pairs he’d bought on a whim a few months ago, when he was considering wading back into the dating pool. Nope, these were boring gray boxer briefs from Target. Which his handsome neighbor had just seen him wearing.
Dammit.
Uri had watched several tutorials on YouTube that made candle dipping look easy. He’d printed out the instructions, which he now read over one more time. To get himself in the mood, he instructed his Echo device to play Hanukkah music. Pink Martini began to sing “Ocho Kandelikas.” Perfect.
The first thing he had to do was saw the wax into smaller pieces. This took more time than he expected, in part because he was wary of cutting himself. His hands and fingers bore more than one scar. After he’d finally worked the block into small chunks, he dropped them into the pot he’d bought at the craft store and set out a big bowl of tap water, which the instructions said would help cool the wax between dippings. He opened the bag of wicks and searched out an old wooden spoon that he didn’t mind sacrificing to the project. He carefully unsealed the little bottle of dye and set it near the stove. For quality control he unearthed his menorah from a cabinet. It had been a gift from his parents the year after he graduated college and moved away from Chicago, and now he’d use it to make sure his candles were the proper width to fit into the little silver-tone holders.
“Ready to rumble,” Uri announced to the klezmer band that was singing about spinning dreidels. He had a moment of doubt. Maybe he should have tried a different holiday craft. But no, the clay dreidels he’d attempted to make the previous year had been a complete failure, either wobbling erratically or cracking into pieces. Candles were definitely the way to go.
He turned on the burner under the pot and waited for the wax to melt—not the world’s most exciting activity, so it was probably not surprising that Uri’s thoughts wandered. Straight to his neighbor who, apparently, liked men. Hunky guys in uniform, anyway. Presumably that meant he liked men out of uniform as well, and that raised the rather compelling question of what his thoughts might be with respect to Uri. And how Uri could find out.
It wasn’t as if Uri was a complete newbie when it came to romance. After all, he was thirty-two, not a kid. The problem was that he’d fallen into a relationship shortly after college. Tobias’s brother had worked with Uri in a community college IT office. The brother had introduced them, Tobias and Uri hit it off, and six months later they were saying their vows in front of the county clerk. Easy as pie. Until Tobias and Uri grew apart and got divorced.
Here he was a year later with no clear idea how to meet someone new—someone serious, not just a hookup. And okay, not meet exactly, because he and Oscar were already acquainted. The hard part was the flirting. The putting yourself out there as someone who was definitely interested, without risking getting shot down in flames. God, maybe Oscar—sexy, confident, and always put together—was way out of his league. He certainly wouldn’t cause a glitter incident in a craft store.
Oscar was really attractive without being cover-model handsome. He was a little on the short side, and the bit of softness around his waist suggested he liked food better than working out. But that was good because it made him seem so real. Plus he carried himself with confidence, and he smiled a lot—at least during the limited time they’d interacted—which lit up his face and—
Smoke?
Uri blinked out of his reverie to discover a column of smoke rising from the pan of wax. Although time seemed to stretch out, everything that happened next probably took only about a minute. Before he could move, the smoke detector began to wail. Panicked, Uri grabbed a quilted potholder and tried to grasp the pot handle, but by then the flames were rising high, and some of them licked the potholder. It started to burn too. Uri dropped it, knocking the pot off the stove in the process. Some of the wax landed on the burner, causing even bigger flames to erupt, while the rest splattered all over the floor, narrowly missing Uri.
“Shit! Shit!” Somewhere he had an extinguisher. He flailed for a moment before rooting desperately through cabinets. Ah! There it was, jammed in behind the wok he never used. He wrestled the damn thing free, nearly landing on his ass in the process. He had to read the attached instructions on how to use the extinguisher. The fire had spread by then, and now his upper cabinets burned merrily while the floor began to smolder.
He pulled the pin, aimed, squeezed, and… nothing. He squeezed harder. Shook the canister. Skimmed over the instructions again. And then caught sight of the tag announcing that the extinguisher expired May 2014.
Smoke filled the room, making his eyes burn and his throat hurt. He coughed and watched as the entire wall behind the stove belched fire with a mighty boom.
Uri finally gathered his scattered wits and fled.
Still wearing nothing but his cheap underwear, he pounded on Oscar’s door. “Help! Help!” When Oscar’s confused face appeared in the door opening, Uri shouted, “Call 911!”
“HEY. IS there somebody else you want me to call? Friends? Family?” Oscar’s voice was hushed, as if Uri were in the hospital instead of huddled on Oscar’s couch.
Call. Shit. Uri’s phone was surely a casualty of the fire, along with everything else he owned except his car and a single pair of underwear. Anything that hadn’t burned had been damaged by smoke or water, and his only solace was knowing that the fire hadn’t spread beyond his unit. Everyone in the complex had come out to see the excitement, and Uri had watched too, wrapped in a fuzzy blue blanket and wearing a pair of Oscar’s flip-flops. Now the fire was out, the firemen had gone, and Uri felt cold and hollow.
“I was supposed to put the pot of wax inside another pot of boiling water, not directly on the stove. I forgot that part.”
Oscar, who must have had no idea what Uri was talking about, patted his shoulder. “Are you okay? The EMTs said you were good, right?”
“Yeah,” Uri sighed. They’d made sure he hadn’t inhaled too much smoke, and they’d treated the fingers of one hand for minor burns. He tried a smile, but it was wobbly. “At least I got you your hunky guys in uniform.”
“That wasn’t quite the scenario I had in mind.”
“Yeah, probably not.” Uri rubbed his temple with the fingers of his unburned hand and tried to think. He had insurance, so the disaster wasn’t as bad as it could have been, and he’d backed up all his important information to the cloud. So once he got a new phone, he could contact his insurance agent and get the process rolling. But in the meantime, his wallet and credit cards were gone. Nearly naked and penniless, how was he supposed to get a new phone? His brain, still numbed by the shock of the fire, chugged slowly through his options.
Oscar sat beside him, making the couch cushion dip slightly. “You have family around here?”
“No. It’s just me and my dad now, and he’s….” Uri tried to remember. “He lives in Chicago, but right now he’s on a cruise for senior singles.” Uri’s mom had passed away five years earlier, and his dad had done the cruise three years running now. He didn’t really want to get married but, he informed Uri, playing the field for seven warm days in the Caribbean was a whole lot of fun. Uri had some acquaintances here, mainly people he knew from work, but their contact information had been lost with his ph
one. And besides, none were close enough friends to impose on under these circumstances.
Pull yourself together, Kessler. “Um, maybe I can borrow your phone to call my credit card company?”
Oscar patted Uri’s blanket-covered knee. “Of course. Use my phone for whatever you need. While you’re doing that, I’ll find something for you to wear. And—did you get a chance to eat dinner yet?”
Uri shook his head. “No. I was making candles.”
Although Oscar’s brows rose in surprise, he didn’t comment. “Cool. I’m going to use the landline to order us some delivery. Chinese okay?”
As if to answer, Uri’s stomach rumbled. “That sounds great. Thanks.”
“Anything in particular?”
“Whatever you want is fine. Except no pork products, please.” He wasn’t especially observant, but his family had kept kosher when he was little, and some old habits died hard.
“No pork. Got it.” Oscar made sure his phone was unlocked before handing it over. Then after another light tap on Uri’s knee, he stood. “Be right back.”
Uri knew the name of his credit card bank and googled their customer service number. The sympathetic woman promised to FedEx a new card to him by the end of the next day, which was great. But it didn’t solve the problem of where to sleep tonight. Maybe in his office at the college. His keys had survived intact, at least, so he could get in. And maybe if he pushed some chairs together, they’d make a passable bed. Ugh. Even thinking about it made his back hurt. He probably should have taken up the firefighters’ offer for a motel voucher, but Uri’s head had been too muddled at the time.
Oscar brought him gray sweatpants and a purple Sacramento Kings T-shirt. “Sorry. I don’t think any of my regular pants would fit you very well.” He blushed slightly as he patted his belly.
“This is great. I really appreciate it.” Suddenly embarrassed by his almost-nudity, Uri headed to the bathroom. He washed up the best he could, although his skin and hair still smelled smoky when he was done. He pulled on the sweats, cinching the drawstring waist snugly. As he left the bathroom, he pulled on the T-shirt. “This tee looks brand-new.”
