Bowl Full of Cherries (23 page)

I
T
WAS
long after midnight, no longer Christmas Day. Crowley was naked as the day he was born, eating a late-night snack of crackers and cream cheese with Worchester sauce, which Rell had snuck up from the kitchen. The only light in the room came from the glow of the computer monitor and the small lamp by Rell’s bed. He felt good. He felt sated. He felt happy. He felt… a little cold. It was still winter after all.

“Toss me a blanket, would you?” Crowley asked, and when Rell looked like he might protest, he said, “We can snuggle under it together.”

This, Rell agreed to, and he pulled one of the knitted blankets off his bed and slinked down onto the floor, sitting in front of Crowley and wrapping it around their shoulders. Crowley breathed in the scent of sweat and sex and masculinity. Rell’s scent. He was cocooned in it. God, he was happy this man was coming to Avona.

There were no promises, of course. It wasn’t as if they’d said, “I love you and I can’t live without you” but Crowley wanted Rell there. Wanted him close. In the short time he’d known Rell, he’d felt so much,
grown
so much. He’d been flagrantly, unabashedly naked
in front of people
, he’d lost his virginity, he’d called and confronted his mother with love, he’d realized he wanted
more
than just Anna K. Duritz Conservatory, and he was even eating a tasty snack in a blanket cocoon.

“We should play another hand of
Rain Queen
,” Rell said.

Earlier, after sex but before snacks, they’d gotten down on the floor and looked through the cards. Rell said Crowley could have anything he wanted.

“But you’ve got rare stuff in here!” Crowley protested.

“Yeah, rare stuff that was just sitting in the garage for ten years. Take what you want. Make a deck. What do you like to play?”

Crowley had considered this for a moment, and then he grinned. “Opal. I’m a healer.”

“You make me want to nibble your ear.”

“What? Why?”

“Because that’s so adorably, predictably
you
. You’d definitely play opal. Of course you’d play opal.”

“It’s a good strategy! I heal and heal and heal and heal.” He took a breath. “And heal. And my opponent keeps throwing attacks at me until he runs out of cards and then he burns himself to death when his deck is depleted.”

“You realize you just told me your strategy and now I can counter.”

“You can’t counter.”

“Do not underestimate the power of sapphire, my friend. Damage over time. Even you can’t heal that fast.”

Crowley’s lips twitched. “When I was playing in tournaments, I took down J.M. Campbell’s onyx deck.”

Rell stared blankly at him.

“Oh, come on! I thought you were a real gamer, Lang.”

Rell had tossed back his head and laughed. It was beautiful and addictive. Crowley wanted him to laugh like that all the time.

“J.M. Campbell was top-seeded
Rain Queen
TCG player in the Midwestern Conference for three years running. He was a god.”

“And you beat him?”

Barely keeping his face straight, Crowley whispered ominously, “Some say that after he faced my opal deck, he went
mad
.” Then, laughing, Crowley said, “Actually, the year I beat him was the year he’d announced his retirement, and it was a practice game. But still! My opal prowess is unmatched.”

“All right then, opal prowess, see what you can find in these cards.”

In the end, Crowley had made a passable deck of fifty cards with what he could find in Rell’s stash. The guy he was growing so fond of definitely trended toward onyx and sapphire cards, but there were a couple of good opal cards. They’d played a couple of rounds, Rell winning one, and Crowley winning the next. It was a good time.

“What are you thinking about?” Rell asked, leaning forward in their cocoon and kissing his cheek.

“Cards. You. You know what I like about you, Rell Lang?”

“I’m going to say… everything,” Rell teased. “But especially how I’m a thousand times cooler than my brother.”

Crowley’s lips quirked. “I like how you’re a catalyst.”

“Catalyst?”

“I had all this potential brewing inside of me for so long. I even
knew
I had potential, but I didn’t know how to set off the reaction, right? But then you just said, ‘here’s the last ingredient’ and it was so obvious.”

“You’re giving me too much credit.”

Crowley leaned in, almost close enough to kiss, and with the tip of his tongue, he very lightly traced Rell’s bottom lip. When Rell reached out for him, Crowley pulled back in their blanket cocoon, grinning mischievously.

“Man, my first impressions of you were wrong,” Rell said, putting his hands on Crowley’s thighs. “I thought you were this sweet, shy nerd, and you turn out to be a wild nudist who torments me with his sex.”

Crowley burst out laughing, the sound of it shockingly loud in the small room.

“I love when you laugh.”

“I like laughing again,” Crowley said. He’d smiled. He’d chuckled. Sure, he’d even laughed on occasion, but not like this. Not loud and naked and unashamed.

“Anything else you want to do before our vacation is over? I mean, we can always come back, but… what?”

“I like the way your mouth forms words.”

“Yours does, too.”

“I like the way it wraps around the letters.”

“Oh man, you’re going to make me all self-conscious about my lips. Am I saying ‘apple’ in a sexy enough way? What if Crowley doesn’t like it?” Rell leaned back in their cocoon so that the blanket against Crowley’s back pulled him forward.

“You definitely say ‘apple’ in a sexy way.”

Crowley pressed closer.

“You couldn’t be tempting me into another round, could you?” Rell asked.

“We’ve got the condoms for it,” Crowley said. But just as he’d pressed his lips to Rell’s, his phone began to shudder and vibrate on the mattress where he’d left it.

“Alarm?” Rell asked.

“I… think someone’s calling.”

It was hard to untangle himself from the blanket, fingers and toes slipping through to get caught in the loose weave, and he only just managed to get his arm out and snag the phone before it kicked to voice mail.

“Hello?” he asked, confused. It was really late.

There was silence on the line for a minute, and then a quiet female voice said, “Hi, Crow, how are you?”

“Tell ’em we’re busy,” Rell teased, touching Crowley beneath the blanket, but Crowley’s mind was solely fixated on the voice on the other end of the line and the woman it belonged to.

“Alice?” he asked quietly. His eyes had begun to well with tears. “Did you… did you misdial?”

“No,” she said. “No, of course not.”

“H-how are you?”

Rell heard the hitch in his voice and his hands stilled. His deeply blue gaze was kind and concerned, and Crowley looked up and into his eyes, focusing on them so he wouldn’t cry.

“I’m good.”

“Uh, Merry Christmas, Alice.”

“Merry Christmas, Crow. I, uh, meant to say that first. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, it’s—”

“No, brother, it’s not. It’s not okay at all. We didn’t even talk. Christmas Day came and went and we didn’t even talk and it’s all my fault and—” She sounded like her daughter, not even pausing to take a breath. “Crowley, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t call. I’m sorry I haven’t written. I’m sorry I… I just… I’m sorry.”

“Alice,
I’m
sorry.”

“Don’t! Don’t be! It’s okay that you’re… that you know, you don’t like girls. I think I always knew. I’m not… I mean, not that you need my approval but, I’m… I’m okay with it.”

“Alice—”

“Momma said if I contacted you, she’d… y’know… cut us off. And after Stephen left, I just haven’t been able to get up on my own two feet. And I… I couldn’t… I mean, I thought I couldn’t… I don’t even know what I’m saying.”

“It’s all right.” He meant it from the bottom of his heart. “Alice, you have to take care of yourself right now.”

“But you needed me and I wasn’t there.”

“You’re here right now.”

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by the intermittent sound of her sobs. He wished he could reach through his cell phone and touch her shoulder or give her a hug. All he could do was try to convey his heart.

“I love you, Alice. I’m so glad you called.”

“Can w-we talk more?” she asked, her voice tight and heavy. “Sometime? Can you… can you tell me about your life? Can I still be part of it?”

Could she still be part of his life?

Fat tears rolled down Crowley’s cheeks. “God, yes. Can I be part of yours?”

“Yes. Yes, of course!”

“So, should I only text? Or do you need me to call at certain times or—?”

“What? No.”

“But, didn’t you say Mom said she would—”

“If Momma wants to lose both her children, then that’s her choice. Mine is to have my brother in my life. I’m not going to hide him.”

L
ATER
,
LONG
after the phone call had ended, when Crowley could barely keep his eyes open from his drowsiness, he held on to Rell and smiled into his back.

“I think I’m falling for you.”

“Good.” He could feel the rumble of Rell’s words through his back. It was as if his voice were a part of Crowley’s body. He squeezed Rell tighter. “’Cause I’m definitely falling for you, too.”

“M
ORNIN
’,
FAMILY
!”
Rell grinned as he walked into the kitchen the next morning. His Aunt Megs and CeCe sat side by side, quietly chatting. His mother was scrambling eggs at the stove. Sondra was probably still asleep, but Tyler had a mug of coffee and the funny pages, remarking dryly that print newspapers were going to fight until the bitter end. Newspapers, the true paradox for a hipster of Tyler’s caliber. On the one hand, the newspaper was an antiquated, dying thing and should have piqued his need to support all things antiquated and dying. On the other hand, it was so much easier to get his news from the Internet on his shiny tablet.

“I wish we got the
Times
,” Tyler murmured.

“You should write your own newspaper,” Rell teased his brother. “And it can be one sheet of post-consumer recycled paper, and every article can be a QR Code, and people can scan them and
bam!
Links to your Instagram and your Tumblr.”

“Ha ha,” Tyler mocked, glancing up at Rell who beamed back at him. His twin, who had not yet combed down his cowlick, did an honest double take when he saw Rell’s face. It wasn’t the
first
time someone had done a double take right at his face, but it was perhaps the most dramatic. Tyler’s surprise quickly turned to a dark frown. “There’s only one thing that smile means.”

“What?” Rell asked innocently, realizing he probably had been a little too “just got laid.” At least he’d packed in his whistling before he walked into the kitchen.

Aunt Megs looked over at him as Rell feigned innocence, all puppy-dog eyes, and “What? Laid? I am but an innocent virgin who hath never lain with another man!” but it was too difficult with their eyes on him. He and Crowley had… and it had been… and damn, he definitely was grinning.

“What’s going on?” Their mother asked, and Tyler cut his eyes over to her. Suddenly Rell’s goofy smile became a whole lot easier to pack away. If his brother announced to their probably-lesbian aunt, her probably-partner, and their mother that Rell had lost his butt-virginity, well…. There were worse things that could happen, but he wasn’t sure what they were in that moment. He really wanted to be the one to pick the time and place when he announced his relationship with Crowley.

“Nothing’s going on,” Rell said. And then lied, “Well, I’m just a little hung over.”

His mother let out a long, dramatic sigh and shook her head. “Averell Michael Lang. On Christmas?”

“Technically it’s not Christmas anymore.” He grinned sheepishly.

A hand on her hip, the spatula in her hand, she sighed and said, “Megan, your Sondra never gives you this kind of stress, does she?”

Aunt Megs barked with laughter. “Oh, sure, she’s a regular angel. If you knew half of the stuff I knew about Sondra.”

“It does keep a woman awake at night,” CeCe chimed in.

“You want me to get you something for your head, Averell?” his mother asked. She ascribed to the old school Prairie Oyster hangover cure. He’d seen her make it for his sisters in their wild days, before kids and responsibility. Eggs and Worchester sauce and Tabasco and so on… he’d promised himself to never be hung over around her.

“It’s okay, Mom,” he said quickly, imagining having to drink raw egg, the yolk sliding down his throat. “Tyler, don’t you keep migraine pills in your room?”

His brother shot daggers at him from across the table. Red-hot eye daggers. It made him hesitate for a second. Did he really want to be alone with the raging hipster? Not exactly. But then again, did he want No-Tact Tyler with his big stupid mouth outing him to their family the morning after Christmas?