Screwups (18 page)

After they’d eaten at the Peterborough Diner—a great little place made from a 1950s train diner car—Althea drove the boys around town and gave Jake the two-dollar tour. It took about five minutes, and some of that was waiting for the lights to change. There were only a few streets. But they were quaint and beautiful under a thick blanket of snow.

“Danny had to go to high school in Keene,” Althea told him. “And his friends always lived in different towns.”

“That’s because the guys in this town suck,” Danny muttered darkly.

Althea’s smile didn’t falter, but she said, “Some of them.”

This hint at some conflict between Danny and the local kids intrigued Jake, but there was no tactful way to ask about it and Althea was already talking about the other options for food in the area. “Danny will tell you, I’m not much of a cook.”

“Come on, Mom. Your cooking’s fine.”

“Well I can cook a mean stir-fry and occasionally pull off a nice carob cake, but I’m nothing to boast about in the kitchen.”

“My mom is a great cook,” Jake said fondly, then wondered if he was being rude.

Althea didn’t seem to take the comment personally. She smiled broadly. “That’s wonderful. I do admire people who have that talent. Danny tells me you two are going to visit her on Christmas Day?”

“Yeah.” He was actually a nervous wreck about it—having his sort-of boyfriend in the same room with his mom. But when Danny told him that he and Althea didn’t do anything at all on Christmas, the solstice celebration being held on the twenty-first instead, he’d felt compelled to ask if Danny could come along. It was a little weird, under the circumstances, and he’d half expected his mother to say it was a bad time to have guests over. Especially since she herself was a guest in her sister’s house. But she’d been okay with it. Of course, she didn’t know that Danny was more to Jake than just his roommate.

Althea laughed. “I’m glad to hear it, because I don’t have the faintest idea how to cook a turkey.”

They returned to the house and spent a couple of hours chatting in front of the fire and drinking some kind of herbal tea Althea claimed to have blended herself. Jake had no idea what was in it, but she assured him there was nothing the federal government would kick the door down to get at. “It has a little valerian, which might make you sleepy, and a bit of lavender and rosemary, plus some spearmint. I call it ‘Winding Down Tea.’”

All Jake knew was that it tasted minty and felt soothing.

When a strange pyramidal clock on the mantel emitted a quiet, barely audible chime, Althea rose and said good night. She kissed Danny on the top of his head and waggled her fingers at Jake. “Stay up as late as you like, but please remember to put the fire out. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

Once they were alone, Danny crawled across the short stretch of carpet separating him from Jake and began making out with him. It made Jake nervous to do it right in the living room—he pictured Althea coming out of her bedroom to get a glass of water or something—but he soon lost himself in the sensual feel of Danny’s full lips against his own.

Then Danny whispered, “I’ve always wanted to make love in front of a warm fireplace.”

“Jesus!” Jake gasped. Then he remembered to lower his voice. “Your mom could come out at any minute!”

Danny laughed quietly. “Dude, if having sex under the threat of being caught by a woman who’d just say ‘oops’ and run back to her room is too risky for you, you’re in for a very dull life.”

“Fine,” Jake growled. “Fuck me in your living room. Tomorrow we can try the kitchen table.”

So they stripped and stretched out on the oriental carpet, sixty-nining and—even though this made Jake far more nervous—rimming each other, while the warmth of the fire licked at their naked bodies. When they came, deep within each other’s mouths, Jake felt grateful that Danny’s cock prevented him from moaning too loudly.

They lay beside each other on the carpet, panting and enjoying the afterglow, until an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “Dude,” he said quietly, “your house isn’t… clothing optional, is it?”

“Are you hoping or dreading?”

“Kind of dreading.”

Danny laughed, rolled over, and lifted himself up on his elbows to give Jake a kiss. “No. Don’t worry, you won’t wake up tomorrow to find my mom making pancakes in the nude.”

“Good.” Another thought occurred to him and he asked, “What about this solstice thing? You said some Wiccans like to do things naked.”

“It’s called ‘skyclad,’” Danny said. “I shouldn’t have worried you. Mom’s friends don’t really go in for that.”

Jake hoped he hadn’t said anything offensive. Dealing with people who had non-Christian religious beliefs was kind of new to him. But he was still relieved to hear he wasn’t going to be surrounded by middle-aged naked people tomorrow night.

S
O
FAR
,
Jake seemed to be handling the solstice celebration fairly well, Danny thought. His eyes had gone a bit wide when Theron, the High Priest, donned his elaborate deer antler headband—Theron was straight, but he
did
love his pretty hats and gowns—but Jake kept whatever thoughts he might be having to himself. The ritual itself was only about an hour long, and Jake had said he’d participate. So he stood in the circle beside Danny, holding his hand and reciting the simple chants he’d been taught.

Afterward, during the Feast of Cakes and Ale, he seemed to relax, now that the “weird” part of the evening was safely behind him. He seemed especially delighted to discover that not everyone in the coven shared Danny’s mother’s devotion to vegetarianism. Theron had brought some venison stew.

“This is really good!” Jake exclaimed as he went back for a second bowl.

Persephone, the High Priestess, told him, “Theron’s a hunter.”

“Bow hunting,” Theron chimed in from across the kitchen. “I prefer the bow. It’s quiet. It allows me to be in tune with the forest.”

“And kill things,” added a voice heavy with disapproval. The speaker was new to the coven—an elderly woman who’d been introduced to Danny as Krauka. The name sounded oddly dissonant for a craft name—not that there were any real rules about it. She’d told him it meant “crow” in Old Norse.

“Hunters have been—”

“No debates, please!” Danny’s mom interrupted before the conversation could blow up into an argument. “Let’s just enjoy the holiday.”

“Will you be greeting the dawn with us?” Persephone asked Jake.

“Yeah,” Jake replied, glancing at Danny uncertainly. “I guess.” Danny had explained to him that some—certainly not all—Wiccans liked to stay awake the entire night on the solstice, the longest and “darkest” night of the year, to herald the symbolic rebirth of the sun at daybreak. Again, he wasn’t required to participate, but since Danny was doing it, Jake had decided to do so rather than sleep by himself. “I just hope I can stay awake.”

Persephone laughed lightly and placed a hand on his arm. “Don’t worry, I’m sure we can think of some way to keep you awake.”

She was a bit younger than Danny’s mother, and a little on the short side, with dark curls and rosy cheeks like a cherub. The straight guys in the coven all seemed to think she was cute. Now she was smiling at Jake in a way that looked….

Yeah, Danny was pretty sure she was flirting. But hopefully Jake could handle himself. He didn’t appear to be in distress. If anything, he seemed happy to have someone talking to him about something other than pagan gods, magical elements, and psychic energy. Danny left him to it while he went to get another cup of wassail.

Sunrise wasn’t until 7:16 a.m., so that left them with about nine hours to kill after they’d eaten. The entire coven wasn’t staying the night—Krauka and some of the other older members had little interest in screwing around with their sleep cycles, and others had to work on Sundays and didn’t think their bosses would be understanding if they nodded off halfway through their shifts. So that left seven people including Danny and Jake.

His mother didn’t own a television, so they had no choice but to talk to each other. Danny and Jake were the youngest in the group by at least ten or fifteen years, but Danny had always found the coven members pleasant to hang out with. Raven and Hedda, a husband and wife, had been opera singers in a previous life—as in when they were younger, not when they were incarnated in the bodies of ancient Egyptians or something like that. So Danny accompanied them on his mother’s upright piano, playing Puccini arias until it got late enough that neighbors might call the cops. Then he switched to quiet Chopin études and pieces by Debussy. Jake made him play
Clair de lune
, of course, and some others he’d grown fond of.

By four in the morning, they’d all grown fairly quiet. Danny was taking a break from the piano and lying on the floor with Jake stretched out beside him, much to the chagrin of Persephone, who seemed to have finally pieced together the nature of their relationship. She hadn’t said anything, but Danny could tell by the way she smiled at the two of them.

He was actually surprised at the way Jake was snuggling up against him. He would never have done that a couple weeks ago. Now he was lying with his head on one of the throw pillows, nestled into the crook of Danny’s armpit, half asleep and apparently unconcerned with how it looked to everyone else in the room. Danny found it adorable. And he was delighted that Jake felt so comfortable at his house, among these people who were closer to him and his mom than any relatives.

The sky began to lighten and Danny woke him. “It’s almost sunrise.”

Jake looked like a grumpy child being roused from a nap—he even whimpered a bit. But after Danny’s mother thrust a cup of herbal tea into his hands—“This will perk you up, but there’s no caffeine, so you can go back to sleep right after the sunrise”—he managed to sit up and glare sullenly out the window at the eastern sky.

Persephone passed around the last of the chocolate-and-whipped-cream Yule log cake and Theron distributed cups of wassail—cider mixed with beer he brewed himself, and spiced with cinnamon, clove, and orange peel. Then they all watched the sun peek its head above Pack Monadnock, while Loreena McKennitt sang “To Drive the Cold Winter Away” on the CD player. It was a peaceful, beautiful way to greet the morning and the beginning of lengthening days.

They were all looking forward to crawling into their warm beds, so things wrapped up quickly after that. Theron was too tired to drive home, so he asked permission to crash on the living room floor. The option was open to everyone, but the others were anxious to get home. So after hugging and kissing the guests good-bye, Danny steered Jake into his bedroom. They undressed in sleepy silence and crawled into bed. The sheets were cool, but they soon remedied that by snuggling their naked bodies together.

“Did you have a good time?” Danny asked, only half expecting Jake to answer. The guy was fast falling asleep.

“Hmm,” Jake said. Then he smiled and nuzzled Danny’s neck. “I wish I could stay here with you forever.”

J
AKE
HAD
been dreading Christmas ever since he’d made the arrangements to visit his mother. Not only would he be face-to-face with all the weirdness surrounding the divorce, but he’d also be dealing with his mom and Danny together for the first time. He’d have to watch everything he did or said, as well as everything
Danny
did or said. Though to be honest, he was much more worried about his behavior than Danny’s. He’d been getting more and more open about his affection for Danny ever since the night of the snowstorm. It wasn’t a big deal in the dorm, and apparently it was cool at Danny’s house and in front of his mom’s friends—nobody had complained about the way he behaved during the solstice party, at least.

But Jake’s mom could have stepped out of a fifties sitcom. With a name like June Stewart, affectionate ribbing from Jake and the twins about her being a cross between June Cleaver and Martha Stewart had been inevitable, but it was much more than that. The way she dressed, the way she kept her hair, the spotless housekeeping, the fantastic cooking… it was all old-fashioned. And even though Jake had never heard her say a disparaging word about gays, he had to wonder if her attitude toward homosexuality would be just as old-fashioned.

Neither of the boys had a car, but Althea let them borrow hers for the trip. The distance wasn’t too bad—his aunt lived in Derry, which was only about forty-five minutes away from Peterborough, going east on 101. Traffic wasn’t bad—most people had done their driving the day before—and they pulled into his aunt’s driveway just before noon.

Mrs. Stewart opened the door, all smiles at her son’s arrival, and that was when Jake got his first shock of the day. She looked… different. First of all, she was wearing
slacks
, and her hair…!

“Do you like it?” she asked him, clearly nervous as she touched the hair cascading over her shoulders.

Jake realized with another shock that his mother had been dreading this meeting too. The changes she’d been going through were a little harder to hide than the ones he’d been going through, and she’d feared his rejection.

He smiled and said, “You look terrific, Mom.”

“Really?” The relief was obvious in her voice. “Margie wants me to get it cut—something short and fashionable—but I don’t think I’m ready for that yet.”

“It looks great,” Jake said sincerely. “I like the outfit too.”

She made a dismissive gesture with her hands, but he could tell she was pleased. “That was her doing too. She practically dragged me to the mall last weekend, despite all the holiday shoppers.”

“Mom, this is my roommate, Danny.”

They shook hands, and Danny threw in a compliment about her hair, which obviously pleased her. As they followed her inside, Jake relaxed a bit. His mother had more to worry about right now than who her son was sleeping with. So maybe he could manage to get through one day without bringing the subject up.

Jake’s aunt was younger than his mother, and she’d married a decent enough guy. Carl Gardner was a computer programmer at a startup in Manchester. They had one daughter named Becky, who was twelve. So their house wasn’t nearly as loud and chaotic as Jake’s house had been. That probably made it the best place for his mom to be right now.