Bowl Full of Cherries (12 page)

“Exactly. Now, you want to see this cool thing, or what? Follow me.”

It wasn’t as close as he thought it was going to be, and he got a little lost near Highland Drive, but eventually, after walking for a good thirty minutes, their fingers entwined the entire time, Rell found what he was looking for. At the first glimmer of the sight in the distance, Crowley gasped. As they got closer, his grin spread wider and wider.

“They’re beautiful,” Crowley whispered, and when Rell turned to look at him, he could see the flashing lights reflected in his eyes.

“It’s not McAdenville,” Rell murmured, delighting in the way that Crowley’s face displayed such unfettered excitement. “But it’s pretty cool, right?”

Delilah Palmer Memorial Park. Any other time of the year, “The Little Park” was no more than a small walking trail next to a pond that may or may not have water in it, a modest set of play equipment for the children, and a covered bridge that connected the park to a wooded area. It had been designed to “charm” up the new part of Susset and give it the same sort of appeal that the older, more historic areas had. Instead, most everyone just ignored it.

Until Christmas.

That’s when a guy in the community, Rell didn’t know his name, came out and started decorating. And decorating. And decorating. And man did he have a taste for the extreme. Last Rell heard, there was something like half a million lights. And they were all LED, which meant they were blindingly, beautifully bright.

Crowley stumbled forward, entranced by the glow and the dance of the flickering lights, like fireflies blazing in the night. Music piped out over a set of speakers near the playground and the lights danced, flashed, and glimmered, patterns of color streaking up one side of the walk and down the other, to the beat. The trees burst into vibrant orange and then purple, flickering between green and red, and then stayed illuminated in solid gold.

“The first year our Patron Saint of Christmas Lights did this, the city came and ripped it all down. There was a huge backlash. Protest, even. My dad was still around. We came down here and watched people demand their lights back,” Rell murmured, making extra sure his lips caught the top of Crowley’s adorable ear, and lingered there. “Tyler and I came out here one year and just sat for an hour. The music never repeats. It’s amazing.”

“They must have put so much work into it.”

“Yeah,” Rell agreed. “One guy. Don’t know how he pays for it, but he does. That’s the city’s stipulation, he foots the electric bill.”

“Hey, Rell?”

“Mm-hmm?”

“Where’s your dad now?”

Barely keeping his poker face in place, Rell said gravely, “Don’t know. One day he went out for a Powerball ticket and, well, that was fourteen years ago.”

Crowley’s eyes went wide and his lips were already moving in a frantic apology. “Really? I’m so sorry! I mean, wow. Really?”

Rell broke, laughing. “Teasing.”

Sweet Crowley balled up his fist and hit Rell in the shoulder. It didn’t even hurt.

“I saw that on the television and—all right there, Fist of Fury, don’t make me break out the kiss-you-until-you’re-breathless technique on you this early on.” He caught Crowley’s balled up fist and kissed his knuckles until the other man relented. “Dad started cheating on Mom about five minutes after they got married. By the time she divorced him, he was worth a lot of money and she’d built up a lot of evidence. We don’t see him much and it’s okay by me.”

“I’m going to assume you’re telling the truth.”

“Your dad around?”

“No,” Crowley said quietly. “He died when I was little. I like to think he’d be proud of me even though….”

“Even though you’re friends with Tyler?” Rell teased. “I’m sure he’s forgiving you from heaven right now.” That didn’t get the laugh he was hoping and he said, “I’m sorry.”

Crowley kept walking up the trail, his voice trailing behind him like vapor. Rell hurried to keep up.

“I just thought that nine years is a really long time to hide. I didn’t want to make it a solid decade. So at Thanksgiving, I… told Mom I’m gay.”

Rell asked, “How did that go?”

“Well, I’m not in Kansas City this Christmas for the first time ever.”

“She didn’t take it well?”

“She thinks I’m lying.”

“About being gay?”

“Right?” For a moment, Crowley’s lips twitched, like he might be seeing a tiny crack of humor in the situation. It didn’t hold. “She said I’m trying to hurt her. She sent a text, told me not to come home, that no one would be waiting to pick me up from the airport. So… I came here instead. It was a good decision, but….” He seemed to realize the dangling “but” might be offensive (adorable Crowley) and he quickly corrected, “It was a
great
decision. I got to meet you. And your family is so much fun.”

“Yeah, but it isn’t home.”

Crowley stopped beside a waving snowman on a wire frame and turned, grabbing Rell and kissing him.

If Rell had thought everything that happened before had been a wild fluke, that it was just The Emporium’s song or the alcohol, there could be no doubt now. Crowley clung to Rell, fingers digging into Rell’s jacket and he kissed him, deeply, desperately, and Rell wanted nothing more in the entire world than to get over to the covered bridge.

“Let’s walk.”

“Okay.”

Crowley put his arm around Rell’s waist and they walked slowly together across the snow-covered grass, underneath the trees with tangled lights that dripped like illuminated ivy from the limbs.

“You really like kissing me?” Crowley asked.

“Yes,” Rell said.

“That’s good.”

“You like kissing
me
?”

“Yes,” Crowley replied. “You’re sorta my first kiss. Hope that doesn’t change the whole ‘liking it’ thing.”

Wow. First kiss.

“You have damn talented lips for a newbie.”

His first kiss was at a party in the seventh grade. It was either with Dawn or her sister Carly. By the end of the night, he’d kissed them both. Either way, the girls didn’t leave much of a lasting impression.

“I don’t know about that.”

“There’s more to learn, sure. But for a starter pair, they’re pretty great.”

Crowley’s lips quirked and Rell was pleased. They’d come up on the covered bridge, and Crowley peered inside.

“Come on,” Rell said, leading him far enough inside that they were doused in darkness. They melted into one another, pressing together for a long moment, delaying the pleasure of their next kiss.

“I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Not exactly how I imagined spending Christmas, but I’m up for adventure.”

“I’m going to kiss you now.”

“Do you know how sexy it is when you announce that?”

Crowley moved, pressed his lips against Rell’s, and groaned, “Jesus….”

Rell fumbled with the band that tied back all of Crowley’s curls. He had the urge to run his hand through Crowley’s hair, and the even stronger urge to grab him, gently, by the curls and pull his head back. To
claim
the next kiss.

Crowley’s mouth moved, desperate, hungry against Rell’s. They sought each other, palms stroking necks and chests and arms and backs, the frantic movement of wanting to be everywhere all at once. When Crowley’s tongue slipped between his lips, Rell groaned and grabbed hold of Crowley, wanting to move closer, be closer. He thrust forward, felt Crowley pushing against him, each man hard in his jeans. He didn’t know who initiated it, didn’t know where one of them ended and the other one began, but they were moving rhythmically, grinding against each other. And it felt so damned good.

It wasn’t cold any longer. There was only Crowley’s delicious, swirling warmth.

Rell’s fingers were on the waist of Crowley’s pants when Crowley’s cell phone—loud and cheery—began to cry out for attention.

“Ignore it,” Rell pleaded. He wanted—
needed—
to be closer to Crowley. To feel Crowley’s bare skin. To—

“H-hello,” Crowley gasped as he put the phone to his ear. Rell let out a long, shuddering breath and let his head rest on Crowley’s shoulder. Probably for the best. Things were getting wild in his brain for a second. He didn’t want Crowley’s first time to be
outdoors
on a covered bridge. Third or fourth, maybe. Not first. “Y-yeah, we’re just… walking… um… here’s Rell.”

Crowley held the phone up to Rell’s ear as Rell planted a gentle kiss against his neck.

“Hello?” Rell said.

“Where the hell did you guys go?” Tyler snapped over the line.

“D
ID
THAT
really happen?” Crowley murmured into the still morning. He’d slept hard—long and dreamless—and he felt better than he had in a really long time. It was early. The curtains caught and dulled the morning light, but the sound of birds outside the window told the hour. “Did we really make out last night?” He put knuckles against his lips to see if he could still feel Rell there. Kissing outside the club, in the park, on the covered bridge. Desperate, hungry kisses, until Tyler came and picked them up.

His best friend had glowered at him the entire drive home, and it might have been his imagination, but it seemed like Sondra was giving him knowing winks. She had been
really
drunk, though.

Crowley was warm on his lower trundle bed, snuggled down into the covers.

He was pretty sure he hadn’t dreamed it—not the little kiss inside The Livery, nor the deep, desperate kisses out in the snow, nor the sweet, barely controlled kiss they’d shared before they’d gone to bed.

“I want to invite you up here,” Rell had muttered in the dark. “But I’m not going to. I’m not going to be stupid. I’m going to do this slow.”

Crowley was pretty sure it was all real.

Very quietly, Crowley sat up on his mattress and looked at Rell’s sleeping form. His dark waves had fallen into his face and his cheeks were flushed with the heat of sleep. Crowley studied Rell’s face. He looked like Tyler, of course, but there was something more…. His lips were parted and Crowley had to fight the impulse to lean over and kiss him.

He let his eyes trail down the covers, following the dips in the fabric as it hugged Rell’s body. The tented fabric did a bad job at hiding morning wood and Crowley flushed. He forced his eyes back up to Rell’s face. He should leave before he woke Rell. Before he kissed him awake. Quietly, he crept from the room.

He washed his face in the small bathroom and then went down the stairs in his pajamas, almost tripping over Andy. The redhead looked up at Crowley and grinned triumphantly.

“You wanna know something awesome?”

“Definitely,” Crowley said, taking the last few stairs into the hallway. He wanted to hear everything the ten-year-old boy had to say. He wanted to hear about snowball fights and iPhones, New Math, and cartoon superheroes. Anything to keep from going back upstairs and jumping into Rell’s bed. If Rell wanted to take it slow, he should
try
to want to take it slow too. It was hard, having taken it slow all twenty-two years of his life.

“So, Mom told me last year that Santa isn’t real,” Andy said with a knowing tilt of his chin, like he was in a club now and he knew Crowley was a member. “She said I can’t tell Jack or Charley.”

“Yeah,” Crowley agreed. He remembered finding out. He’d gotten out of bed to use the bathroom, and his Mom was in her bright turquoise robe, putting presents under the tree. She looked up, her brow creased, hands raised, and said, “Well, you caught me.”

He didn’t get it.

If she’d just said she was adding a few presents, he would have gone on believing—for a while longer, at least—that Santa was real. He thought about Rell saying he’d seen Santa. Losing his belief in the magic kind of sucked. But the mischievous grin that spread across Andy’s face told Crowley the oldest of the siblings was far from heartbroken.

“She said that if I can keep the secret again this year, I’ll get my own cell phone. And if I
can’t
keep the secret… she’s going to give all my stuff away.”

“All your presents?”

Andy shrugged. “Maybe everything in my room. She says stuff like that all the time, though. Like, ‘Andy, if you don’t clean your room, I’m going to throw everything in the garbage.’ But I won’t tell. Maybe Charley, but not Jack. ’Cause he’s the baby.”

“Well, if your mom said not either of them—” he started, but Andy had no time for Crowley’s rationality (he was only an adult, after all; what did he know?) and he obviously was not cowed by his mother.

“Do you want to go with us to the Nook? Uncle Tyler and Sondra are going and they said we could go, too.”

“Is Rell going?”

“Grandma says he’s got to do a project for her.”

Crowley found Tyler sitting near the fireplace, warming his back and singing yet another Christmas song that Crowley didn’t know. For a moment, Tyler looked like he didn’t know whether to smile or glower. He ended up smiling. Sondra was smiling too,
really
brightly. She definitely had seen them kiss in the Livery.

“We’re going to walk down to the—” Tyler started.