Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Chapter 4 Once You Leave the City People Don’t Miss You

Chapter 4: Once You Leave the City People Don’t Miss You

ELI MANAGED to get home by ten, and the sound of his footsteps echoing on the hardwood was one of the emptiest things he’d ever heard.

Hardwood is actually sort of warm looking, but we should get each other slippers for our first Christmas, I think.

He smiled as he remembered Andy saying that before they moved in. The day they’d officially unpacked, Eli had walked into their bedroom and found a box of moccasins on the new navy-and-cream-colored comforter, with his name sharpied on the top.

Andy wasn’t great at waiting until Christmas. Eli’d felt his phone buzzing in his pocket as he’d walked from the subway station to the building, but he hadn’t answered right away. For one thing, it was not particularly smart to lose situational awareness in Brooklyn at night, no matter how gentrified your neighborhood, but for another, he knew the texts were from Andy and he wanted to… savor.

He was going into an empty apartment; the texts would keep him company.

In a few minutes, he was curled up on the couch, covered with a throw and with the TV on for ambient noise—some sort of Christmas thing where a big city girl fell in love with a small town. Eli shuddered. There were chickens in the movie. It didn’t matter how many times he and Andy took the kids on state-funded trips to a farm in the summer, chickens frightened him more than any of the big things. Horses, cows, alpacas, pigs—they were all big, and even when running full out, they still felt… well, carlike . Chickens were like rats, but without the intelligence and self-interest. And roosters attacked people. He’d seen roosters attack people!

He shuddered. So very many reasons he never wanted to move out of Brooklyn.

But he would for Andy. If Andy ever asked him, he’d go in a second. He hadn’t told Andy that, though. He was really hoping it wouldn’t come down to that.

On that thought, he pulled out his phone and looked at the series of pictures Andy had texted him.

One was of a Thai food place at a strip mall with a background of snowy woods behind it. In front of the place stood an unfairly handsome man with dark brown hair, a glossy brown beard, and thickly lashed brown eyes.

This is Porter—yes, THE Porter, the ex. My parents sent him to pick me up at the station. He says hi and really wants to meet you.

Eli swallowed and took a deep breath. So there it was: his biggest fear, out in the open, with the picture of the guy in the super-detailed blue-and-white Christmas sweater. Andy’s ex-boyfriend from high school. But he was grinning and holding up his phone and… wait a minute. What did the phone say?

HI, ELI!

Oh wow. There he was, being all up-front and transparent about knowing other single men and making sure Eli had nothing to be jealous of or insecure about.

Tell him hi back, he texted, smiling a little.

I will, Andy replied. Late night?

Yes. Everybody loved the fancy ornaments, and the tree is lovely. He’d taken pictures all day and sent them to Andy.

I saw, but I had to wait until we got to Mom and Dad’s place, because the Wi-Fi here isn’t great. All the kids look really happy!

They were. Margie outdid herself with the glitter. Lola was thrilled. Her little sister was also excited.

He’d included a picture of the two girls. Josie was ten and had run away when her father had beaten her for confessing to a same-sex crush. Lola had taken the girl under her wing almost from the get-go, maybe because nobody had for her when she’d been that age. The two girls couldn’t have been more different in appearance. Lola was tall and slender and blond, with a ponytail and mischievous green eyes, and Josie was small, soft, and round, Latina with darker skin and sloe eyes. It didn’t matter. They clung to each other through thick and thin, two children displaced by the hurricane of the world.

They look really happy, Andy texted back. Any news on Lola’s college applications?

Eli sighed. No, although they didn’t expect to hear until after spring break. It was still sort of a monster in the closet for the girl. Going away to college meant leaving Rainbow House, and Rainbow House was not just the only home she’d ever felt safe in, it was also Josie.

Not until spring, you know that.

I do, but I want to run something by you about the two of them when I get back. I don’t want her to feel like she’s getting kicked to the curb because she ages out.

Eli’s eyes burned again. I’m open to all suggestions, he typed, relieved. He could only do so much in his capacity at the home, and these girls—they were special to him.

I hope you like this one. Did you get my other pictures?

Eli had. He’d seen two young women, one Lola’s age and one a little older, who could be recognized as Andy’s sisters in the fog in the dark. They were both tall and lovely, with light brown hair and Andy’s blue eyes.

Your sisters are getting grown up, he replied.

Charlie graduated from Junior College. She’s going to Northwestern for her degree and her teaching credential. Mary Beth will be at NYU.

You’ll finally get to use the guest room! Eli smiled, thinking Andy would be excited about that.

Maybe.

Huh. That was sort of noncommittal. But before Eli could reply to that, Andy texted again.

Baby, I’m beat. I will call you tomorrow morning because I want to hear your voice, but I’m crashing right now.

Okay. Enjoy your visit. Don’t let the chickens get you.

In response, Andy texted a picture of a chicken in a hand-knitted jumper, made especially to accommodate wings and tail.

Oh my God! They’re wearing clothes? When will they take our cell phones and take over the world? Eli was horrified—and only partially kidding.

If they do it will be in retaliation for things like this. I shit you not, my mom and Porter’s mom went on a crusade to make sweaters for chickens this year. It’s your nightmare, baby. Stay there and save yourself.

Eli laughed at that last one. Come home and save both of us, he typed.

I plan to. Love you.

Love you back.

And the conversation was over.

Eli grabbed a couch cushion and shoved it under his head, enjoying the warmth and the coziness of the couch since Andy wasn’t in their bed.

When had he gotten so used to Andy’s big body in his bed? Had it been those weeks after they’d first made love, when Andy was over almost every night? Had it been in that flurry of moving activity after Andy had agreed to take the apartment? They hadn’t wanted to be apart, not ever during that time. Had it been after they’d moved in, when part of what made the place their home had been crawling in under the comforter and reaching out to stroke an arm or a shoulder, even when they were exhausted and lovemaking was completely off the table?

Or had it started at the very beginning, during that first night in each other’s arms?

Back Then

“WHY DON’T you invite me?” Andy asked gently, “and let me decide for myself?”

Eli had stared at him in agony, his heart in his eyes. Oh God—these last three months had been delirious. Dreamlike. The Saturday morning meetings—sometimes to go look at apartments and sometimes to go work at Rainbow House together. Together ! That had been so surprising that Andy would take on Eli’s work, his vocation, and participate in it too. The Sunday morning breakfasts at Andy’s apartment with all of his friends, all of them in various stages of flying the coop, including Zinnia, his best friend, who had gotten engaged while they’d been getting to know each other and whom it seemed Andy would miss enormously after she moved out.

Eli had loved all of that, but he’d been afraid, so afraid, of what Andy was asking now.

No, Eli wasn’t a virgin. He’d been used and had used men from his teen years on up. But after he’d graduated from college, started working at Rainbow House, he’d been reluctant to do that anymore. Even he could recognize that it wasn’t healthy, and he felt like he owed it to those kids to do healthy things with his life so he could give them advice for how to do the same.

But two years of celibacy had been lonely—damned lonely—and suddenly he had a man who wanted his time and his company and his opinion, and who liked making him smile.

And this same man—this beautiful, broad-shouldered, big-smiled mountain of a man—wanted to take things to the next level, and the way he was looking at Eli right now, across the dishes of Chinese food that had just sort of arrived at their table while they were staring at each other, hearts in their eyes—was looking at him in a way that oh, made Eli’s pulse throb in his ears from intensity alone.

“It would….” He swallowed, hating this feeling of vulnerability but unable to stop himself. “It would kill me if you didn’t like… my apartment.”

Underneath the table, Andy bumped knees with him, and he sucked in a breath, the contact steadying him, helping his lungs work, giving him comfort.

“I’m sure I’ll love it,” Andy said, leaning over to squeeze his knee. “But you’ve got to let me see it first.”

Eli’s face was on fire, and still Andy’s eyes were hypnotizing him, making him say things he normally wouldn’t dare. “Okay,” he whispered. “Tonight? After dinner?”

Andy gave one of those nods that people used when they were trying not to tell you that you were being dense.

“Yeah, Eli. Tonight, after dinner. But don’t worry. We can eat first. Get some gelato on the way. It’ll be nice. I promise.” He gave a winsome smile, and Eli was completely lost. “You do trust me to make it nice, right?”

Eli had swallowed, unsure of how to answer, and the look Andy gave him was a little sad, but not surprised. Oh God, it was like he knew all of Eli’s secrets and wanted him anyway.

“You will someday,” Andy said softly. “Hopefully tonight too.”

Eventually they left the restaurant, Andy taking the lead like he tended to do and holding the door open for Eli. Eli walked out first, and when they got to the sidewalk, he paused and deliberately held out his hand, palm up, waiting for Andy’s larger, wide-palmed hand to cover it, to lace their fingers together, to walk him down the more sparsely populated street to the dessert shoppe down the way.

“You trust me to pick dessert, right?” Andy asked chidingly as they walked.

“Yeah.”

Andy’s brief kiss on his temple promised sweetness to come. “Good.”

EVENTUALLY THEY ended up at Eli’s fourth-floor walk-up, and their footsteps rang hollowly on the wooden stairs. Eli fumbled with the key in the lock, and only Andy’s hand, covering his own, gave him the courage to go forward.

This was so stupid. He’d had sex before. Faceless, nameless hookups—lots of them.

But not in this place. His old apartment, maybe. That had been a rat hole. The door hadn’t sealed right, and he’d had to share a bathroom with the meth addict next door. All of it had been awful.

But he’d gotten his job and had been able to afford, well, an improvement. Not a perfect place by any stretch of the imagination. Certainly not the place Andy had just looked at, his face shining with hope and promise.

But this place. The door had opened on his apartment: the neatly made bed that doubled as a couch, the small television perched up on his one dresser, the two cinder-block bookshelves that held paperbacks. He dusted and vacuumed periodically and kept his one window clean.

Like Andy, he felt like a window was an important feature in an apartment.

He gazed at the place for a moment, trying to see it through Andy’s eyes, and then felt the door close behind him and turned.

And realized that Andy’s eyes weren’t really on the apartment.

Andy moved in on him, that magnificent chest crowding Eli until he was back against the door, gazing up into Andy’s face in the darkness.

“I’m going to kiss you now,” Andy whispered, cupping his cheek. “And I don’t want to stop until we’re done. I mean, I will stop if you get uncomfortable, but I’m telling you right now, I don’t want to.”

Eli grinned at him, calmed somehow by the humor, by the reassurance that Eli’s enjoyment mattered, and by the desire, the implication that Andy wanted him that badly.

“Then don’t,” Eli whispered. “Stop, I mean. Don’t stop.”

Andy chuckled, and Eli wanted to clap his hand over his mouth, but then Andy lowered his mouth to Eli’s and Eli had better things to do with it.

So easy—it was so easy to fall into Andy’s kisses. To return them, to taste him and to open his mouth and let Andy possess him with that casual farm-boy ease.

The kiss was tender and thorough, and it went on and on and on, and somewhere between Andy lowering his head and pulling back to gulp in breaths, he’d managed to insinuate his big-palmed hands under Eli’s shirt, under the waistband of his jeans, under his briefs.

Eli shoved at Andy’s shirt, needing his skin, all of it, and Andy dropped his shoulders, letting his denim jacket fall to the floor. Another shove and enough buttons had come undone for Andy to grab his shirts by the back of the neck and pull them over his head, and there he was, smooth-skinned shoulders gleaming faintly in the ambient light.

Eli gasped and heard a needy sound that he was surprised to find he’d made himself, but he didn’t care. He ran his lips along Andy’s collarbone, the column of his throat, along his jaw.

Andy let him, pushing at his pants and his shirt as Eli peppered him with kisses, tasted all the grand romantic paths between knee-melting kisses and bare bodies searching each other out in the darkness.

One article of clothing after the other, one kiss at a time, they made their way to Eli’s twin-sized bed against the wall. Andy paused, pulled the covers back, and then sank onto the sheets and rested his head on his palm, waiting for Eli to come to him, and suddenly it wasn’t easy anymore.

Andy waited, though, smiling gently, and with a deep breath, Eli took the last two steps to the bed and slid under the sheets.

Andy’s body, bare and strong, was his reward. Suddenly “easy” wasn’t the word anymore. Necessary. Imperative. Life-giving. These were the words running through Eli’s mind as they resumed their kisses, their caresses, and he was pulled forcibly into a world in which sex wasn’t a hard, impersonal release anymore.

Sex was this . Sex was Andy’s soft whispers in his ear. “Mm—good. I’m going to touch you now, okay?” Gentle laugh. “Your cock, Eli. I’m going to… ooh… nice. Can I taste? Please?”

Sex was the little grazes of Andy’s lips against his skin in transit. He moved his lips gently from Eli’s lips to his jaw, down his jawline, along his neck, from his neck to Eli’s collarbone… and then to his nipple, where he suckled just hard enough to make Eli cry out, his body arching without his permission, his arousal in the stratosphere without him ever acknowledging a launch.

Sex was the guttural sound of Andy’s enjoyment when he tasted the precome on the bell of Eli’s cock. It was the playful feel of his chuckles when Eli was deep in his throat and pleading breathlessly for something, anything, to give him release.

Sex was the tender stretching of a lubricated finger along Eli’s opening, ramping up his need, fueling his desire to pure conflagration.

Sex was the glee in Andy’s eyes when Eli shyly admitted he was on PReP, because Andy was too and who didn’t like no condoms?

And sex was, now and forever, the tenderness in Andy’s eyes when he positioned himself carefully and merged their bodies together, mindful of all the nerve endings that had the potential to be injured in the breach but that he stroked to pleasure instead.

Sex was the glorious flood of climax as it crashed over them both, the way Andy’s soft moan of release tickled Eli’s ear, the way Eli’s breathless cry was swallowed by Andy’s urgent kiss.

Sex would be, for the rest of Eli’s life, the gentle stroke of Andy’s fingertips along Eli’s jaw as he searched Eli’s face for reassurance, his body still lodged inside Eli’s, his spend dripping down Eli’s thighs.

“Good?” he murmured.

“Yes,” Eli whispered back, voice catching.

“You look….”

And then Eli had buried his face against Andy’s neck and cried softly, not having the words to explain. Not merely the orgasm—although damn! And not just the sex—which was wow ! But all of it: Andy’s care, his patience, his gentleness, and in the end, his power, which he only released when Eli had begged.

In his life—his entire life—he hadn’t known love could feel like this, this gentle descent into afterglow after a brilliant, soul-freeing moment in the sun.

How had he never known? And would he ever find his way again when Andy left him forever?

And Now

ELI REALIZED he’d been gazing into space in the quiet apartment for quite some time. Those moments in Andy’s arms had been a beginning for them, a true one. Eli’s faith had grown, a little bit at a time, until not the next apartment, or the one after that, but about a month later, they found themselves standing in the apartment.

This apartment.

“So,” the exhausted real-estate agent had asked. “Is this one it?”

Andy had met Eli’s eyes, his full mouth flirting with a nervous smile. “Is it?” he’d asked. “Can you live here?”

“Yes,” Eli had responded without thought. “Absolutely.”

He’d worry about it later, after that magical moment when worry wasn’t a thing and hope was the only feeling in the world. Later he would let his doubts eat at him through three years of breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and outings. Later he would try to figure out why that voice, the one screaming that he could never do enough, learn enough, be enough, to have an Andy Chambers in his life, was so loud and so insistent.

But every day he woke up in Andy’s arms, to Andy’s kisses, to breakfast in the morning, and that insidious little voice got smaller and smaller and smaller.

Eli stroked the face of his phone for a moment, remembering the ridiculous picture of the chickens in sweaters. There was no reason to listen to that voice now, he told himself.

And on that note, he snuggled down into the couch and set his phone for morning. He didn’t want to sleep alone in their bed, but finally, finally , he could sleep.