Holiday Cheer from Andrew Grey and Amy Lane

Chapter 9 Christmas Day is Saved by True Love

ELI GRUNTED and tried to move, but his head exploded in pain, and he abandoned that plan. “Ouch. Fuck. Andy, am I sick?”

Andy’s soft-skinned palm cupped his forehead, smoothing back his hair before dropping to hold Eli’s hand. “No, but you are concussed, baby. Don’t move for a bit. The nurse is coming back with something for pain.”

Eli grunted, and the hospital smell and coarseness of the sheets permeated his consciousness, as well as an all-encompassing dull ache in his arm. “I almost wish I was sick,” he said.

“Yeah, either way, buddy, you’re not going anywhere.” Andy sounded exhausted, and Eli squinted against the pain in his head to open his eyes.

Andy smiled tiredly from the side of his bed. He’d dropped the side rail and was resting his head on his arm so he could watch Eli sleep. His hair was a finger-combed clumping mess, he had huge bags under his eyes, and he was wearing some hideous acrylic novelty sweater that Eli could not imagine he picked out himself.

“Wow, you look worse than I feel,” he said, and Andy gave a brief laugh.

“Well you look wonderful. God, we were afraid you weren’t going to wake up.”

Eli groaned. “How long have I been out? What day is it?” He tried to sit up. “What’s going on with Christmas at Rainbow House? Ow! Ow! Ow!”

Andy sat up and pressed him gently back into the bed with the palm of his hand and gave him a stern look. “To answer your questions: You’ve been out about twenty hours. It’s Christmas Eve. We got in around ten last night, and I’ve been here since one in the morning…. My dad, the girls, Porter, and his pastor boyfriend are currently saving Christmas at Rainbow House—if the boyfriend isn’t flying back the truck driver who helped with transport. They brought presents, a crapton of food, and are working with Margie and Leon to scare up the rest. Dad’s been sending me pictures. He and Porter are going around making repairs and fixing the place up so you don’t have anything like this happening again.” Andy scowled. “They had a new stairway built by ten this morning. I mean, it took them four hours . It’s terrifying. Give those two men a hammer and a crescent wrench and they’ll fix the planet. I’m not kidding.”

Eli wanted to laugh, but gah! He was so tired. “Did you say the girls are here too?”

Andy nodded. “They’re giving cooking lessons since so much food got destroyed. They’ve got the older kids peeling potatoes and baking pie crusts and chopping vegetables. It’s funny—my mom has insisted she’s the only one allowed to make Christmas dinner for so long, I hadn’t realized how much Charlie and Mary Beth had absorbed over the years. Anyway, they’ll have Christmas Eve dinner ready by six, and they’ll be back to cook Christmas breakfast, and then I think your staff at Rainbow House will be on for the turkey and stuffing, which was all prepped today.”

“I was going to be there,” Eli whispered, feeling awful.

“Nope,” Andy said. “You’re coming home with me, pal. And you’ll be lucky if they’ll let you out tomorrow night. We may end up all having Christmas here, but if that happens my dad promised he’ll bring us some turkey and pie.” Andy nodded his head toward a brightly decorated tin on a portable table near the door. “And Christmas cookies. When Porter’s trucker friend dropped me off, Porter insisted I bring a tin of Christmas cookies in for the nursing staff. Because he’s a good guy. They’ve been super grateful, by the way.”

“That’s your family,” Eli said softly. “Spreading sunshine and miracles.”

Andy’s expression grew sad, and he looked away. Eli realized that there was one person he hadn’t talked about in the last five minutes.

“Andy, what’s your mother doing?”

Andy sighed. “Living in the past. Running the Christmas pageant. Wondering what to do with a Christmas meal and no family to eat it with. I really don’t care.”

But the way his voice broke at the end made that last one a lie.

“I’m sorry. Do you need to—”

“To stay right here?” Andy said softly. “Yeah. That’s what I need to do.” His hand came up again to stroke Eli’s cheek. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I need to do.”

Eli wanted to talk some more, ask more questions, but at that moment, the nurse came in with his painkiller, and he was asleep before she left.

ANDY WOKE up when his father shook his shoulder gently. “Andy? Son? C’mon now—they say you haven’t eaten.”

Andy sat up, his body creaking as he yawned and stretched. “Dad?” He closed his eyes and reached above his head. “Ouch. Ouch. Crick in the neck!”

“This is why you should sleep on a bed, not next to it,” his dad said.

“No. Didn’t want him to be alone.”

“Yeah, son—we got that.”

The last twenty-four hours came flooding into his consciousness, and he groaned, much like Eli had. “Oh Lord. What time is it?”

“It’s around six,” his father said. “Here, I brought a plate for you. One for Eli too, if he wakes up. And pie. Rainbow House was sitting down to dinner as I left. I have to tell you, everybody wanted to know how Eli was doing. Those kids really love him—and you.” His father held up his cell phone, grinning. “I sent your sisters a picture of you two asleep a minute ago. I think it might be the real Christmas present for everybody. What a bunch of great kids.”

Andy squeezed his eyes shut, and he might have burst into tears on the spot, but his stomach rumbled. He father laughed and set the plate in his hands.

“Did you and the girls get any sleep?” he asked, taking the foil off and digging in. Mom’s lasagna recipe, since turkey and stuffing were for tomorrow, but still, what wasn’t to love?

“Yeah,” his father said, yawning. “We got a bit last night, and we’ve all caught some naps during the day. I think we’re going to make good use of your apartment again tonight, though. Thanks for the keys.”

Andy kept eating, feeling more sustained with every bite. He looked at Eli, who was still sleeping, and smiled weakly. “He’s going to miss most of Christmas,” he said.

“Yeah, but so will you,” his father reminded him.

Andy shrugged. “Christmas for me is being here for him.” He realized how corny that sounded and rolled his eyes. “Sappy but true.”

His father nodded, eyes a little bright. “Me too,” he confessed. “With your mother. I-I hate the thought of her alone tonight, but… I think she needed this. She’s been holding on so tightly to all of you. Not letting Charlie go to college unless she finished junior college, going on all those college visits with Mary Beth to try to get her to stay close to home. And what she did with you and Eli was… well, it was unkind, which is so weird. I would have said she didn’t have an unkind bone in her body. But I think admitting you had a partner and a life in Brooklyn would have just made it real. She was losing you—she was losing all of you.” He let out a sigh. “And it’s like it never occurred to her that the only way to keep you was to make going back a good thing and not that… that bucket of stress she inflicted on you over the last few days.”

Andy laughed, his mind blank. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish I could think of something to say.”

His father shook his head. “You look worse than I do,” he said. He nodded toward Andy’s go bag that he’d apparently brought when he’d come to the hospital. “They have a shower you can use. I asked. It’s down the hall. Go. Wash up. I’ll be here. Don’t worry, son, we won’t leave your boy alone.”

ELI HEARD unfamiliar voices in his room and opened his eyes warily. He peered upward into the faces of two breathtakingly pretty young women and smiled.

“Charlie? Mary Beth?” he asked, recognizing them from the pictures and videos Andy had shown him. “Wow. It’s great to meet you.”

“Dad, he’s up!” Mary Beth chimed. “It’s good to meet you too! Are you hungry? Dad brought a plate for both of you, but only Andy ate his. Dad, is he hungry? Should we feed him?” She looked back at Eli. “Should we feed you? Your arm is broken. Andy said you’ll have to wait until the swelling goes down before they put on a cast. That sucks. My best friend did that to her femur on a snow-skiing trip, and she said it hurt like balls . I think you only fractured your arm bones, but they popped through the skin, which is gnarly . Are you sure you don’t want food?”

Eli found himself laughing in spite of the pain in his head. And, now that she’d mentioned it, his arm. “I’m not sure,” he murmured. “It smells delicious, though. Where’s Andy?”

“Taking a shower,” said the other girl, Charlie. “Dad apparently sent him off because he didn’t know we were coming. But we had to come. We ate with the kids at Rainbow House, who are great, by the way. They worked so hard today to make Christmas Eve nice for the little kids and prepare dinner for tomorrow. You had to see ’em. Anyway, they were sort of worried about presents for the little kids, and Mary Beth and I told them that we’d managed to gather presents for everybody , and you should have seen them light up. I asked if I could take pictures of them opening their gifts just to show the people at Foxglove how much they were appreciated. Pastor Dan said that should be okay, but we had to clear it with you first. Anyway—” She yawned. “—we were going to go to your guys’ apartment and sleep so we could be there Christmas morning and send you pictures, but we had to see you first.”

“See me?” Eli asked, bemused. “Why would you want to see me?” He was used to adolescents. He was. But these two girls, pouring their effusive chatter and goodwill over him—it was a balm of good cheer. And knowing that this family—or part of it anyway—had taken over the job when he couldn’t? Oh, it soothed something to know that there were good people out there who would take care of his kids.

And that Andy was there to take care of him.

“Well, because you’re Andy’s boyfriend!” Mary Beth exclaimed. “Duh! I mean, my brother has talked about nobody but you for the last three years. Charlie and I have been mad to see you, but….” She bit her lip and shrugged, looking suddenly vulnerable when she’d been fearless the moment before. “It doesn’t matter why, but we very much wanted to meet you. I mean—” She shrugged. “—he’s Andy. He’s not going to fall in love with somebody stupid, right?”

“I hope not.” Eli chuckled. “But, you know, I did fall down a flight of stairs.”

“Yeah,” Charlie conceded, “but you were saving the world.”

“He was,” Andy said from the doorway, looking tired but clean and refreshed. Eli glanced up at him, feeling gratitude in every part of his body that didn’t hurt. “And now we get to save him. It’s a good cycle. It’s the same thing that sustains Batman. I really think it is.”

“No,” Eli murmured. “Batman was a Gothic hero—his whole schtick is that he doesn’t love.”

Andy snorted. “Not according to the fanfic Charlie keeps sending me ,” he said. “Move, Mary Beth. You’re in my spot.”

She gave him a look . “No, you can sleep here when we leave. We get fifteen minutes of Eli time, and we’re not spending it across the room. Go.” She waved her hand. “Eat pie. Eli, would you care for some dinner? The nurse said you could eat if you didn’t feel queasy.”

Eli smiled again, but this time up at Andy, who was flopping good-naturedly onto the couch back against the wall. And for the next ten minutes he was cheerfully subjected to the girls and their questions. What had Andy told him about them , for instance, and when were they going to get a kitten. Andy had told them the apartment allowed pets for a reason. Didn’t he understand that obligated him to a kitten? Could Mary Beth really stay in the guest room some weekends while she attended NYU? Could she drop in unannounced? Could she bring friends? Would they go visit Charlie after she got settled at Northwestern? He did his best to answer their questions, but when Mary Beth’s, “And what is my brother’s most annoying trait? Inquiring minds want to know!” made him pop his eyes open from what had almost been sleep, he knew the battle had been lost.

“His most annoying trait is he’s not here next to me right now,” Eli said through a yawn. “But I forgive him. I’ve been dying to meet you both.”

“But you’re exhausted, and it’s time for us to leave.” She yawned back. “Very smart.”

And then the family did just that. They left. But first they stopped and kissed Eli on the cheek and then Andy—even Andy’s father—and gave them hugs and told them they’d be back tomorrow after the Christmas package massacre at Rainbow House.

“We’ll send Andy video,” Mary Beth promised. “Swear to God, we’re doing nothing but charging our phones while we sleep.”

THAT NIGHT, the nurses set up a cot for Andy, although that didn’t stop him from scooting in next to Eli on the bed so they could watch Christmas specials on television.

They were quiet, Eli resting his head on Andy’s shoulder, when he hit Mute on the remote and spoke.

“We used to have a Christmas tree when I was a kid.”

Andy’s breath caught. Eli never spoke about his childhood. Never . It had been the one subject he’d dodged neatly during their courtship, the one thing he’d never discussed. Andy had gone on and on, ad nauseum, about Christmas in Vermont and how it really did look like a postcard, and the only sound Eli made on the other side of that was….

Crickets.

Andy let out a slow breath now and figured out what to say. “You said you were Jewish.”

“I am. Bar Mitzvah and everything. But Dad never figured Christmas was a Christian holiday—not really. He said there was something sweet about celebrating the birth of a child, the birth of hope.” He let out a sigh. “And I grew up with all of that and then got kicked out on Christmas Eve.”

Andy squeezed his eyes shut. This, he’d heard about. His brother had found a copy of something stupid—something a growing gay boy would want for excruciatingly private reasons involving fantasies and hormones, and the resultant teasing had, in the end, spurred Eli to an awkward, earnest confession.

And then he’d gotten struck for the first and only time by his father.

He’d grabbed a backpack full of clothes and hit the streets, hopping on the subway with his school subway pass and going all the way from the Bronx to Brooklyn, ending up in Bed/Stuy.

“I didn’t know it was Christmas Eve,” Andy said through a dry throat, the thought of his boy— his boy—all alone and sad and confused wandering the streets of Brooklyn in the dark of a holiday night.

“I found an alleyway,” Eli told him. “Next to a restaurant. They were open, you know. And when they saw me, hugging the wall because it was still warm, they gave me a plate full of food and let me sleep in their back room. I stayed there for a while, sweeping up, taking out trash. A social worker saw me and tried to pin me down, so I ran.” He shrugged. “Lather, rinse, repeat.”

“Baby….”

“But I never forgot those people at the restaurant. That they didn’t want anybody to be alone and cold and hungry on Christmas Eve. It was a family-owned restaurant, and they treated me like I was human. I mean, I thought they were wonderful, and perfect, but….” He let out a sigh. “That’s probably why I ran, you know? I’d thought my family was wonderful and perfect, and look what happened.”

Andy kissed the crown of his head, wishing he could wrap his arms around Eli’s shoulders and ward off everything: memories of cold, of hunger, of rejection. Oh God. His boy. His boy had been out there in the snow, cold and hungry, and Andy hadn’t been there to keep him safe.

“I know you’re mad at your mom,” Eli said softly into the quiet. “Just remember—she didn’t reject you. She didn’t kick you out in the cold. She didn’t even reject me. She just wanted her family around her so bad it sounds like it got in her way. Just… your dad and your sisters and friends, coming out here like you did? Being here for Rainbow House, for me ? It’s the kind of family I didn’t think existed anymore. It’s the kind of kindness, of Christmas for all its consumerism and corniness, that I didn’t think was real. But it is. And you’re part of it. And your mother, for all she’s not perfect, she’s part of it too. I… you know. If she ever speaks to you again, you should forgive her.”

Andy laughed a little. “Only if she speaks to you too,” he said. “And seriously, she has to come to Brooklyn first.”

“Who wouldn’t want to come to Brooklyn for Christmas?” Eli asked drowsily.

“I know I did,” Andy murmured.

“Did I tell you what your Christmas gift is?” Eli said, just when Andy thought he was asleep.

“No. I thought we’d open gifts when we got to the apartment tomorrow.”

“Well, yeah,” Eli said. “But this one is something that will make you happy all day, just knowing it.”

“I could use some happy,” Andy told him with a smile. “Shoot.”

“I have an appointment to visit the animal shelter in January, first in line on adoption day.”

Andy laughed, his eyes burning. That thing he’d begged Eli for, the thing that would make their place a permanent home in Eli’s eyes.

“A kitten?” he asked, his throat tight.

“I want an absolutely wicked one,” Eli said decidedly. “One that sleeps on your computer when you’re working from home and who steals all your socks. Extra points if he’s got three legs and one eye and a rip in his ear.”

“God, I love you,” Andy said, and he couldn’t keep the tears out of his voice.

“I know. Forever. You promised.”

And the kitten was Eli’s promise. Andy knew that. “Forever. Like I promised. Merry Christmas, Eli.”

“Merry Christmas, Andy. I love you too.”

CHRISTMAS IN the hospital sucked. Everybody knew that, including the doctors and nurses. Once Eli’s vitals had been taken—and his head CT scans had been looked at—he’d been allowed home, on the condition that he stayed on the couch or in bed for at least another week. No alcohol, no pushing a broom, no work. His noggin had been banged around a bit, and he was to do nothing but sleep and let it heal.

That said, they were on their way to the apartment by early afternoon, and when Andy’s father called to ask if they wanted him to bring Christmas dinner, Andy told him to bring some to put in the fridge (to replace all the little meals they’d apparently wiped out) but that he’d be providing a special dinner that Eli would appreciate.

He’d put in the order to the pizza parlor while Eli had been getting his head CTs, and Andy felt an evil little chuckle start whenever he thought of it.

With some help from the cabbie—and some more from his father and the girls after Andy had hit the buzzer to get in—he got Eli ensconced on the couch, pillows behind his head, happily watching the many videos the girls had taken of Christmas at Rainbow House.

Porter and Dan walked in quietly while he was watching the one of Lola and Josie, and he looked up from the phone, wiping tears from his eyes. The girls in the video were wearing the cardigans Andy had picked out and hugging each other because they matched and laughing like, well, children at Christmas, and Eli didn’t see two averagely handsome men in his living room when he saw the two men who’d helped make that happen.

He saw superheroes.

“You two,” he said hoarsely. “Look what you did. I… I have no words for you. Thank you.”

Both of them blushed like schoolboys, and Porter stepped forward, hand extended. “So good to meet you, Eli. Andy here can’t say enough good things about you.”

Dan stepped forward too, and Eli had them come sit next to him, Andy dangling over the couch with his arms around Eli’s shoulders, while they watched more of the videos.

“Look at all the sweaters,” Eli whispered. “And look at them—the kids. Not one of them is like, ‘Ew, sweaters!’”

“They loved them,” Porter said frankly. “I hope you don’t mind, but I took some videos myself, for my mom and her knitting circle. I mean, all the love that goes into their work, and I don’t think anybody could appreciate it more, you know?”

“Some of the kids cried,” Dan said, sounding a little choked up. Then he grinned. “And Porter, your sweaters were a favorite. Those two boys were so impressed when I told them you’d made them. I think you’re going to have to come back just so you can give knitting lessons.”

“Well, if you do,” Eli said, “you’re welcome to stay here.”

“Finally,” Andy joked, “the guest room gets some use.”

There was general laughter, and then everybody agreed to let Eli rest—they needed some sleep themselves. Andy had gotten a text from the pizza place, telling him dinner was a go, and his news that there would be takeout for dinner at six was met with a tired cheer of approval. Christmas had been secured for Rainbow House; everybody was done with cooking. Andy gave Porter and Dan his room, since they were resting up for the flight back that night, the girls slept in the guest room, and his dad took the recliner.

Andy took the opposite side of the couch from Eli, and for a couple of hours, Andy got his first real sleep since he’d awakened to go to Vermont. He was home. Eli was happy. And his family was there under his roof. He looked at the tiny tree he’d made Eli put up in the corner before he left, lights twinkling through the halo of sleep in his eyes, and thought that this was what Christmas should be. This moment of peace between crises. This moment of gentleness to cushion their hearts from the harshness of the world.

He’d work to make sure all their Christmases were like this. Eli would never be cold and sad and alone, staring into the warmth of family on Christmas from the darkness outside, not ever again.

ELI COULD hear people up and about a little before six, but he was cushioned by pain relievers and pillows and the lovely floating feeling that for this period of time, someone else was getting it. There was a knock at the door, and Andy said, “I’ll get it. It’s takeout,” and Eli went back to sleep.

He was startled awake by a cold draft from the doorway and a gasp from the girls and Andy’s dad, who were all sitting in the living room with him, watching Christmassy things on TV.

And by Andy’s voice, cracking a little as he said the word, “Mom?”

Eli struggled to wake up, sitting upright as slowly as he could on the couch and peering toward the door.

“Hi, uhm….” Andy stepped back, and Eli got a glimpse of the trim blonde woman hovering on the doorstep, her face a study of contrition and uncertainty. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Andy said. “Sure. What are you doing here?”

“You left your luggage,” she said. “I-I, uhm, got somebody else to buzz me in.” Even Eli could see the tentative smile. “I, uhm, wasn’t sure of my welcome.”

“You came all the way here to return my luggage?”

Eli hated that sound in Andy’s voice. That note of suspicion and hurt. Eli wondered how often he’d sounded like that when they first met.

“I….” Cindy Chambers took a breath. “It was the damnedest thing. I woke up on Christmas morning, and it seems my whole family was in Brooklyn without me. I”—her voice trembled—“I miss my family, Andy. I—”

“Say his name, Mom.” Eli’s heart quailed. No. No. Not all this over him . He’d never forgive himself if Andy fractured his family over Eli.

“I brought him a gift!” she said hurriedly, her voice breaking more. “I… you’re wrong. I have made him sweaters. I made three. One for each Christmas. I just… I just kept telling myself, you know, that when you moved up home, I’d give them to him then. He could be part of our community, and I’d have my son back. But my son is gone, and my girls are gone, and my husband’s gone, and home isn’t home without you all. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make Eli feel bad or unwelcome. I just wanted him close, with the family, and I didn’t know how to do that, and I guess I can’t, and—”

And Andy stepped forward to hug his mother, and she sobbed into his chest while the family moved around them, dragging Andy’s luggage inside, as well as another large suitcase filled with gifts.

Finally the door closed, and Cindy stepped back and wiped under her eyes. She hadn’t been wearing makeup, Eli noted, as Andy led her into the living room in front of the couch. She looked vulnerable, a woman whose entire life was changing, and for a few steps, she had failed to keep up.

But the woman who had just sobbed in her son’s arms wasn’t cruel—not deliberately. She wasn’t trying to reject her son, or even Eli. It’s just that all her electrons were moving out of her nucleus, and it was scary. Eli had a sudden flash of insight that he felt the same way about Brooklyn. He knew every train and every corner, every street, every back alley. Andy was getting to be a native too, and maybe that’s what this moment had been. Nuclear fission, a nucleus being split into two parts, releasing all its energy in a gigantic blast of Christmas cheer and reunited family fallout.

And leaving two separate molecules, with Andy as the covalent bond.

“Eli?”

Eli looked up into Cindy Chambers’ anxious face.

“Mrs. Chambers,” he said quietly. “I’m so happy to meet you.”

She caught her trembling lower lip between her teeth and held out three wrapped packages in her arms. “Welcome to the family,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry these are late.”

He bit his own lip, and he fought against an image he’d kept at bay for years. The night he’d been kicked out, his own mother had closed the door behind him, her lower lip caught between her teeth just like Cindy’s, before she whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. We just can’t.”

This woman can , he thought with a rush of emotion. This woman can love me. And she’s going to try.

“Would you like to sit down next to me,” he asked, “while I open them?” He winked at Andy, who was watching the two of them so hopefully it almost stopped his breath. “I, uhm, know handcrafters like to talk about their craft.”

She gave him a shining, gorgeous smile from behind her tears and did as he asked, cozying up to him like he was her own child.

“Open this one first,” she said earnestly. “It’s the first one I made for you. I, uhm, didn’t know much about you, so I made it to match Andy’s from that year. Do you remember?”

He smiled and went to work on the paper as he always did, working the tape off carefully so they could use it later, but it was harder than usual because one of his arms was in a sling. To his amusement, she took the sheet of wrapping paper from him and folded it neatly as he worked on the box.

When they were done, they had three neatly folded boxes, three sheets of beautiful foil wrapping paper to reuse, and three sweaters that he’d treasure always. He let her descriptions wash over his head. Fair isle, cables, gansey—he figured he could study it all later. What mattered was that after the first, which really did match Andy’s, only in blue instead of forest green, she took something Andy had told her about him and incorporated it into the next sweater. He told her that he was worried about Eli coming home at night, so she’d made the next two cream colored so he could be more easily seen. Andy told her how cold it got in Eli’s office, so she used cables and other techniques to make the sweaters extra cozy. And he’d told her that Eli needed family, so the last one had a series of Xs and Os cabled across the front, for hugs and kisses—and love.

When he was done, Andy’s father folded the sweaters up and tucked them in a corner of the living room, and Eli wrapped his free arm around Cindy’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” he said, from the bottom of his heart.

“I’m sorry,” she replied softly. “I was stupid and misguided and—”

“And you love your son,” Eli said. He gave her a quiet smile. “As it happens, so do I.”

She nodded. “Good. He deserves someone who loves him.” Her voice broke again. “Like I do.” Eli rocked her back and forth until Andy’s father returned from tidying up, sat on her other side, and held her. Because that’s what couples do.

Not long after, there was another knock at the door, and Andy jumped up to get it.

“Pizza!” he cried. “Thank God. I’m starving.” As he paid the delivery guy, Eli heard him talking quietly about “the special pie,” and suddenly he remembered their conversation before Andy had left for Vermont earlier that week.

After some setup in the kitchen—there were apparently three pizzas to worry about—Andy came in bearing a large pizza box. And an insufferable grin.

“You ready?” he asked, and Eli found himself laughing.

“You didn’t,” he replied, knowing that Andy totally had.

“I did,” Andy said. “You remember.”

“I remember,” Eli told him. “You told me you’d come back to me, and I said I’d believe it when it happened—”

“And I said you’d be forced to eat crow.” Andy’s laugh was all mischief as he opened the box. Eli groaned.

There, spelled across the sausage pizza in black olives, was the word CROW.

“Are you ready to eat crow?” he asked. He gave his mom a sly look. “There’s enough for everybody.”

Cindy Chambers did not disappoint.

“I’ll take two slices,” she said firmly, and then gave Eli a shy smile. “It’s only right.”

They all ate a little crow that night—and some pepperoni and sausage, peppers, onions, cheese, and mushrooms as well.

It was the best Christmas dinner Eli could ever remember.

THAT NIGHT they lay in bed, listening to the unfamiliar sound of other people in their apartment. Porter and Dan had flown home that night, but the rest of Andy’s family was staying for another couple of days to help at Rainbow House while Eli was laid up. Mary Beth was staying a few days beyond that, just because, in her words, she really needed to get out of Vermont before finishing high school.

When it sounded like everybody was settled, Andy found himself looking at Eli in the darkness, raising his hand to smooth back the hair from his brow.

“Getting long,” Eli murmured.

“You’re always a bit shaggy,” Andy told him. “I sort of love it.”

Eli smiled and opened his eyes. “You’re thinking too loud. Talk to me.”

Andy smiled back and stroked his hair again. “I’m thinking,” he said, “that we should have Lola here a couple of times before she goes off to college. And we should tell her that she needs to spend all of her vacations here, because we’d miss her. And we should have Josie here too, maybe as a permanent foster after Lola goes away to school. Josie can keep attending school where she’s at now, and she can go to Rainbow House afterward, while you’re at work, but the two of them would be ours. Lola would always have somewhere to go. Mary Beth won’t mind sharing guest room privileges—she and Lola get along really well. And….”

He didn’t know how to put this, but Eli did.

“And Lola and Josie will never have to spend another holiday alone,” Eli filled in softly.

“And neither will you.”

Eli squeezed his eyes shut. “Did I mention how much I liked your Christmas present?” he asked, and Andy grimaced.

“New boots?”

“The boots are nice,” Eli admitted. “But no. The family. Andy, you did it. You’ve given me all the family I never thought I’d have again. I didn’t even tell you I wanted it. You’re like my own personal Santa.”

Andy felt that in his heart. “And you’re my best gift.”

They were both a little shiny eyed and wobbly, and Eli’s eyes drifted closed. Andy kept watching him, breathing softly in the dark, until he fell asleep too.

He dreamed of happy children and kittens, of showing Brooklyn off to his parents, and of never, ever, leaving the man at his side.

ANDREW GREY is the author of more than two hundred works of Contemporary Gay Romantic fiction. After twenty-seven years in corporate America, he has now settled down in Central Pennsylvania with his husband of more than twenty-five years, Dominic, and his laptop. An interesting ménage. Andrew grew up in western Michigan with a father who loved to tell stories and a mother who loved to read them. Since then he has lived throughout the country and traveled throughout the world. He is a recipient of the RWA Centennial Award, has a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and now writes full-time. Andrew’s hobbies include collecting antiques, gardening, and leaving his dirty dishes anywhere but in the sink (particularly when writing). He considers himself blessed with an accepting family, fantastic friends, and the world’s most supportive and loving partner. Andrew currently lives in beautiful, historic Carlisle, Pennsylvania.