Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Stripping the Vinyl

Stripping the Vinyl

PIERCE GOT up in the middle of the night to pee, like he usually did, untangling himself gently from Hal, who slept like the dead—or an exhausted child.

He crawled back into bed, and Hal burrowed up against him again, tangling their legs and scooting down so he could rest his cheek against Pierce’s chest. Pierce, drowsy and uninhibited, stroked his back gently.

A warm human being in his bed. The joy of that event staggered him.

What’re you doing, Pierce? You leave in two and a half weeks!

Leave? Not see this absurdly pretty kid day after day? Not have Hal urging him unmercifully in the pool and chattering about Looney Tunes and Bob’s Burgers in the meantime?

Unconsciously, Pierce tightened his arms around Hal’s shoulders. He fell asleep dreaming of a giant hole in his house at home and how nobody seemed to notice that if you walked into the bedroom, you’d fall into an enormous black pit without boundaries or bottom.

When the dark was still fathomless, he woke up to feel somebody—Hal—moving his lips down his bare stomach.

Pierce grunted and pulled at his shirt—it seemed to have rucked up in the night—and Hal gently but firmly pushed the shirt back up. His lips kept traveling down, down, then up, spending a moment on Pierce’s nipples, until the haze of sleep and arousal made him groan.

Words… Pierce had to make words….

Words like… ah, God, hands everywhere… nipples… nibble just… oh, nip? Lick? Suck… no, no, different words.

No words?

Should there be “no” words here?

“Hal…,” he whispered, raising his hands to Hal’s thick hair to maybe pull him off… or knead his fingers in it, silky, and massage fingertips against Hal’s scalp.

Hal pulled up long enough to say “Shh….” and hold his fingertips against Pierce’s lips.

Okay. Hush. That was the only word.

Pierce closed his eyes against the darkness, seeing the pressure and pleasure of his body as bright white clouds against his eyelids.

A cloud at one nipple, under the play of Hal’s tongue, and then at the other. Hal skimmed his fingers through the decently thick patch of hair on Pierce’s chest, and Pierce breathed deeply and arched his hips, trying not to flail, trying to decide if he was dreaming.

The strobes of light danced behind his eyes. Bongo drumbeats of visual sensation, nipples, played to explosions of light, soft thrums of caress, down his ribs, across his soft stomach.

A hesitation at the waistband of his shorts, a flicker of lights as they were dragged down.

More tickling lights along his shaft, and a wafting pulse of breath along the head.

Pierce moaned, the actual sound in the quiet of the storm shocking.

“Hush,” Hal breathed, and that one word anchored him in the present.

The rest was sensual stimuli, his harsh breathing overshadowing the rain beating on the windows and that watercolor firework behind his closed eyes.

Rough tongue, wet heat, a hot cave of pressure—Pierce sighed loudly, afraid to make more noise, afraid that if he even blinked, the moment would disappear. He threw his arm over his eyes and arched into Hal’s mouth, his breathy moans growing but not breaking the bubble of silence over two men on the bed in the dark room.

He lost himself in the wonder of his body, the same body that had felt mostly useless, a betrayal of flesh and blood, over the past five months.

His body did amazing things.

Sure hands tugged gently on his balls, and that was it. “Coming,” he managed, but the heat and the pressure didn’t let up.

I should say something. About being HIV negative.

But he was coming, ejaculating, that part of his body working with amazing coordination considering it hadn’t been used in more than half a year.

He came forever, until he felt pumped from the inside out, collapsing on the bed and pushing feebly at Hal’s head when he became oversensitized.

“I… uh… neg—”

Hal covered his mouth with a sloppy, spit-covered hand. “Hush….”

Pierce moaned, his eyes closed of their own volition. Tired. So tired. Wrung out by emotion, by exertion, by oh-my-God sex! He curled into a ball on his side, only peripherally aware that someone was wiping at his groin with Kleenex and pulling his sleep pants and underwear up over his hips.

The rustling around his body stopped, and Hal backed carefully up against his front. Pierce flung his arm over that slim, taut waist and pulled closer, until they were spooning.

Warm and safe, content in a way he didn’t know he could be, he fell asleep.

When he woke up in the morning, Hal was toasting bagels in the kitchen, singing Barry Manilow to himself. Until Pierce went to the bathroom and tried to peel his underwear off his come-sticky pubic hair, he thought the whole thing had been a dream.

“It’s still raining and thundering!” Hal called from the living room. “You may as well shower—no pool today.”

“Bummer,” he muttered. The cleansing of the pool—that felt like something he needed right then.

“I’ll give you a yoga lesson and a rubdown,” Hal said, his voice coming right from the door. “So don’t hop in the shower just yet, ’cause yoga will make you sweat.”

“Okay—should I stay in my sleep pants?”

“Those’ll work fine. Now hurry up and eat—I need to work you out so we can go shopping today.”

Oh yeah. “Christmas shopping,” Pierce said, the thought actually comforting him. Christmas. His family. His plans. Things not derailed by what may or may not have happened in the heart of the night. “You want we should get decorations? I mean, I’m not leaving until Christmas Eve. Some tinsel might be nice.”

The breathing on the other side of the bathroom door grew awfully damned still. “Sure. Yeah. Let’s do that. It’ll be the only Christmas I get.”

Pierce sucked in a breath full of mostly razor blades, and Hal padded back to the kitchen.

By himself?

Pierce would leave and Hal would be here by himself?

Because it’s perfectly sane to ask this guy you’ve known for two weeks to come with you.

Alone?

Pierce may have only known the guy for two weeks, but he was pretty sure Hal hated to be alone.

But what sort of asshole asked a guy he barely knew to drop his life in Florida and come to Sacramento on a whim?

Pierce washed his hands and padded on the new rubber mats into the kitchen, where Hal had dished up two bagel sandwiches with some orange juice.

“This is awesome,” he said, heart giving a big throb in his chest. “You’re… you’re really good at taking care of me.”

Hal grinned sunnily. “See, that’s excellent to hear, because my parents think I can barely take care of myself.”

“They’re deluded,” Pierce said shortly, sitting down and unfolding his paper napkin onto his lap. “They’ve never woken up to bagels and orange juice with you.”

He expected Hal to add “And blowjobs!” and maybe broach the subject—but that didn’t happen.

“Well, maybe they were never as kind as you were,” Hal said, smiling shyly.

Pierce’s stomach knotted. “Kind?” God, that’s what he’d said the day before too, after Pierce had gotten off the phone with his ex-wife.

“Yeah. The way you talked to Cynthia—that was… I mean, I was prepared to hear you hate her. I thought she sounded like a real bitch—but you didn’t. You were… kind. And in the end, I think she got it. She got why the divorce. She understood.”

Pierce looked away, feeling uncomfortable. “I’m not always nice,” he said, suddenly desperately afraid of letting Hal down. “You know that. I was a grumpy bastard two weeks ago.”

“You were in pain,” Hal said simply. He beamed up at Pierce, showing no regret about the things they’d done in the night—hell, almost no knowledge of it. Just simple, uplifting forgiveness.

Pierce nodded and tried to give Hal something real. “Less pain every day,” he said brightly.

“That’s what I like to hear.” Hal wiped his face and nodded decisively. “Okay—I’m going to go get my yoga mats and an area rug from upstairs—I don’t want you trying yoga on the tile.”

“I could do yoga in your place,” Pierce said, and Hal’s furtive look from under his lashes made something in Pierce’s stomach twist.

“I, uh, need to clean up there,” Hal told him. “It’s just easier for me to go get my stuff.”

Pierce nodded, wondering again what sort of damage Hal could have inflicted on his apartment in the two days after Thanksgiving and before he’d come down to the pool and seen Pierce struggling to do water aerobics to his iPhone.

In a dim, sort of distant way, it was starting to dawn on him that Hal had been very much alone in his life before he’d sprawled in a lounge chair and started bossing Pierce around.

Hal deserved more than that.

“So,” Pierce said, resolving to talk about the blowjob in the room. “About—”

“Christmas shopping? I figure Target for decorations and toys, you think? And you should be able to get an appliance there for your sister, right?”

The desperation in his voice hit the raw edge of Pierce’s nerve, and Pierce finally got it. They weren’t supposed to talk about the blowjob in the night.

And for a moment he struggled against that—because he wanted to talk about it. Hell, he wanted to reciprocate it. But, oh God. He was leaving in two weeks. Whatever happened in those spare, breathless moments in the dark, how much could it mean?

Everything, you fucking coward. It means everything.

But Pierce had been locked in the silence of his own head since… well, not even before the accident. Since before Cynthia, really.

Since Loren.

Since he’d last believed in unicorns.

“What, uh,” Pierce struggled to articulate. “What, uh, would you like for Christmas?”

Hal’s full mouth— had been wrapped around Pierce’s cock —quirked up at the corners. “A teddy bear,” he said with satisfaction. “Something… something furry. To hug in bed.”

Pierce remembered Hal’s fingers petting the silky hair on his chest as he sucked on Pierce’s nipples. “I can do bears,” he said, fully aware of the innuendo and unable to stop it.

“You can do otters too,” Hal said with a wink. “But I really only want a bear.”

Pierce blushed and took a big bite of his bagel. “Mm’kay,” he said through a full mouth. “’M brrrr.”

Hal burst out laughing, and they finished breakfast in peace.

AN HOUR later, Pierce was stretching awkwardly, trying to attain the warrior’s pose, and Hal was grabbing his sweaty body everywhere at once to help him find the position.

“Ouch!” Pierce complained after a particularly hard crank to his knee.

“Oh shit—I’m sorry! Okay, you know what? You work so hard in the water, you had me fooled. I’m going to go back to very basic moves—like kids’ moves. They’ll be good for your coordination, and if we increase the speed, they’ll help you with cardio. You game?”

Pierce’s body hurt—a lot—and those warm fuzzy thoughts he’d had about Hal that morning had become sort of thin and meshy over the last fifteen minutes.

“Yeah,” he admitted, pulling his feet under him and putting his hand out to try to find balance. Hal caught his hand and pulled up behind his elbow. “This isn’t working.”

“Okay. I’m going to help you sit down, and I need you to spread your legs. Let’s start there.”

Pierce let himself be stretched and wondered again who had told this kid he couldn’t make a living doing what he was doing. Yeah, sure—he made mistakes. But no teacher started out perfect. And Hal had such a good heart, such a willingness to try what he needed in order to make his plan work.

How could you say no in the face of that raw enthusiasm?

Pierce obviously couldn’t.

But the thing was, when he said something funny and Hal turned those laughing brown eyes on Pierce’s face, Pierce didn’t ever want to try. He wanted to tell Hal yes to absolutely everything, anything, as long as he could make this young man that happy.

And as Hal squatted at his feet and pushed his toes toward his nose to help with his dorsiflex, Pierce was finding fewer and fewer reasons he shouldn’t do that.

Hal was honest about the workout being more intense than he’d anticipated—so he kept it to forty-five minutes and did lots of therapeutic breathing at the end. Pierce was grateful—and even more grateful that at the end he felt refreshed and not destroyed.

And then Hal helped Pierce stand up, and they were standing chest to chest, with only the memory of the hallucinogenic midnight blowjob between them.

“I’m negative,” Pierce blurted.

Hal raised his eyebrows and smirked. “Yeah, but we’re working on that.” He said it with a little shake of the head, and Pierce heard the Please, please don’t talk about it in that movement and took a deep breath.

“Forewarned is forearmed,” he said, letting that have two meanings.

Hal’s eyes widened for a moment, as though the thought surprised him. “Very true. And I’ve now been warned of your negativity.”

He gestured grandly then, breaking the heat between them, and Pierce hobbled to the shower.

The rest of the day seemed to be spent in that dual state of awareness, though. On the one hand, they were the two guys who had spoken frankly and slyly for the last two weeks.

On the other hand, every time they touched, whether it was when Hal offered him a hand out of the car or bumped his shoulder as Pierce leaned his weight on the shopping cart, was like shaking a bottle full of lightning.

Sparks everywhere.

“Hm… throw pillows, what do you think?” Hal asked, looking at some brightly colored Christmas pillows with trees and holly berries on them.

“I think Derrick will be surprised,” Pierce said, and then, remembering that Derrick and Miranda were supposed to be there on New Year’s Day, said, “Throw them in, with some of the dark blue too. It’ll be like a thank-you gift.”

“That’s really nice!” Hal said, with that surprising excitement for “niceness.” “Also, it’s really convenient, since we can use them too!”

“Well, if Derrick didn’t like gifts that served double duty, he wouldn’t have gotten me a PS4 with three extra controllers last year,” Pierce told him dryly.

For a moment Hal looked blank, and then it hit him. “So he could play at your house,” he said, nodding in approval. “But why three extras?”

“For our wives.” Pierce shrugged. “Miranda liked to play but Cynthia didn’t, so Miranda, being a better person than any of the rest of us hosers, pretended not to want to play so Derrick and I could have the game room to ourselves and she and Cynthia could go buy decorating stuff at Target.”

“Hm….” Hal glared at the throw pillows like they were responsible for irony. “I am not sure how to feel about any of that. I mean, on the one hand, Derrick sounds like my kind of guy—”

“You’ll love him,” Pierce said, thinking that Derrick and Miranda could… could look after Hal, after they got there. “He’s, like, ultra-super cool.”

“Describe ultra-super cool,” Hal said, eyebrow cocked skeptically.

Well. Here was an embarrassing story. “Like, he walked in on me and Loren before he knew about the bi thing. Took one look at Loren on his knees—”

“Oh my God!”

“Yeah—embarrassing, right?”

It could have been. It could have been horrific. But Derrick really was the best.

“What did you do?” Hal asked, entranced.

“It was more like what did he do. And what he did was take one look at Loren there and said, ‘Oh my God, you’re bi!’” Pierce ignored Hal’s bark of laughter and continued. “And I said, ‘Is this a problem?’” And Pierce left out how terrified he was, because he and Derrick… well, inseparable since grade school, which was why they’d roomed together in college. “And he said, ‘It is when you don’t leave a sock on the bedroom door, asshole! I don’t care who you’re with, I’ll never unsee you having sex!’”

Hal laughed, ducking his head and then looking back at him with a softly bitten lip. “Poor man,” he said, but his apple cheeks were popping with the force of his grin.

“Yeah. I’d be worried it scarred him for life, but he met Miranda about a month after that, and suddenly our apartment was made of socks on the door, so I think he’ll be okay.”

“That’s… that’s sweet.” Hal’s grin faded. “So they’ve been together since college?” he asked, suddenly uncertain. “Over ten years?”

“Yeah. Hey—this little wooden Christmas tree. Don’t hate me, but I think this could go on the end table by the window, don’t you?”

Hal looked at it and nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” he said. “It’s perfect. I… I thought Russ and me were going to do that,” he blurted. “Like… like your friend and his wife.”

Pierce almost dropped the Christmas tree into the cart from about two feet up. He barely managed to lower it so it rested awkwardly on the throw pillows, and wondered if maybe he shouldn’t have visited the kid’s section first.

“Is this the guy who cheated on you?” he asked, because he knew that name now.

“Yeah.” Hal’s eyes cruised restlessly, and he reached out to a wooden dreidel, colored blue and white. “My mother has one of these,” he said, pleased. “I… I mean, I have no idea what it’s for, because we did Christmas like my dad’s family, but—”

“We’ll put it by the Christmas tree,” Pierce told him, setting it carefully next to the tree. “Do you want a menorah?”

Hal frowned. “No… ’cause, again, I have no idea what it’s for. But I do want a tinsel banner, so find that aisle, quick!”

“Yeah, sure. When did you and Russ break up?” Because Hal was avoiding two questions today, and if Pierce didn’t get to, Hal didn’t get to.

“Valentine’s Day, this year,” Hal told him, rolling his eyes. “So no, I’m not all sentimental about him now because he broke up with me before Christmas.”

“Glad to know that,” Pierce said dryly, and then he stopped and sighed. “Hal?”

“What?”

For a moment, they looked each other in the eyes, the bustle around them of a zillion people on a holiday mission making the painful personal moment a little easier to bear.

“If you ever want to tell me something… you know. Real. I could be that guy for you. Now. I mean, I couldn’t have been that guy for you right after Thanksgiving. I was too pissed at myself. But I could be that guy for you now if you want.”

A faint smile pulled the corners of Hal’s mouth up.

“I’ll… I’ll keep that in mind.” But he turned away quickly, reaching onto the shelves and coming back with an exquisite holiday star, a combination of fiber optics and plastic filigree that managed to look enchanting in spite of what should have been very tacky beginnings. “Don’t hate me, but I love this.”

Pierce grimaced, oddly let down. “Throw it in the cart,” he said.

“But we don’t have anything to put it on.”

“We’ll get some cord and hang it from the ceiling. It’ll look avant-garde—no one will have to know we just made it up as we went along.”

Hal laughed, but there was no joy in the sound. “Apparently that’s all of adulthood.”

“Yeah, well, adulthood has some surprisingly awesome moments, so don’t knock it,” Pierce snapped, trying hard not to be heartbroken. He stalked through decorations a little faster, wanting to get to the kids’ department before the weariness in his legs became a problem.

Hal caught up with him easily and placed his hand on the back of Pierce’s elbow. Normally Pierce didn’t need this unless he was using his cane, and right before he shook off the hand, he recognized it for what it truly was:

A peace offering.

“Some dinner after we get the presents and get out of here?” Hal offered as a treaty.

“Sure. What do you want for Christmas, though?”

“I already told you—a teddy bear!”

Pierce grimaced. “Oh, dammit! Speaking of things in the kids’ department—”

Hal smacked his forehead with his palm. “Yeah. You have short people to spoil. Where to, hoss?”

God, Target was huge. Past the linens and a rockin’ discussion of whether it was okay to have lavender-scented dreams when you slept on purple sheets, and on through towels, with more arguments about whether pretty patterned towels meant someone was douchey—Hal said yes—or just Californian—Pierce was on that boat.

Finally, just before Hal came to the conclusion that all Californians were inevitably douchey—which Pierce would have argued against to the death—they found the toy department.

And Nirvana.

“Oh. My. God.” Hal swung around the Lego shelves like Julie Andrews did a helicopter twirl on a mountain in the alps. “Legos? Seriously? This is what Legos look like these days?”

Pierce looked around, comforted by the fact that he was pretty sure Darius only had about half these sets. “What? You never got Legos as a kid?”

He got a scowl in return. “My cutoff date for Legos was twelve. Some asshole put a little number on the box that said they were good from eight to twelve, so my dad the judge and mom the helicopter parent started getting me foreign language lessons and science camp memberships after that.”

“You know, you’re not making a case for money making a good parent,” Pierce said, truly dismayed. “Do you see the Millennium Falcon? That thing’s good ’til you’re sixteen!”

Hal smirked at him. “How old were you?”

“Well, Sasha and Marshall gave it to me three years ago—remember that study I’m crazy about? It’s got a Lego Millennium Falcon in a glass case on the shelf. Took Derrick and me three days, but man, it was worth it.”

“So, what? You and your sister just swap Lego sets?” Hal picked up a giant Lego Batman scenario that cost a hundred dollars easy.

“You forget,” Pierce said patiently. “My parents were douchebags too. So basically, all we got for Christmas was Sunday school clothes and Bible study coloring books—”

“Yuck!”

“I’m saying. We got older, and it was mostly wooden chess sets for me and sewing kits for Sasha. So when I was twelve, and we could walk to the store together, we would save our allowance and buy each other gifts. She always bought me Legos, because—dude? Can you see?”

“I’m sold,” Hal said seriously, grabbing a big bucket of assorted parts and looking at it with lust in his eyes.

“Well, I would buy her Barbies. And now that Abigail is, like, four years old, I promised Sasha I’d keep that kid eyeballs-deep in Barbie dolls and Monster High and whatever else is current and pink and awesome.” Pierce gestured grandly. “If she wants Legos, I’ll get them. Pink Legos? I’m on it. Those kids are getting more toys than they know what to do with—Sasha and I made a pact.”

“Word,” Hal said, nodding like he was now the choir and Pierce could preach. “But, about this bucket of Legos—don’t you think we could make an awesome Christmas tree with this?”

“Put it in,” Pierce said, liking this plan. “And grab the giant Guardians of the Galaxy one behind you.” He grinned, feeling magnanimous and evil. “And go find two teddy bears—one for you and one for Sasha.”

“Wait—I thought you were getting your sister a Keurig?” Hal asked suspiciously.

Pierce remembered his sister as a child, all big brown eyes and dark hair, pale and afraid of pissing off Mom and Dad. “A coffee maker to wake up her inner adult,” he said with dignity, “and a teddy bear to comfort her inner child.”

Hal grinned. “Okay—you look at Barbies, and I’ll go cruise stuffed animals. Meet back in five.”

Pierce thought about family planning and wondered if he could sneak lubricant and condoms into the cart and get back in time to find Abigail’s present. He cursed his range of motion, because he knew he wouldn’t make it, and being… overt about it might just frighten Hal off.

Dammit.

But he owed his niece a present and had just decided on the Monster High Mansion when Hal came around the corner, one giant stuffed pink bear under one arm, and a giant stuffed bear with green eyes and light brown fur held against his chest with the other.

Pierce looked from the bear to Hal’s face and back again. “Is that supposed to be me?” he asked dryly.

“Do you let me cuddle you like this?” Hal asked, waggling his eyebrows.

“I might.” Pierce waggled his back, wondering how long they could flirt without actually mentioning the damned blowjob-in-the-dark-room thing that had happened the night before.

“Then yes,” Hal said archly, putting both bears in the laden cart. He paused for a moment and looked at the cart again. “And we’re going to have to stop debating on which bear I’m going to sleep with and check out. This thing’s full and”—he raked Pierce’s body over with a critical eye—“unless I miss my guess, you’re getting tired.”

“No I’m—” Pierce yawned. “—not.”

Hal raised an eyebrow, looking bored.

“Fine. And I’m starving. Let’s go.”

The line was damned long, and by the time they got through it, Pierce was limping badly. Hal made him go sit down in the CR-V while he unloaded the cart, and when he got back into the car, he sighed like he’d made a big decision.

“Okay—here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to call a chain restaurant for takeout, we’ll go park in the takeout spot and I’ll run in and get it, and we’ll take it back home with us. That way you can eat and crash, and I can start immediately on making a Christmas tree out of Legos because honestly, it is all about me, and that sounds like the most fun ever .”

Pierce laughed—because how could he not. “Yeah,” he said, wishing he was a woman with ibuprofen in her purse or something. “That sounds awesome.”

Hal’s hand, warm on his shoulder, surprised him. “I’ll take care of you,” he said softly. “I’m young, but I can train up quick.”

And Pierce, tired, confused, and in need of some reassurance, took it for what it was. “You’ll do a great job,” he said. “I don’t know why you worry.”

Hal looked away. “Yeah. Yeah, you do.” He pulled out his phone and started tapping into it without looking up. “So, Applebee’s—what’s your favorite item there?”

Pierce ordered a sandwich, and they were both quiet on the drive. Hal parked, and Pierce leaned back against the seat, eyes closed.

“It’ll be a minute,” Hal said softly. “I’m going to run next door to get something before getting our food.”

Pierce kept his eyes closed and nodded. He wasn’t even sure when Hal came out, takeout bags rustling as he put them behind the driver seat, and he tried hard not to drool on the way home.

HE WOKE up for takeout at Derrick’s little glass-topped table, the Target bags sitting accusingly in the corner of the room.

“We forgot wrapping paper,” Pierce said, halfway through his sandwich, and Hal smacked his forehead with his palm.

“D’oh! God, we suck at this!”

“Right?” Pierce couldn’t help the shocked laughter. “We’re, like, epically bad. We’ll have to learn to make lists.”

“Either that or set up a little minicamp at Target. ‘Hello, we’re the eternal shoppers. We go home between trips, but we have a cot for the times we forget half the shit we came for.’”

“That would totally work,” Pierce agreed. “Like in those apocalyptic movies, where people gather in a shopping mall or Target. You’ve got years’ worth of canned goods and all the clothes in your size you could ask for.”

“And they’ve got video games and probably their own generator,” Hal said, because maybe when you were twenty-three you remembered the important stuff.

“And sleeping bags and futons—” And condoms and lubricant and privacy. “—and we, uh, you could be totally comfortable there for quite some time.” Oh God. Pierce had just remembered why he was the bear and why Hal would rank videogames as a postapocalyptic necessity.

But Hal didn’t seem to think there was anything amiss. “We,” he said, eyes to the side like he was imagining something pleasant. “ We could be happy and comfortable for quite some time.”

“Okay,” Pierce mumbled, not sure what he was agreeing to. Suddenly he didn’t care. “ We could be happy and comfortable in Target after the apocalypse. It’ll be our destination place when we’re running from the zombie hordes.”

They finished dinner, talking about the best strategy for defeating the vicious undead, and Pierce got up to help clear the table while Hal raided the bags.

“You can throw the pillows on the couch,” Pierce instructed, rinsing silverware and cups. “That’s where they were meant to go anyway.”

Hal started to laugh, all evil. “Throw pillows. Get it? They’re throw pillows, and I’m throwing them.”

Pierce stared at him. “Oh dear God.”

He repeated his evil cackle and sailed the next pillow across the room like a Frisbee. The next one went too far, and Pierce stuck his hand up and caught it before it could hit the refrigerator.

They both stopped and stared at Pierce’s game hand and arm in shock.

Pierce met Hal’s grinning countenance with fierce triumph of his own, and then Hal pumped his fist, dancing on the hard tile of the living room with undisguised glee.

“ I am going to be the best massage therapist/personal trainer on the planet ! I’m rehab therapy king of the frickin’ world !”

Pierce dried his good hand at the sink, then grabbed the pillow to chuck it at Hal’s head. Hal didn’t even duck, he was enjoying his celebration too much. And why not? Pierce grinned at him, not quite ready to mambo—or so he thought.

“You don’t get out of this that easy,” Hal told him, dancing into the kitchen. “Here—turn toward me—conga line! You’re the big spoon!”

Oh wow. Hands on slim hips, Bugs Bunny moves ready! There was only the music in Hal’s head, and he slowed it down enough for Pierce to keep up. Bum-bum-bum-bum-ba-BUMP, bum-bum-bum-bum-ba-BUMP , together they conga-trained into the living room. Hal grabbed his hands and turned them around so Pierce’s back was toward the couch, and Pierce, caught up in the madness, wrapped his arms around Hal’s waist as he fell backward, pulling Hal down on top of him.

He turned at the last moment, depositing Hal sloppily next to him, while the two of them laughed like children. Then they both seemed to take a breath at the same time, and the moment grew long, stretched breathlessly between them, a taffy moment with no end.

Pierce broke first, biting his lip and looking down at Hal’s chest, heat stealing over his cheeks. Kiss me, Hal. Please. Hal leaned forward, and Pierce looked up into his eyes. For a moment, while his heart beat in his ears, they stared at each other, and Hal’s plush mouth pursed, came closer, and…

…veered to the right to gently buss Pierce’s cheek.

Come on!

Hal pushed himself up to his feet, bouncing like the moment never happened.

Oh. Maybe last night was a fluke. Maybe he’s just really kind and doesn’t want me after all. I’m older and have scars, and I was pretty fuckin’ average anyway. Maybe he just wants to be friends.

He is a pretty amazing friend.

“Are you ready to do the Lego thing?” Hal asked, and Pierce nodded bemusedly, trying hard to keep his disappointment to himself.

THEY WERE deep into the intricacies of making rectangular Legos turn into a round shape when his phone buzzed with Sasha’s nightly text—and then rang, because apparently the text was a warning shot.

Pierce answered the phone saying, “Hey, Sasha, what’s up?”

“You sound happier,” she said, but she didn’t, and Pierce’s antennae went on high alert.

“I am. What’s wrong?”

“They’re coming,” she said, voice crumbling. “Pierce, I didn’t know what to do. They called up and said they were coming for Christmas—they didn’t ask or anything. I mean, I don’t even know how they knew my number. I wasn’t even living here the last time I talked to them.”

Pierce blinked, trying not to freak out. “Wait. You mean—our parents are coming?”

“Yeah. What am I going to do?”

Oh Jesus. “Do you want them in your house, Sash? Be honest. I was the bastard who told them not to talk to you at all if they couldn’t be nice. If you want them back in your life—”

“No!” Her voice cracked into tears. “No. Pierce, I can’t even…. My kids just watched me cry, and Marshall had to help me breathe after they hung up, and he was going to call them up and tell them to go to hell but… but he’s not a… a warrior , Pierce. You are.” And now she sounded like she was crying quietly, like when they were kids. “You are. Please, I know you’re mad at yourself now, because you got mad because you were hurt. But… but that’s just because you’re used to being on the making-it-right side of things. That’s why you and Cynthia, I think—I mean, for all her faults, Pierce, she kept trying to make the world better.”

“Don’t worry,” he said grimly. “Sasha, don’t worry. Where’d they call from?”

“I’ll text you the number,” she said, sniffling. “Please don’t let them come to my house on Christmas. I’m sorry I’m such a… a fucking mouse about this—”

“Stop,” he said, making sure his voice was firm. “Sasha, you are strong. You walked out of their lives and you… I was an asshole when I was there, but even I could see what a good life you made for your kids. So don’t… don’t be mad at yourself because you don’t have the asshole gene, okay? I guess it’s all I’m good for.”

“No,” she protested. “No—that’s not why I asked you.”

Pierce’s mouth twisted—he couldn’t help it. But he kept the bitterness out of his voice when he talked to his little sister. “Honey, I’m going to go call them now, okay?” He pushed himself up off the couch, where Hal was looking at him with big eyes.

Well, Hal didn’t want him at all—he might as well show Hal who he really was.

“Thank you,” Sasha said on a sigh. “Thanks, Pierce. I’m so grateful.”

“Love you, Sash,” he said quietly. “I’ll take that info now.”

He disconnected and grimaced at Hal. “You don’t want to hear what’s going to happen next.”

“You’re not an asshole,” Hal said staunchly.

Pierce sighed. “You’re such a sweet guy. You wouldn’t know an asshole if….” He came in your mouth in the dark. “If he threw a pillow at your head.” And with that, Pierce limped to the bedroom, just as his phone dinged with Sasha’s text and a number he thought would have changed by now.

He hit the link with a sigh.

“Hello, Atwater residence, Diana Atwater speaking.”

Oh hell—his mother hadn’t changed in the least.

“This is your son, Pierce, Diana. I’ve called to ask you very nicely to stay the fuck away from Florida.”

“Pierce?” For once his mother sounded startled. “Pierce, why on earth would you be calling?”

“You called Sasha, right?”

“Yes, but you made it very clear that you never wished to speak to us again. We honored your wishes. Your sister, on the other hand—”

“Is the same person she was eight years ago, except happy. Why in the hell would you call her up out of the blue and fuck that up?”

He waited for something to happen inside him, something that would relent, some scrap of decency that would let him feel bad about the way he was speaking to his mother. But all he could remember was a rigid back in the front of the car as his mother taxied him and Sasha around town, six days a week, to the relentless activities that he and Sasha had been enrolled in pretty much since preschool. Derrick would get to soccer practice singing Led Zeppelin at the top of his lungs with his father or hanging out for one last bit of conversation with his mom. Pierce would slingshot the fuck out of the back seat like all the demons of hell were on his ass.

Or at least one big freezing demon with perfectly coifed hair.

“I really don’t know what this has to do with you, Pierce—”

“I’m going to be at Sasha’s for Christmas. Did you let her tell you that?”

There was a shocked silence. “No—we didn’t think—”

“What? That Sasha and I talked? I wrecked my car, Mom. Wrecked my car, lost my job, almost died, and got a divorce. And Sasha stepped up to take care of me like I took care of her. I’m staying at a friend’s beach house right now, but you know what? I promised to come back. And Sasha wants me back for Christmas. So I’m going to be there, and Sasha wants me there and not you. Live with that.”

“But… but, Pierce.” And for the first time in his life, Pierce heard his mother’s voice waver. “Our grandchildren. You’d deprive… your father and me of meeting our grandchildren?”

Pierce took a deep breath and thought of forgiveness. “You really want to meet your grandchildren? Start with a card on their birthdays. Start with presents. Start with a phone call once a week where you get to know them. Don’t call your daughter up and bully her into something she would rather not do.”

“You really don’t think much of us, do you?”

It was not his imagination. She sounded hurt. The last time they’d had this conversation, she’d sounded pissed and superior and smug. She’d told him that his interference would be immaterial—Sasha would come crawling back eventually.

Shit.

Just like Cynthia. Someone had fucking learned.

“No,” he said, his voice dropping. “I don’t. But you still have a chance with Sasha. Not this Christmas you don’t. This Christmas I’m going to be there, in all my pissed-off glory—”

“We could see you too, son,” his mother said hesitantly.

“I’m bisexual. I’m seeing a man right now. No.”

Yeah, he’d always wondered if he should come out to his parents—why would he need to if he was married to Cynthia? If Loren was going to break up with him? His mother’s harshly drawn breath was all the reward he’d ever needed.

“Why would you even tell us that?” his mother asked, her voice breaking.

“Why would it even matter?” he shot back. “See? You’re the same people. You’re the people who screamed at Sasha until she broke. You’re the people who drove her boyfriend—the one who’d proposed, by the way—away with a baseball bat. You’re the same judgmental, disapproving assholes you’ve always been—and you just proved it all over again. You want a relationship with your grandchildren, go ahead and send a card and some presents. Just remember, I’ve got an eight-year head start spoiling them rotten, and they are always going to love me best.”

“Does Sasha even know who she’s exposing her children to?” Diana asked, voice all venom. “Does she know about your… your… perversion ?”

“She’s known since I was in college. See, you were never really interested in us as people—but we always had each other’s backs. Still do. So, are you coming to Christmas if I’m there?”

“No. I’ll have to discuss this with your father to see if we want to come at all.”

“Just say no. Neither of us want you back in our lives. If you can’t do the work, don’t bother.”

It was as good an exit line as any, so he hung up. Pierce set the phone in the charger and sat heavily on the bed. He heard a noise in the doorway and turned his head, unsurprised to see Hal there.

“Sorry,” he rasped, hating himself so badly in that moment.

“Why?” Hal asked. He reached behind him and switched off the hall light. Pierce realized the bedroom was the only room in the house that still had a light on. Well, it was pretty late. Suddenly wiped out, he pulled his feet out of his flip-flops and pulled his mostly clean sleep pants out from under the pillow.

“That wasn’t… pleasant.” Pierce sighed. “Hold on a second.” He grabbed his phone off the charger and texted I told her I’d be there and I’m bisexual. Make sure Marshall knows.

Pierce set the phone down and wrestled with his cargo shorts. After he won, he laid them on the dresser and grabbed the sleep pants.

“You can just wear boxers,” Hal said. It sounded like he was tripping over his tongue.

Pierce didn’t even look at him. He felt… numb. And sad. And unwanted.

His phone pinged. Marshall’s always known. She just texted and said she’d be in touch, but they wouldn’t be coming for Christmas. Thank you.

He swallowed. God, he still couldn’t look Hal in the eyes. Love you, Sasha. Night.

Love you back. Night.

His fingers were still fairly nimble. He’d realized that in the past two weeks—his arm had been broken and sustained muscle and nerve damage, but his hand and fingers worked just fine. He unbuttoned his overshirt and laid it down next to the cargo pants before setting the phone down one last time.

He felt Hal’s weight depress the bed and stretched forward to turn off the light while the comforter under his ass got yanked down. Nice. That was a nice thing to do.

He was unprepared for Hal’s heat at his back or the hands at the hem of his T-shirt in the dark.

“What are you—”

“Shh….” Hal breathed into his ear. “Just… hush.”

This again?

But he could feel Hal’s lips his neck, his ear, down his shoulder. This again didn’t seem like a terrible thing. Hal lifted his T-shirt up over his head, and Pierce could raise his hands up to help him out—a thing he couldn’t have done two and a half weeks ago.

“Thank—”

Hal kissed the back of his neck, and he grunted, all senses going on overdrive. Then Hal put his lips almost touching the whorls of Pierce’s ear. “You are not an asshole.”

Pierce moaned, his entire body going boneless. Hal moved and pulled him backward until he was lying face up in the darkness. He stared at the ceiling while Hal kissed his way down again, thinking Dammit, no. Not… not… ah….

Hal’s mouth, dreamy, insistent, wrapped around Pierce’s cock through the cotton of his boxers. Pierce massaged his head as Hal mouthed him. Pierce grunted, his hips bucking, his libido getting the hint that last night’s activity had not been a fluke.

He was going to say something, give a direction, ask if he could reciprocate— something —but then Hal tugged at his boxers, and he was naked under the cool air of the ceiling fan, his knees spread before the world. Hal repositioned himself between Pierce’s legs, and Pierce lifted his head, watching Hal suck his cock, bare now, over Pierce’s long body.

Hal’s eyes gleamed wickedly in the dark room, daring him to say anything. Daring him to actively engage.

“Harder,” Pierce whispered. “Faster. Oh God, yes !”

Hal took him down, all the way, grabbing his shaft as he pulled his head back, and Pierce urged him on unashamedly. If this was what Hal wanted to do, Pierce wanted it—oh God, how he wanted it.

“That’s so good,” Pierce rasped. “So… oh God. Hal…. Hal, I’m going to….”

Then Hal slid his fingers, slick with spit, down Pierce’s crease, and Pierce almost sobbed. One finger, penetrating, just a little, just enough….

“Come!” Pierce cried, tugging on his hair.

But like the night before, when Pierce had been able to pretend it never really happened, Hal sucked hard on the bell and swallowed.

“Thank you,” Pierce chanted. “Thank you, thank you, thank you….”

Hal moved off his cock and pulled up his shorts, sliding up the bed to rest his head on Pierce’s chest.

And Pierce wanted more. With another tug on Hal’s hair, Pierce held his head back.

“Kiss me,” he ordered gently.

Hal’s mouth, glazed with spit and come, swollen from sucking on Pierce’s cock, parted. “But—”

Pierce kissed him, the kiss as sensual as the blowjob. He fell into Hal’s mouth, plundered it, tasted his own semen and swept his tongue in for more. Hal groaned, and Pierce turned his body so Hal was lying on his back in his underwear.

Oh Lord—he was so beautiful. Cut muscles, golden skin—tiny flat caramel-colored nipples. Pierce wanted to taste it all, but Hal’s mouth was too delicious to leave.

He kissed and allowed his hand to roam, playing with the tightened ends of the nipple candy and gliding his palm down the smooth skin of Hal’s stomach.

And still that kiss went on, Pierce’s replete body howling for intimate knowledge of the man who had so pleased him.

He slid his hand under Hal’s waistband and groaned at the decadence of the hardened flesh under his palm.

“Jesus, Hal, you’re huge,” he breathed, squeezing the base and tightening his grip over the shaft.

Hal half sobbed into his mouth. “Ah… oh God… just… keep… oh please….”

Pierce pushed up to move so he could taste too, remember the feeling of a cock down his throat, luxuriate in the taste of another man’s spend. Hal shook his head and captured Pierce with his hands, holding him there for more kisses, intimate and blistering, while Pierce grasped him hard and stroked.

The first spill of hot precome from the head was torture. Pierce wanted it, craved the feel of it spurting down the back of his throat. But Hal kept up with the kisses, so Pierce kept stroking until Hal cried out, “Slow! Hard! Squeeze the… ohmigod omigod omigod…. Pierce! ”

Ah! Pierce bucked against Hal’s hip, spilling a little bit himself as the first thick spurt oiled the rest of that amazing member. Pierce kept squeezing, touching, fondling, until the final spend, and Hal whimpered a little, sore.

Pierce pulled his hand up to his mouth, but Hal stopped him, eyes anxious and searching in the darkness.

“I need to get tested,” he whispered, head turned like he was ashamed.

“Do,” Pierce told him, wiping his hand off on the sheets and going in for a kiss. “I want to—”

Hal took his mouth hard, clinging, pulling back right when Pierce’s entire brain was about to obliviate. “Why?” he asked while their harsh breathing returned to normal. “Why did you…?”

“I wanted it to be real,” Pierce told him, his voice a faint rumble and not a whisper. “I wanted us to touch.”

Hal closed his eyes, like that hurt, and swallowed. “I’ll get tested tomorrow,” he promised.

“Did you think I wouldn’t understand?” Pierce’s turn to lay his head on Hal’s shoulder. “Did you think I’d judge you?”

“I wanted you to… to think I was a grown-up,” Hal confessed, voice breaking a little. “All your talk about being old and cynical. I… wanted to be a grown-up and still a unicorn. So you’d know….”

“Shh….” Pierce’s turn to silence the roaring in Hal’s heart. He rolled a bit and kissed Hal, taking the sadness and the worry away. “Shh….” He kissed him again, just the slip of a tongue, not arousing but kind, healing. “You’ll always be a unicorn,” he promised. “You’ll be forty-five and a unicorn. Or sixty. Just because I’m not as strong as you are doesn’t mean I don’t believe in you.”

Hal shook his head and buried his face in the hollow of Pierce’s shoulder. “You are,” he hiccupped. “You are a unicorn. You just won’t see….”

Pierce didn’t know what to do with that. He nuzzled Hal’s temple until his breathing quieted down some and Pierce could close his eyes and fall fast asleep.