Meeting Mr. Christmas (Collier’s Creek Christmas)

Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

The bell above the door chimed a familiar welcome as Noel stepped into CC’s. Popular carols played in the background, turned low, and bushy garlands decorated the walls. Noel inhaled the deep scent of not only fresh coffee, but cinnamon and chocolate too, all the sweet heady aromas of Christmas teasing his senses. Christmas by name, and Christmas by nature, it was his favorite time of the year.

He scanned the busy coffee shop, his gaze landing on Jed — and the pretty blond sitting next to him, twirling strands of her long hair in the fingers of one hand while the other rested casually on Jed’s arm. Her light, flirty laugh drifted across, cutting through both the chatter and the hiss of the big, chrome coffee machine, as she poured all her attention onto Jed, who smiled his lazy smile. Jed’s dark gray eyes narrowed, pulling the knots in Noel’s stomach tight. Jed hadn’t noticed him come in, and if the woman had anything to do with it, Jed wouldn’t be noticing anything or anybody other than her as she leaned forward and whispered something in Jed’s ear.

Noel’s heart hitched, an involuntary response he quashed as quickly as it came. It didn’t surprise him to see Jed with a woman, because it had been that way for as long as Noel could remember. It was just how it was, but knowing that didn’t soothe the sting that pricked deep in Noel’s chest. If Jed was at CC’s with a date, why had he sent him a text? If he backed away now, Jed wouldn’t see him… He could send a message, saying he couldn’t make it after all… He could?—

“Hey, Noel. What can I get you?”

Noel jumped as Cam, CC’s owner, leaned over the counter and fixed him with a warm and friendly smile.

“Arrgghh…”

“I take that to mean you’d like a Christmas cinnamon fudge hot chocolate with whipped cream and marshmallows? I know how sweet your tooth is. And a pup cup for Peter, too, of course.” Cam set about making the drink before Noel could answer.

“Noel,” Jed called out, beckoning him over. Jed’s smile was as big and broad as the man himself, and totally fixed on him. “Come sit down.”

The woman glanced at Noel, offering a polite but cool smile as Jed pulled over a chair from an empty table.

“Hey, gorgeous boy.” Jed swooped Peter up into his arms, laughing as he tilted his head away from the dog’s over enthusiastic tongue.

“Sorry to interrupt.” Noel offered the woman a small smile as he shrugged off his coat at the same time she reached for hers.

“I have to leave anyway,” she said, throwing barely a glance Noel’s way before turning the full heat of her smile on Jed. “See you soon?” The woman swished her hair, flirtation in every move, leaving the way open for numbers to be exchanged, a date to be made. Noel fixed his smile in place. He’d seen this too many times to count, and every time the knots in his stomach always pulled tight. He should be used to this, but somehow he never was.

“Sure. See you around, Lauren,” Jed said, his attention already shifting back to Noel, who averted his eyes from Lauren’s tight, thin-lipped smile. The staccato click of heels was followed by the door closing with a hard thud.

“New girlfriend?” Noel couldn’t help but ask, his curiosity a thin veil for the jealousy he felt.

Jed chuckled, shaking his head. “Nah, she’s not my type. She came into Lucian’s a couple weeks ago. And keeps coming back. Says she’s into exotic plants and thought I could give her some tips. Glad you turned up, because I think she could be the human equivalent of a Venus flytrap.” Jed threw his head back and laughed. Noel smiled, and the tension in his stomach relaxed as he settled back into his seat.

“Here you go.” Cam placed the enormous cup that looked more like a soup tureen on the table, a takeout cup overflowing with the whipped cream pup cup, and a plate holding a large piece of brownie. “It’s on the house, as a thank you for fixing that problem with the coffee shop’s website.”

“It was just a simple thing—” Noel began, but Cam was already rushing back to the counter, where a line was forming.

“Let me sort out this little cutie.” Jed held out the pup cup for Peter, who was getting more of the airy cream on his nose than in his mouth.

“He’s always on his best behavior for you. For me, he’s an eating, sleeping, barking fart machine.”

With the pup cup gone, Peter curled up on Jed’s lap, a picture of blissed out contentment. Noel got it, he really did.

Taking a sip of the drink that was really a liquid dessert, Noel sighed in contentment, closing his eyes as the rich, sweet goodness slipped down his throat and sent warmth flooding his belly. “That is so good,” he murmured, snapping his eyes open when Jed laughed.

“Whatever turns you on.”

The heat of the drink was nothing to the heat throbbing in Noel’s face. He knew exactly what it was that turned him on, and it had nothing to do with the sweet drink he held in his hands.

Noel cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be at work making up… flowery things?”

“Lucian let me go early, so I thought I’d get my Christmas shopping done?—”

“Instead of leaving it until Christmas Eve, and bitching about all the stores being too full and the shelves too empty?”

“You know me so well.”

I ’ d like to know you a whole lot better… The unlooked for thought sent another burst of heat to Noel’s cheeks that was no match for the heat flooding his groin. He buried his face in his drink. It was just the sugar rush. Maybe.

“… so instead of fighting my way through the crowds in the mall over in Boomfurt, I thought to myself what better way to spend the afternoon than with my best bud?”

Noel beat down the butterflies that were flapping their wings in the pit of his stomach. “You mean your girlfriend of the moment’s at work and you’re at a loose end?”

Jed’s girlfriends came and went, and Noel was never sure who Jed was seeing from one week to the next. He’d meant it as a lighthearted, humorous comment, but instead it had sounded kind of bitter and sour. Jed obviously thought so too, if the deep furrows in his brow were anything to go by, along with the hard sheen in his gray eyes.

“No,” Jed said quietly, never taking his gaze from Noel. “Just haven’t seen you for a few days, that’s all. We’ve both been kinda busy.”

“You’re right. Sorry. Work’s been crazy lately. Because the world really needs more mobile apps, right? Maybe it’s made me a little cranky.”

“A little?” Jed’s brows shot up, but at least he was now smiling, and Noel’s nerves relaxed.

“Say, how’s that side project of yours going? You’ve been real quiet about it,” Jed asked, after a few minutes gossiping about mutual friends.

“Side project?”

Jed laughed, shaking his head at the same time. Doofus , his gesture said, although his eyes were full of bright affection. “That chocolate making course you took. Handmade chocolates to sell at the farmers’ market? What were you going to call them?” Jed clicked his fingers, his forehead scrunching as he tried to remember before a huge grin split his face in two. “Noel’s Naughty Nibbles.”

Groaning long and hard, Noel let his head fall forward, hiding the cringe over his failed attempt at becoming Collier’s Creek’s one and only creator of hand-crafted artisan chocolates.

“I kinda ate them. As I went along,” he mumbled, peeking up though his bangs. It was necessary to taste as he went, for quality control, every strawberry cream, vanilla truffle, and nutty praline. The only problem was that he’d tasted so many there had been none left to sell.

“Noel Christmas. What am I going to do with you?”

Noel’s heart jerked, along with his dick. He had plenty of ideas about what Jed Mason, his best friend, his very straight best friend, could do with him, every one of which he was going to keep strictly to himself. All he could do was shrug and offer a wry smile, ready to push the conversation on to less dangerous ground when Jed leaned forward.

“Have you seen The Chronicle today? There’s a big piece in it about this new gay dating app that’s got all the town talking.” He nodded towards a poster pinned up on the wall of entwined rainbow hearts, Love Heartz’s lurid logo. There was also a stand with a batch of flyers for the app on the end of the counter.

“Er, yes, I have. Maybe I should try it out.” What the—? Where the hell had that come from? He had no interest in swiping through digitally enhanced images of the Creek’s lonely hearts. He’d find love the old-fashioned way, not that it’d worked for him so far.

Jed shrugged. The smile had fallen from his face as he tapped the table with his fingers. “Suppose you can’t do worse than you have already.”

“I don’t have problems with getting dates.” It was true; his problem was not wanting to see them again. Noel shifted in his seat and took a sip from the cup that was really a soup tureen. Jed chewed on his thumbnail.

“You haven’t been seeing anybody since you broke up with that Doug guy. He was kinda okay. I guess.”

“Dougal MacDouglas. And okay? I don’t remember you ever calling him that, because you were too busy calling him a self-obsessed dick with more product in his hair than he had brains between his ears.”

“And wasn’t I proved right?”

Noel kept his mouth shut as he met Jed’s clear, gray eyes.

Jed’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t even try it, Christmas. I could always out-stare you, and I still can.” Jed’s voice was deep and low, full of provocation.

A strangled, mewling noise Noel wanted to believe was Peter but knew wasn’t, made him look away just as Jed grinned in victory.

“Mason one, Christmas nil.”

“Fuck off,” Noel muttered, but when Jed started laughing, he couldn’t help but join in.

“You really gonna give this new app a shot? You may be short and skinny, and kinda odd, but you’d be a catch for some weirdo.”

“You’ve always had such faith in me.”

Jed’s shit-eating grin fell away, his sudden seriousness making him appear older. “I’ve always had faith. Anyone would be lucky to swipe right on you.”

“Maybe.” Noel shrugged and glanced away. Swipe right… the only man he wanted swiping right on him was seated opposite, but Jed swiping right on him was about as likely as finding a grilled cheese on the moon. But perhaps he should try the app. Widen his horizons a little, and his chances. If it worked for Kevin and Bruce, perhaps it could work for him. Hell, if he was really lucky, he could be the subject of Ms. Honey Sweeting’s next sugar coated article, smiling out from a fuzzy photograph, wearing a bad sweater and a ten-gallon hat and getting ready to celebrate his newfound happiness with a mountain of ribs and chicken tenders down at Randy’s. He could feel his spirits sinking like a brick. Was that really what his future looked like?

“Ouch! What was that for?” Noel rubbed his upper arm; Jed might create delicate floral beauty, but the guy who’d been a star football player in high school didn’t always know his own strength.

“For not listening to a word I was saying. You were miles away. Wanna share where?” Jed’s eyebrows arched in question.

No, I really, really don ’ t — and you really, really wouldn ’ t want to hear it…

“Just had a thought about work.” The little lie fell from his tongue; it was either that or tell Jed the truth, and that wasn’t ever going to happen.

“What I was saying, before you started to get a hard on thinking about coding or?—”

“What?” Noel gasped, looking down at his crotch. “You’re a jackass,” he huffed out. But it was always difficult to stay even mildly annoyed with Jed when he was aiming all his attention his way, and smiling so brightly the man could make an angel come. Noel cleared his throat.

“So, Christmas is coming up fast.” Jed casually leaned back in his chair, an arm draped over the empty one beside him. “You know what that means, right?”

Noel knew exactly what it meant. The annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Collier’s Creek was a tradition they had never missed. For as long as he could remember, his family and Jed’s had gone together and when they were old enough, he and Jed had started going alone. Just the two of them. It was their time, kind of like an extra special date night. Not that he’d ever said that to Jed.

“Sure. Come over to the apartment and we’ll have some of my famous hot spiced cider first, the way we always do, and?—”

“I was thinking, maybe this year we could switch things up a bit.”

“Switch things up? You want me to come to your place, or meet in Jake’s Tap first?”

Jed hesitated, and a twist of apprehension pulled deep in Noel’s chest. Noel knew, even before Jed spoke, that he wasn’t going to like whatever it was that was coming his way.

“I thought this year we could bring dates to the ceremony.”

Jed’s suggestion landed like a snowball to the chest, knocking the breath from Noel’s lungs. Now he got it, when he didn’t want to get it at all. So this was why Jed had mentioned that stupid article in the Chronicle about the dating app.

“Dates?” Somebody Jed was serious enough to want to bring to their tradition. How could he have not known? He and Jed had shared everything, every secret, since they were kids. No, not everything… He took a sip from his chocolate, swallowing down the now cool liquid along with his disappointment, jealousy and bone-deep sadness.

“I’ve started seeing somebody. I mentioned the tree lighting, and before I knew it, she was getting all excited and saying we should double date… I just don’t feel I can let her down.”

“No.” But you can let me down, can ’ t you? Noel pushed the thought away. He didn’t own Jed. There was no carved in stone law that said the tree lighting ceremony shalt in perpetuity be the special time dedicated to Noel Christmas and Jed Mason , even if he believed that was exactly what it was.

“No. Of course you can’t let your girlfriend down. Can you?”

Jed flushed. “Knew you’d understand,” he muttered.

“Who is she, anyway?”

“Cora. The cute little brunette who waits tables at Randy’s? C’mon, you must have noticed her?”

Weren’t all Jed’s on-off girlfriends cute little brunettes? None of them lasted long, and they were all interchangeable. He hadn’t noticed her, and he didn’t want to. Maybe he was being petty, but Jed had sprung this on him and he didn’t much feel like playing along.

“You go with Cora this year. It’s no big deal.”

Jed’s eyes widened, a mix of shock, hurt, and incredulity. If Jed were acting for his benefit, he was doing a damn good job. “No way. And what’s this crap about it not being a big deal? We’ve done this together since we were kids. I’m not going without you. It wouldn’t be the same.”

“No, it won’t be the same because this year you’ll be going with Cora.”

Jed stared at him, his face white except for two small patches of red on his cheekbones. “I’m sorry. If I could get out of it, I would, but she’s real excited, so I just can’t let her down. But us not being at the ceremony together just doesn’t feel right.” Jed barked out a humorless laugh. “Just trying to keep everybody happy, and screwing it up.”

A spasm of guilt ripped through Noel, even if he didn’t want to feel it. Jed had screwed up, but here he was trying to do right by everybody. “If—if it means that much to you?—”

“You know it does.” Jed leaned in and Noel had to stop himself from breathing in deep, inhaling the mix of sweet floral scents and the fresher, greener tones that always seemed to hang around Jed since he’d started working in the flower store. “And I’m sorry I screwed up. But she kind of caught me, you know?”

“Sure, okay. But I’m not sure about trying the dating app.” A vision of Kevin and Bruce filled his head. Maybe he could call up one of the guys he’d told he didn’t want to see again. Ohhh, that would go down really well…

“You’ll find somebody in a heartbeat. Face it, Noel,” Jed said, a teasing grin on his lips that didn’t quite meet his eyes, “you’re cute as hell. It’ll be so easy for you to get a date for the ceremony.”

Noel’s cheeks warmed at the compliment, but it only served to twist the knot in his gut tighter. He lifted his cup to his lips, only to find it empty.

“It’s just for the tree lighting, you know? It’s not like I’m asking you to get serious with anybody.” Jed’s hand reached across the table, just short of touching Noel’s own.

“Sure,” Noel whispered, his voice barely audible over the clamor of the coffee shop. Serious? There was only one man he wanted serious with, but the hard truth was he had more chance of finding that elusive lunar grilled cheese.