Christmas at Bennett’s (Breakfast at Bennett’s #4.5)

4. Ethan

CHAPTER 4

ETHAN

“I can’t stay long.” Ethan shoved his hands in his pockets to fight the cold. It had started snowing on the way over. The first snow of the year. The cold nipped at his nose and he sniffled. “I wanted to come see you. It’s been a while.”

No one answered.

Sarah Bennett hadn’t answered Ethan in years. He still talked to her from time to time, more often when the kids were younger. As the years marched on, he’d talked to her less and he hadn’t been to the cemetery in a couple years. Not since Taylor came out to him as a teenager. Taylor had been her baby. They’d had a precious bond.

“Things are good. The kids are all settled down.” Ethan had a good feeling about the men his sons had chosen for themselves. “You’d like them. Spencer is strong, and he encourages Jonah to stand up for himself. Milo makes Colby stop and think.” Ethan smiled at the effect Milo had on their middle child. Always quick to leap, but slow to look.

“And Taylor. He never did anything halfway. He’s got two boyfriends.” Ethan laughed. He took his hands from his pockets.

It was a long time since Ethan had been able to remember the small details about Sarah. Her voice had been the first thing to fade. Her laugh next. But sometimes when Jonah laughed, he heard her. And sometimes when Colby smiled, she smiled through him. And Taylor had her eyes. She’d never really be gone.

“I think you’d like Mickey. Yeah, he’s a bit young for me, but… I’m happy. For the first time since you died.”

The snow fell harder and Ethan smiled up at the dark sky. He couldn’t see anything except the falling snow and blackness above. He closed his eyes and absorbed the snowflakes that landed on his eyelashes. His cheeks. His hair. Sarah had loved the snow. She’d loved everything, but winter, she’d said, had a specific kind of magic.

She’d missed so much. She’d missed everything. But maybe she was out there somewhere, looking down on them. Ethan had never really ascribed to that kind of thing, but tonight it was like he could feel her in the air. It was almost like if he held still long enough, held his breath hard enough, that she’d appear next to him as though nothing had happened and no time had passed.

After a moment of silence so profound Ethan swayed under the weight of it, he opened his eyes again and tucked his hands back in his pockets. He sucked in a breath and let it out slowly.

“I’ve missed you every day and having Mickey doesn’t make me miss you less. But he makes everything brighter. Kind of the way you used to.” Ethan started to turn away. Embarrassment creeped up his cheeks even though there was no one around to witness him talking to a gravestone.

He turned back and took another long look at her name on the lonely marker. “Merry Christmas, Sarah.”

He’d be back, of course, but it would be different now. His past was with Sarah, but his future was a beautiful younger man with eyes so deep Ethan could drown in them and a smile that lit Ethan up inside.

He didn’t drive home after leaving the cemetery. The idea of going there and rattling around in the house all by himself held no appeal. Mickey would be off work soon and Ethan wanted to see him. Needed to see him. Going to the cemetery had been a whim and though Ethan wasn’t sorry he went, it left him feeling raw, like someone had scraped all his defenses clean.

The Anchor was a ghost town when he pulled in with only a few snow-covered cars sitting in the parking lot. Either staff, or people who’d had a little too much, or didn’t want to brave the fresh snow. Ethan didn’t blame them.

He walked into the bar and though Mickey wasn’t in sight, Ethan knew he’d be around somewhere. Probably in the back with Cyrus, the cook. Cyrus had taken Mickey under his wing and acted like an older brother. Sometimes Mickey pretended to be annoyed by it, but Ethan knew that he secretly loved knowing someone looked out for him.

Before Ethan could sit down, Mickey came around the corner, slipping into his jacket. He made a beeline for Ethan and threw his arms around his neck, pressing his mouth to Ethan’s.

“Your lips are cold. And so is your nose.” Mickey pulled back and looked up at him. Happiness danced in his eyes. “Why are you cold?”

Ethan didn’t want to answer him in there. He wanted to take Mickey home and sit in front of the fire with him and make plans for the holidays or talk about nothing at all. He wanted to hear Mickey play something on the guitar. Having someone play for him had become a bit of a novelty for Ethan, who was used to being the man behind the music.

“Does the jacket mean you’re allowed to come home?”

“Cyrus and Viv are going to close up early. I was cleaning up by the front windows when I saw your truck pull in. Cyrus said I might as well go home because when you’re here I can’t focus on anything else.”

Mickey’s grin was unapologetic and Ethan was overcome with the urge to kiss him, but he knew if he started, he wouldn’t want to stop.

“Well, that’s a coincidence, because the same thing happens to me when I’m around you.” Ethan motioned to the front door. “Let’s get out of here.”

They climbed into the truck and Mickey reached for the heat and cranked it. “That’s why you’re so cold. You barely had any heat going.”

He buckled himself in, shivering. “I think we need a hot shower when we get home.”

Ethan didn’t miss the things Mickey said between the lines.

“You do, do you?”

“I’ll wash your back if you wash mine.” Mickey shivered and held his hands in front of the vents.

They made it all the way home and down the hallway to the bathroom before Ethan broke his silence on where he’d been. Going there, seeing her headstone in the falling snow… it had felt a lot like goodbye in ways that other visits hadn’t. And he’d felt her presence, something he’d tried to feel a million times before. It was like she had one shot, wherever she was, and she’d saved it for some reason.

Mickey started the shower and turned around to find Ethan leaning against the doorway, hands tucked in his pockets. “What’s wrong?” Mickey tilted his head.

Ethan took a breath and let it out all at once. “I was at the cemetery earlier.”

Ethan hid nothing from Mickey. Right from the start, Mickey had wanted to know about Sarah and sharing her with him had been healing in some ways and impossibly hard in others. Because if she’d still been here, he wouldn’t have Mickey. And just as he couldn’t imagine his life with Sarah anymore, he couldn’t imagine one without Mickey now.

The look in Mickey’s eyes was soft understanding. Crossing the small room, he tugged Ethan through the threshold then started stripping him out of his clothes, piece by piece. He brushed a sweet kiss against the corner of Ethan’s mouth and then directed him to get into the shower.

The spray was warmer than Ethan expected and he started to reach for the taps.

“So help me, Ethan, if you turn that hot water down…” Mickey didn’t finish the sentence because Ethan pulled his hand away.

He watched Mickey strip down, fast and efficient and a little graceless, stumbling when his foot got caught in his pant leg. Then Mickey was in the shower with him. Sliding his arms around Ethan, he kissed him again. Gentler and deeper this time, like he knew Ethan needed a soft spot to land.

“Tell me about it?” Mickey prompted. He’d always been patient with Ethan, whom Mickey said had never grieved properly. It had been impossible to do with three kids and a business to run, but Ethan had done it in his own quiet way.

“She loved the snow,” Ethan began, because all stories had to start somewhere. He reached for the body wash and a bath sponge so he’d have something to do with his hands, something to focus his attention on besides the crushing compassion in Mickey’s gaze.

“I’ve been to see her before. Not a lot and not at first, but as time passed I started going.” Ethan furrowed his brow. “It was different tonight.”

Mickey took the bath sponge from him and soaped Ethan’s body. Starting with the arms, he worked his way down to each hand, then across Ethan’s chest. He didn’t prompt Ethan to say more. Mickey seldom did. They’d learned a lot about each other over the course of their relationship and Ethan learned there wasn’t anything he couldn’t say to Mickey.

Eventually, Mickey slid around behind him and started washing his back. The bath sponge moved in slow circles across Ethan’s shoulders.

“Different how?” Mickey asked.

“It was like she was there.” Ethan tried to conjure up the same feeling he’d had when he was standing in the cemetery, with his eyes closed and the snow falling down, but it was like trying to grab on to smoke and hold it in your hand. He didn’t know how to tell Mickey that it felt like goodbye. Maybe he didn’t have to. Mickey’s arms came around him and he pressed his forehead against Ethan’s back.

His hands wandered lower, skimming past Ethan’s thickening cock.

“Can I make you feel good?” Mickey asked.

Ethan gave him the only answer he could think of. “You always do.”

Mickey answered him by trailing his fingertips down the shaft of Ethan’s cock. It twitched in response, chasing the sensation.

“Tell me what you need.” Mickey was in front of him again, Ethan’s cock cradled in his hand like it was what he needed to be gentle with instead of his heart.

Ethan pushed the wet hair off Mickey’s face and slanted their mouths together. Mickey’s lips parted and he welcomed Ethan inside, tangling their tongues together. Mickey quickly took control, stroking Ethan’s cock while his other hand sank into Ethan’s hair, holding him captive as Mickey plundered his mouth.

This. This was what Ethan needed. Mickey consumed him, backed him up against the wall, and pinned him there before dropping to his knees. He brushed the hair away from Mickey’s face again and that earned him a smile. Then a pretty pink tongue flicked over the head of Ethan’s cock. Mickey’s hands slid up Ethan’s thighs, roaming higher until one wrapped around the base of his dick.

Ethan leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes. He fell into the sensation of Mickey’s mouth, hot and wet and tight. His slippery, slick tongue swirled over the head of Ethan’s cock, toying with the slit as he worked the shaft with his hand.

Already perilously close to coming, Ethan pulled back and hauled Mickey to his feet. He lined their cocks up and Mickey was quick to wrap his fingers around them. Ethan covered Mickey’s hand with his own, and their mouths met in a kiss so passionate it stole his breath. His sight. His every thought that wasn’t Mickey. Mickey and how beautiful he was. How lucky Ethan was to have him. How much he wanted to keep him.

Keep him forever.

Mickey came first, gasping and trembling through his orgasm, his body rocking into Ethan as they continued to stroke their cocks. The sound of Mickey whimpering was all it took for Ethan’s orgasm to smash through him like a wrecking ball. Mickey kissed him through it with less desperation than before, but it was more intimate somehow. Kissing someone after they’d come together, enjoying the lingering passion as their heart rates returned to normal. Ethan pulled away and Mickey dropped his head onto Ethan’s shoulder.

“Can we put up the tree tomorrow?” Mickey asked.

Knowing the kind of shit Mickey had been through since he left home, and the kind of holidays he’d had, Ethan wanted to make sure this Christmas was the best one Mickey had ever had.

“I’d like that.” He pressed a kiss to Mickey’s bare shoulder, tasting nothing but water and clean skin.

Mickey let out a happy sigh and wrapped his arms around Ethan’s waist. “This Christmas is going to be amazing.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” Ethan tipped Mickey’s head up and he slanted his mouth over Mickey’s again.