Christmas Bells





MY MOM loves Christmas. She loves Christmas so much my dad once said the main reason she married him was for his last name�"Bell. He was kidding, of course. I think.

Mom’s countdown begins in August with Christmas shopping. She hits the stores, scours the catalogs, and surfs the Internet looking for the perfect gift for each person on her list. No one gets asked what they want. From her point of view, that’s cheating. But she never fails to come up with wonderful, unique gifts that the recipients would never buy for themselves.

I don’t mean to imply she spends a ton of money. My dad makes a pretty good living as co-owner of a small accounting firm, and Mom supplements his earnings with a part-time job selling real estate. She’s an awesome salesman. But with four kids to raise and educate, my folks have never crossed the line between comfortable and well off. Mom just has a great eye�"and a lot of experience.

Gift buying doesn’t end in August. In fact, it often goes on until mid-December. But in September, the primary emphasis shifts to meal-planning. Not just for the traditional Christmas Eve buffet and the family dinner on Christmas Day. She plans breakfast, lunch, and dinner for every day during the holidays that any of the family will be home, other than those normally in residence. This means, of course, those of us who live elsewhere all have to let her know well in advance when we will arrive and how long we will stay. And woe betide anyone trying to limit the visit to a day or two. She won’t have that, and if you’re smart, you don’t buck Mom.

I’m lucky, I guess. Even though I don’t live in Castleton anymore, my job as a college professor�"okay, assistant professor, but I’m getting there�"means I have a lot of time around the holidays. My sister Olivia, next down from me in birth order, had the good sense to come back home after she finished law school, go into practice locally, and marry her high school boyfriend, whose family also lives in town. (Mom solves the equal-time-for-the-in-laws problem by inviting Charlie’s folks to the family events�"which suits Charlie’s mother just fine as she hates to cook.) Eric, my younger brother, is in graduate school and comes home fairly often anyway�"mostly when he runs out of clean clothes. Suzanne, the baby of the family, is in high school and the only one of us still at home. Someday things might not be so convenient for all of us, but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Where was I?

Oh, yeah. October. October is baking month. Mom bakes up a storm, filling the 80 cubic foot upright freezer in the basement to the brim with cookies, cakes, pies, and even the odd casserole ahead of time. I envy Suze in October. She gets to taste test everything Mom makes. (And then the rest of us have to listen to her bitch about all the weight she’s gained for the next six months.)

November, things start moving fast. November is decorating month. Mom has about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations in the attic, but every year she has to add to them, has to tweak her designs and do things a little differently from the year before. She’s crafty, too, so she makes a lot of stuff by hand. Of course, there’s about a week’s interruption in November for Thanksgiving, but she’s a lot more laid back about that. She does Thanksgiving dinner and likes to have us all there if possible, but she’s more tolerant of any necessary defections. Christmas is the main event for her.

December is all about filling in the corners. The shopping gets finished; the gifts get wrapped; the final bits of decorating get done (all except decorating the tree�"that’s a family affair); the house gets spruced up; and finally, a few days before Christmas Eve, we start rolling in, and Mom can take a deep breath and know that everything is as ready as it can be. She can relax and enjoy family and friends while everything she feels responsible for runs like a well-oiled machine.

No matter how much chaos the rest of us manage to create.





SUZE was the only one home when I stumbled through the door on December the twentieth. I was trying to hump all my luggage in at once�"duffle, suit hanger, backpack full of books, and a laptop case�"and doing a piss poor job of it. I finally manhandled it all through the door and dumped part of it in front of the stairs.

�śDork,” was the loving greeting I got from my baby sister, who was standing in the door to the living room on my right watching me with great amusement.

�śTwerp,” I replied. �śGet your lazy ass in gear and help me out here.”

I could see her debating whether to pitch in or give me the finger, so I added, �śI’ll get this stuff. How about you go bring the gifts in out of my car?” I knew she wouldn’t pass up a chance to shake the one with her name on it.

�śOkay,” she agreed. As she headed out the door she tossed over her shoulder, �śHey, you’re bunking in with Eric this year because Eric’s bringing a friend home with him.”

The guest room used to be my room. Or rather, my room was originally the guest room. I had talked Mom and Dad into letting me have it for myself when I turned fourteen and decided I was too old to share a room with my nine-year-old brother. I would be leaving for college in a few years anyway, and I could always sleep in Eric’s room when we actually did have visitors. My folks bought my arguments about the same time I realized I would have to maintain the room so that it would be at least minimally livable for someone who wasn’t a teenage boy, but it was worth it to have my own space. Once I left, Olivia snagged the room for a couple of years. When she left, it gradually reverted to a full-time guest room. I usually had it to myself when I visited.

I wasn’t complaining, though. Now that I was busy with my job, and Eric was knee-deep in graduate school, we didn’t get to see each other often. Sharing a room with him again wouldn’t be so bad.

I played it smart and took my bags upstairs in two trips, dumping them in Eric’s room before heading back down. Suze had already come back in the door with an armload of my gifts for the family. I relieved her of a few of them, and we took them into the living room to add to the pile beside the fireplace. The tree, ten feet tall easy, was in its usual place at the end of the room, but it was naked except for the strings of lights my father struggled with every year. The gifts couldn’t go under the tree until it was decorated, which should happen�Ś.

�śTonight,” Suze announced, as if reading my mind. �śEric and his friend are supposed to be here by dinner time, and we’re decorating after.”

�śSo, Eric’s friend, what’s her name?” I asked. It must be fairly serious if he was bringing her home for Christmas, and he hadn’t said anything to me during any of our spates of trading email.

�śS’not a she,” Suze answered. �śIt’s some guy he knows who didn’t have anywhere to go for Christmas.”

�śHuh,” I grunted. Eric always had been the most likely of us to bring home strays, and the folks didn’t mind. Although he’d kick my ass if I said it to him out loud, Eric is a lot like Mom.

Which reminded me�"�śWhere are the folks?”

�śKiwanis Christmas luncheon,” she replied. �śWe didn’t think you’d be here until later.”

At that moment, a blast of electronic music spilled into the air, and Suze dug a cell phone out of the pocket of her jeans. Her face lit up, and she started working her thumbs on the keypad, texting at the speed of light. �śUh,” she said, neither looking up nor slowing down, �śwhy don’t you get yourself a beer or something. I gotta take this.”

Teenagers and technology. I figured I’d leave her alone for now and bug her about it later. The beer sounded like a plan.





MOM and Dad got home about half an hour later. I was on my second beer by then, flipping idly through the high school annual from my senior year. (The folks have a sizable collection of those.) Having seen my car parked out front, Mom flew through the door. I barely had time to put down the beer and get to my feet before she hurled herself on me. Yeah, Mom’s a hugger. Big surprise, huh?

�śJon, you’re early!” she exclaimed, right in my ear. �śWhy didn’t you tell me? I would have stayed home to wait for you. Are you settled in? Did Suzanne put you in Eric’s room? Come sit with me in the kitchen while I start dinner. It’s so good to see you, sweetheart. Merry Christmas.”

That’s my mom: perfectly capable of holding both sides of a conversation, especially when she’s excited.

I did manage to extricate myself long enough to shake Dad’s hand and say �Śhi’ before she dragged me off. �śLater,” he mouthed at me, meaning we would find time to talk before the night was over. He knew better than to try to compete with Mom. He was smiling behind Mom’s back, though. Dad’s a pretty laid back dude (a trait I’ve always been glad we shared; there’s more than enough intensity in the family as is), and he loves Mom like crazy.

Mom got me started chopping carrots and zucchini for her roasted vegetable Alfredo while she worked on a big bowl of fruit salad, talking all the while. She peppered me with questions about work and my social life or lack thereof�"even giving me a chance to answer more often than not. I’d gotten over being embarrassed by that sort of thing once I got past the stage of random sex at any and all times and started thinking something a little more long term might have its charms. Not that I object to sex in any incarnation, mind you, but I was closing in on thirty, and I had a shining example of the joys of life shared right in front of me. Mom just wanted me to be happy.

I couldn’t argue with that.





DINNER was almost ready by the time Eric and his friend arrived. Suze was setting the dining room table while I opened some bottles of wine on the sideboard. Dad was in the kitchen trying to keep Mom from fretting too much over Eric’s tardiness. Dad had put some Christmas music on the CD player in the family room, so none of us heard the car. But all of us heard the front door bang open and Eric bellow, �śHey family, I’m here. When do we eat?”

Mom flew by me so fast she was nearly a blur and threw herself on Eric. As usual, they both started talking at the same time. I never understood a thing they said in those stereo moments of greeting, but they seemed to communicate just fine. This time I wasn’t even trying. All my attention was riveted on the man standing a little behind Eric in the entry hall.

It was lust at first sight.

I’m a gay man; it’s not like instant attraction is that unusual. But more often than not it requires the right setting and certain cues of a physical nature. Clubs: hot guys in tight jeans and too-small wife beaters sweating and grinding on the dance floor or flirting ostentatiously at the bar. The gym: hot guys in tight work-out shorts, naked from the waist up, sweating and grinding on the exercise equipment or flirting ostentatiously in the locker room. Not the foyer of my parent’s house. Not a guy buried in baggy jeans and so many layers against the cold his body was mostly a guess.

And yet�Ś.

Eric’s friend was around my height. His hair was what I think you call ash blond�"a shade somewhere between pale gold and pewter�"and hung straight to chin length from a side part, half covering the right side of his face. With light skin, angular features, and a patrician nose, he had what I think of as an English look, a look I’ve always been drawn to. But his eyes were the clincher. Jesus. Light gray, slightly down-tilted at the corners, surrounded with ridiculously long, dark lashes, they zeroed right in on my libido like a laser beam.

The beam was cut abruptly by Eric, who reached an arm around his friend’s neck and hauled him forward to meet Mom, who promptly snagged him away from Eric and enveloped him in a hug herself. I saw his face flush with surprise, and then he smiled and shyly returned the hug. I shook myself mentally and stepped forward to give my brother a manly clap on the back.

�śHey, bro,” I said. �śGood timing. You just missed being late for dinner.”

�śAs if that’s ever gonna happen,” he returned, grinning. Eric loves to eat, although he manages to stay in good shape despite the amount of food he puts away. It isn’t only in personality that Eric resembles Mom. He has her light brown hair and blue eyes, her round face and dimples (although he denies the dimples, even when he’s looking right at them in a mirror.) Me, I take after Dad in looks�"dark hair and hazel eyes, a tendency to lankiness. Me and Suze, the youngest and eldest, are clearly Dad’s get, while the middles, Eric and Olivia, got Mom’s Davis genes. Different tones making up the Bell harmony.

I turned and held a hand out to my brother’s friend, who was now out of my mother’s clutches. �śHi, I’m Jon, the older brother.”

�śKim Ellison,” he replied, shaking my hand. He had a firm grip, but he seemed to be having some trouble with eye contact. Probably just a little overwhelmed. A lot of people had that reaction to the Bell family en masse.

�śYou boys take your things upstairs and wash up,” Mom instructed. �śDinner will be on the table in five minutes.”

I snagged Kim’s canvas duffle before he could pick it up himself. �śCome on, I’ll show you to the guest room.”

�śWhat about me?” Eric demanded, trying to shift his backpack to my shoulder. I blocked him and gave him a mock glare.

�śDo I look like a bellhop to you?”

�śHalf of one.”

�śFunny,” I snorted. �śYou’re funny.”

I heard Kim chuckling softly at our by-play. I liked the sound of it, so I kept up the bickering as we trooped upstairs. After I dropped off Kim’s bag in the guestroom and pointed him in the direction of the upstairs bathroom, though, Eric grabbed my arm. �śTalk to you for a sec?” he queried.

Curious, I followed him into his�"our�"room. �śWhat’s up?”

�śListen,” he started, sounding oddly diffident for my usually blunt brother. �śDo me a favor, okay?”

�śWhat do you need?”

�śAbout Kim�Ś the thing is�Ś he, uh�Ś oh, fuck. Look, just don’t hit on him, okay?”

�śWhat?” I was stunned. �śWhat are you talking about?”

�śCome on, Jon,” Eric huffed. �śI saw you pinging him with your gaydar from across the room.”

Normally, a comment like that between Eric and me would have been a joke, but this time his tone was accusatory rather than amused. It stung. No one in my family had ever had a problem with my sexual orientation. Mom was a PFLAG-waving advocate for gay rights and Dad was secure enough in his own identity to deal with having a gay son just fine. My sibs had always been completely supportive, which made Eric’s turnaround all the more painful.

�śIs this where you draw the line, then, little brother?” I snapped. �śIt’s okay if your brother is gay, but you wouldn’t want your best friend to date him?”

I turned and started for the door, not waiting for an answer, but Eric grabbed my arm. �śJon, wait,” he begged. �śFuck, man, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. Just let me explain, okay?”

I was shaking a little from anger and shock, and part of me wanted to just walk away. But this was Eric, so I stopped and listened.

�śLook,” he said when he realized he had my attention. �śI met Kim this semester when we got put on the same team for a class project. He is gay. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t even bring this up. He’s a good guy, and we got to be friends. When he said he wasn’t going home for Christmas, I bugged him ’til he told me why. Kim’s parents are loaded, and they think they’re hot shit in the social scene where they live. Kim came out to them this summer. After his mother stopped having hysterics and his dad quit yelling at him about how he was disgracing the family, they finally told him they’d finish paying for his education�"on the condition that he never darken their doorway again.”

�śShit,” I groaned. It was an old story, but that didn’t make it suck any less. �śWhat assholes.”

�śYeah, tell me,” Eric agreed. �śAnyway, like I said, Kim’s a good guy, and he’s just kind of, you know, vulnerable right now.” Eric looked a little embarrassed as he said this last. Probably thought it sounded a little too Oprah. But he swallowed and went on. �śI thought it’d be good for him to have a real family Christmas is all.”

�śAnd that doesn’t include hooking up with your big brother,” I finished for him.

He flushed and gave me a half-shrug, half-nod.

I could see his point, and I knew my brother well enough to know that he wasn’t accusing me of being some sort of gay predator out to fuck�"or fuck over�"every hot young guy I ran across. Let’s just say diplomacy had never been Eric’s strong point. His heart was in the right place, even if his mouth wasn’t. I stamped down on the remaining twinge of hurt.

�śAll right, I hereby solemnly swear that I will not come on to your friend,” I promised, exaggerating to lighten the tone. �śI suppose it’s okay with you if I at least act civil?”

�śNo, yeah, of course it is,” Eric said. He wouldn’t meet my gaze. �śI just want him to feel at home, you know?”

�śGot it.”

Eric looked like he was going to say something else, but at that moment Suze hollered up the stairs that we needed to get our butts to the dining room before the food got cold. I think we were both relieved to drop the conversation.

It took some effort on my part to be my usual cheerful self over dinner, but I think I pulled it off. If I was quieter than normal, no one noticed. In the Bell family, there are almost always plenty of voices clamoring to be heard.





BY NINE thirty, the table was cleared, the kitchen was clean, and Mom had everyone herded into the living room for the tree trimming. Olivia and Charlie arrived right on time, and my sister’s warm greeting got me over the last of my discomfort. Livy is a beautiful woman�"a real head-turner as her besotted husband has been heard to remark with a combination of pride and wonder�"but she looked especially lovely that night. It may be a cliché, but at four plus months pregnant and beginning to show, she was radiant.

Trimming the tree is a group enterprise in our family, but some of us get our hands dirtier than others, so to speak. Half an hour into the process, Livy, Eric and Charlie were placing ornaments and strings of crystal beads on the tree to Mom’s specifications. Suze was on the floor removing each item from a box and handing it up to Mom. Dad was making sure everyone had a full glass of his famous (and potent) eggnog at all times. And I was standing back a little making occasional judicious comments about the overall effect.

Kim had elected to stay out of the fray around the tree, especially when the trimming crew started arguing about when certain ornaments had been acquired and who they �śbelonged” to. (They bought that one the year I was in first grade. No they didn’t, you idiot; that was the one we got in Chicago when I was eight. I remember it because�Ś.” and so on.) Kim had talked to Dad for a while, and then he gradually made his way over to stand beside me next to the fireplace. I admit I tensed up a little at first, but as he stood there without speaking, I realized it was up to me to start the conversation.

�śSo,” I said, trying not to sound awkward, �śyou met Eric in class? Getting your degree in accounting too?”

�śUh, no,” he replied. His voice was pleasantly deep. �śArchitecture. But the program has a business requirement. Eric and I are taking marketing together.”

�śGuess that makes sense,” I opined. �śArchitects have to sell themselves like anyone else in business.”

�śTrue, though I prefer the art and design end of things. Eric’s been a big help. He’s good at the business stuff.”

I nodded. Dad’s accountant genes had skipped over me and landed in Eric. He didn’t fit the stereotype, being a robust extrovert, but he liked the concreteness of dealing with numbers. Dad wasn’t the sort of guy to push his kids to follow in his footsteps, but I knew he was pleased that Eric wanted to come into the business with him. Someday, Eric would take over, and Dad could retire with the satisfaction of leaving a business legacy behind him, as well as a generous contribution to the continuation of the species.

�śYou teach at the University in the city, right?” Kim was asking me. �śPhilosophy?”

�śThat’s right,” I agreed. We’d been doing that guys-conversing thing, looking straight ahead at the main event in the room while talking out of the corners of our mouths. But I turned my head at that moment and saw that Kim was now looking at me. Those beautiful gray eyes, damn, they made my throat tighten, to say nothing of another part of my anatomy that had nothing to do with speech but everything to do with distraction.

�śI’d like to take a philosophy course sometime,” Kim said. His voice had softened and gone even deeper, and his eyes had darkened, gaze unwavering. �śMaybe something on aesthetics. That’s the philosophy of beauty, right? I bet you’re a good teacher.”

Okay, un-fucking-fair. I had promised my brother I wouldn’t hit on his friend. What was I supposed to do about his friend hitting on me?

Mom to the rescue. �śI think that’s it,” she proclaimed. �śLet’s see how it looks.”

Kim looked a little confused. �śWith the lights out,” I explained. I used helping Suze up off the floor as an excuse to put some distance between us.

When Dad hit the light switch, the room fell silent as well as dark. Now the only illumination in the room was the orange glow of the fire in the hearth and the twinkling of hundreds of tiny, crystal pinpoints on the Christmas tree, reflecting off the facets of silver beads and the curves and edges of dozens of ornaments of all colors and shapes.

Somebody, I’m not sure who, sighed. Suze leaned her head against my arm. Closer to the tree, Eric put both arms around Mom while Olivia snuggled into her husband’s chest. I couldn’t resist glancing at Kim. He was staring at the tree, and at the people gathered around it, and a flicker of flame from the hearth reflected off his eyes with the sort of shine you only get from light reflecting on water.

It occurred to me then that keeping my promise to my brother might end up being a lot harder than I thought.





NO ONE ever gets bored in the Bell household over the holidays. There’s always something going on: shopping trips, dinners out with family friends, heavy-lifting chores Mom and Dad save up for when Eric and I are home, at least one morning or afternoon spent transporting gift baskets to families in need or serving meals at the local soup kitchen (Mom insists we all get involved in some sort of community service during the holidays), indoor or outdoor games (depending on the weather), watching sports or rental movies on TV, and sometimes just sitting around shooting the breeze. After some initial reticence, Kim was joining in on it all like he’d always been around. I’d like to say this made it easier for me to think of him as another brother, or at least just a friend. But if I did, I’d be lying.

It wasn’t just the fact that he was seriously attractive, either. The more time I spent in his company, the better I liked him. He had a wicked sense of humor. You had to pay attention or you could miss it, because it was subtle. Sometimes it was hard to tell when he was being sarcastic and when he was serious, but he never turned the sharper edges of his humor on anyone who might misunderstand and be hurt.

Kim was also perceptive and genuinely interested in people. He bonded with everyone in the family by meeting them on their own ground without a hint of condescension or sense that he was anything but sincerely happy to know them.

In addition to insisting on helping me and Eric with any chores Dad threw our way, he also engaged Dad in conversations about running a business and asked his advice about financial planning and investments. When he discovered that Charlie liked to spend his free time doing woodwork and was working on baby furniture, he volunteered to help and ended up doing some detail work on the crib so beautiful it practically had Livy in tears. With Suze, he talked music, and the two of them exchanged playlists. Turned out he was pretty tech-savvy, so he taught her some neat tricks she could do with her iPod too. And Mom? She just basked in his good manners and good-heartedness.

If it sounds like I was spending a lot of time watching Kim, well, I was. I couldn’t help it. We were interacting, of course�"eating, working, talking, shopping and playing games together. But it all took place in the middle of a crowd, subsets of the family and often family friends as well. On top of that, Eric’s mandate had sensitized me, and it was impacting my behavior toward Kim, causing me to be more reserved around him than I am normally.

Funny thing was, Kim seemed to be watching me as well, and whether it was because of, or in spite of, my behavior, I couldn’t tell. He didn’t flirt with me the way he had that first evening during the tree-trimming. He didn’t avoid me either. It reminded me of a game of chicken in a way. Both of us watching and waiting for the other to give some sign which way the dice would fall. He didn’t, and I couldn’t.

Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place (pun intended). I could keep Kim at arm’s length and risk coming off like an unfriendly jerk, or I could get closer and risk coming off like a horny jerk. A jerk either way.

The whole uneasy situation almost blew up the day before Christmas Eve, though, all because of an untied shoelace.

It was a beautiful afternoon, cold but sunny. We’d had a light lunch�"Mom’s way of prepping us for the feasts to come over the next couple of days�"and were sitting around being indecisive when Charlie breezed in and tossed a football at Eric.

�śI’m off for the rest of the week,” Charlie announced. �śYou guys get off your lazy butts and let’s play.”

�śYou’re on,” Eric agreed. �śYou, me, and Dad versus Kim, Jon, and Suze.”

Suze looked thrilled. Kim had done his bonding thing a little too well with my baby sister. She had a big crush on the guy and subtle wasn’t in her repertoire. I was just grateful I was going to be playing beside Kim rather than opposite him, since chasing him down to prevent him from scoring seemed like a dangerous idea.

The folks’ house was right across the street from a park that meandered through the neighborhood. In addition to tennis courts and playground equipment, it featured a decent-sized open area that had been the field of battle for many games of football, soccer, and Frisbee over the years. We trooped over, shed our heavy jackets, and started to play. Eric had played football in high school, as had Dad in his day. But I ran track, Charlie was a golfer, and Suze’s sport was swimming. I had no idea what Kim had been into, but somehow I wasn’t surprised when he turned out to be the best of all of us. He was fast, agile, and had a wicked throwing arm.

I should have known it wouldn’t make a whole lot of difference whose team I played on. It was a typical pick-up game, short on rules and long on jostling. I tried hard to concentrate on the game, but it seemed that everywhere I looked, there was Kim: hair shining in the sun, eyes bright, sweat rolling down his neck and under his collar so tantalizingly. After twenty minutes of play, he was right in my nose as well�"when we huddled to plan strategy, the musky smell of sweaty man almost did me in.

I was silently thanking God that I had put on baggy sweat pants that morning instead of tight jeans when Charlie faded back to throw the football and Kim took off after Eric to try and intercept the pass. Both of them were running full tilt down the field with their heads turned back to track the ball, and the rest of us were converging on them as they ran. None of us had noticed Suze dropping back behind the line of scrimmage and going down on one knee to retie her sneakers. Eric and Kim were heading straight for her. No way were they going to see her in time.

�śSuze, look out!” I yelled, but when Suze looked up, she froze. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast in my life. I reached out and grabbed Eric’s arm, and he stumbled and went down. Kim was practically on top of Suze by then and there was only one thing I could do to stop him before the inevitable collision. I didn’t even think about it; I just dove at him.

We missed Suze by a hair. That was a good thing. For the rest�Ś.

Kim hit the ground with me mostly on top of him. The winter-dead grass was thick enough to provide some cushion, but Kim had had the breath knocked out of him. He stared up at me, shocked speechless and gulping for breath. It was a totally inappropriate moment for my world to shrink down to the sight of those gorgeous gray eyes and the feel of that warm body stretched out under me. My dick filled between one heartbeat and the next. Kim would’ve had to have been unconscious or dead to miss it hardening against his hip.

He blinked. I came back to myself with a jolt and scrambled off of him. �śShit. Kim, are you okay?”

He nodded, sucked in air. �śI’m okay. You?”

I did a quick mental survey and said, �śYeah, I’m good.”

By then, the rest of the group had gathered around us and were all talking at once, either seeking reassurance or assigning blame or both. Suzanne was in tears, and Dad had his arm around her. Eric was yelling at her for doing such a dumb thing, but that was just post-fear reaction on his part, and no one paid any attention. In all the confusion, I was able to avoid looking at Kim. I was hoping he would chalk my boner up to adrenaline. As if.

Eventually, we all sorted ourselves out and calmed down, but the consensus held that we’d had enough football for one day. After Mom and Olivia fussed over us all over again, the incident appeared to be on its way into the family archive, mentally filed under �śclose calls.” I wished I could dismiss it as easily.





OVER Christmas vacation, sleeping in was the order of the day for me�"except on Christmas Eve morning. On that day, I always got up early and went down to the kitchen to help Mom make pimiento cheese for the Christmas Eve buffet.

The tradition started when I was just a kid. I was fascinated by the clunky old manual meat grinder Mom used to turn blocks of Cheddar and Colby cheese into soft, ruffled spirals. The device had to be clamped onto the seat of a chair for stability and then the cheese�"and pimientos and onion�"got crammed down into the wide top and hand-cranked through the blades to come out serrated holes at the front. Mom stuffed and cranked while I stood by with a knife to scrape the output into a big bowl, some of it ending up in my mouth rather than the bowl. I don’t know why the cheese tastes so much better ground, but it does.

A few years back, Dad bought Mom a fancy mixer that actually had a grinding attachment. She loves it, but by tacit agreement, it always sits idle on Christmas Eve morning and the old meat grinder comes out of the cabinet to fulfill its annual role.

Mom already had the grinder out and attached to the chair when I staggered into the kitchen. I was aching all over from the disaster on the gridiron the previous day, but no way was I going to be the one to screw up one of my favorite parts of Christmas. Mom beamed at me and pointed at the counter, where blocks of cheese waited on a cutting board beside a huge mug of coffee. Bless you, Mom.

Once the coffee returned me to a semi-human state, I set to work reducing the cheese into smaller chunks while Mom cut up onions and poured pimientos into a strainer to drain. Pretty soon I was standing by with a table knife while Mom started grinding the cheese. It took a while because Mom made a ton of the stuff. Her pimiento cheese sandwiches were a mainstay of the buffet and usually the first thing to disappear.

�śI’m really happy Eric brought Kim home with him for Christmas,” Mom said, apropos of nothing, at least, nothing I could discern. The workings of Mom’s brain often elude me.

�śUh, yeah, me too,” I mumbled.

�śHe’s a fine young man,” she opined. �śI just don’t understand his parents at all. How could any parent throw away their child like that?”

�śEric told you about that?” I asked, surprised. I had gotten the impression from my brother that the story wasn’t intended to be common knowledge. He’d only told me to make his point.

�śOh, no,” Mom replied. �śKim told me himself.” And that was actually less surprising. People have always talked to my Mom. They seem to know instinctively that she won’t judge them. �śI have to say he is handling it well,” she went on.

�śHow do you mean?”

�śWell, he hasn’t allowed his parents’ reaction to make him bitter,” she explained, �śor cause him to be ashamed when he has nothing to be ashamed of.”

I considered that for a moment. Kim hadn’t made a public announcement of his sexual preferences since he’d been with us, but he wasn’t acting like a closet case either. From hanging out with Eric, I’m sure he knew that the Bell family was about as far from homophobic as you could get. So it probably didn’t seem to be important whether any of us knew or not. Apart from Eric, Mom, and me, I had no idea what the rest of the family thought. (Well, except I was pretty sure my dazzled baby sister wasn’t aware the object of her crush was gay.) The more I thought about it, the more I saw my mother’s point. For a man who had been so thoroughly rejected by his family because of who he was, Kim seemed pretty damn well-adjusted.

�śAnyway,” Mom said. �śI’m glad he’s here, and I’m glad he feels so at home. I hope he knows he’ll always be welcome here. I’d be proud to have him in the family.”

I looked up from my cheese scraping duties to see if there was something in Mom’s face to explain the curious emphasis in her voice, but she had turned away to pick up some onion quarters to add to the grinder. When she returned to her cranking, she was off on other topics.

Why was I left feeling as if somehow that whole conversation had been aimed right at me?





CHRISTMAS EVE open house and buffet at the Bell house is a big deal. Extended family, friends, family of friends, friends of friends, etc. are all welcome. The dining room table and sideboard groan under the spread, which everyone in the family is expected to help keep heaped up as long as the food lasts. Dad tends bar in the family room while Charlie mans the coolers full of beer and soda in the sunroom. It’s a happy chaos of color and noise and scent.

That Christmas Eve, however, I was only really aware of one person in the crowd. No matter where I was or who I was talking to, I was always on the lookout for Kim, and every time we wound up in one another’s vicinity, and I caught sight of him, he seemed to be looking right at me with speculation in his gaze. But at no time was I able to get near him. When I tried, he’d melt out of sight into the crowd. More than one acquaintance I talked to that evening�"and I have no idea what I said to any of them�"asked if I was okay or said I seemed distracted. Yeah, you could say that.

It was Olivia who finally tackled me head on. Livy and I had always been close, although we had very different dispositions. She tended to push right through things that I finessed around, like Mom and Eric in that respect, only more so.

We were in the kitchen�"Livy scooping sweet and sour meatballs out of a stockpot into a chafing dish and me refilling pitchers of eggnog from the gallon jugs in the fridge�"when she suddenly turned and pointed the dripping ladle at me.

�śJon, what is it with you and Kim?” she demanded. �śYou’re interested in him; he’s interested in you. Why the heck don’t you say something instead of mooning around about it?”

�śWhat makes you think he’s interested in me?” I countered.

�śOh come on, Jon. I’m not blind. I’ve never seen two people orbit around each other as obviously. So what’s the problem?”

�śI�Ś it’s�Ś it’s complicated,” I stammered.

�śOh, for Pete’s sake.” Livy could do exasperated like nobody’s business. �śComplicated? Honestly, Jon, women get a bad rap for getting all emotional and making a mess of things. You guys with your weird ideas and inability to communicate have it all over us in that department.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, and Livy wasn’t waiting for me to respond anyway.

�śLet me tell you a story, Jon,” she said. Livy always has a story for any situation. �śYou know Bobby Talbot, right?”

I did. Bob Talbot had been Charlie’s BFF from grade school on. He was here tonight, in fact. I had seen him several times, joined at the hip with his pretty wife Colleen, as usual (some of their friends called the couple �śBill and Coo.” Behind their backs of course).

�śYou remember when Charlie broke up with me in our junior year of high school?” Livy asked.

I nodded, confused by the segue but assuming there was a connection. I was away in college when it happened, but the rest of the family kept me informed. As I recalled, the breakup had been of short duration, so I never really heard all the details.

Livy dropped the ladle back into the pot and leaned against the counter. �śWell,” she told me, �śwhat happened was, when we were juniors, Bobby all of a sudden decided that he was madly in love with me, even though I was his best friend’s girlfriend, and the three of us had been hanging out forever. Naturally, he felt the need to confess this to Charlie. So what does Charlie do? He decides to be all honorable and self-sacrificing and break up with me so that his buddy can have his chance.”

�śHe did?” I interjected. For all I knew, Bob Talbot was that big an idiot, but I’d thought better of my brother-in-law.

�śOh yes,” Livy confirmed. �śI was pretty torn up when Charlie broke up with me. I mean, it just came out of the blue. I thought maybe he was interested in another girl or something. Then about a week after the break-up, Bobby asked me out, and that’s when the penny dropped. I knew Bobby wouldn’t have done it without clearing it with Charlie. That goes against the best buddy code big time. Which meant Charlie was in on it.”

�śThat must have pissed you off,” I commented. Hah. Understatement.

�śYou’d better believe it did. And you’d also better believe I went straight to Charlie and ripped him a new one.” She huffed, her face reddening just thinking about it. �śThe idea of Charlie and Bobby conspiring like that behind my back, without a single thought for how I might feel about it. Like I had no say in it at all. I was livid. I didn’t talk to Charlie for a month after that, until he finally convinced me he’d seen the light and understood why I was so upset. It wasn’t until then that I got back together with him. Then, out of the goodness of my heart, I introduced Bobby to Colleen, who’d been crushing on him for years, and the rest is history.”

She stopped talking and stared at me expectantly. �śUh, okay,” I said, bemused. It was an interesting, if slightly unnerving, story, but I wasn’t at all sure what it was supposed to mean to me.

�śOkay?” Livy snapped. �śIs that all you have to say? Don’t you get it?”

�śUhm, no,” I admitted. �śWhat does you and Charlie breaking up in high school have to do with me and Kim? It’s a completely different situation.”

Livy stared at me like I’d just morphed into a giant pile of dog doo right before her eyes. Then she snatched up the chafing dish and stomped out of the kitchen, trailing a loud �śMen!” behind her.

I poured myself a glass of eggnog from the jug and knocked it back in one gulp. I was down two to the women in the family and feeling dumb as a rock.





GIVEN the amount of food I’d consumed and booze I’d drunk by the time the party ended and the clean-up was done to Mom’s satisfaction, I had expected to lose consciousness as soon as I hit the bed. Didn’t happen. I lay in bed staring at the ceiling and listening to Eric snore while my thoughts swirled around in a jumble. Just down the hall, a gorgeous man who might�"just might�"be interested in me, slept alone in his bed while I grappled with the conflict between my attraction and my promise to my brother. Other Bells who’d rung in seemed to be encouraging me to go for it. At least I thought they were. (Why do women have to be so enigmatic, anyway? Why can’t they just say what they mean?) But maybe I was just trying to convince myself, looking for a way to justify breaking my word. All I knew for sure was that in three more days, Kim and Eric would be heading back to school, and I’d have lost my best chance with Kim. I could already feel the sting of regret.

After a while I gave up trying to get to sleep and got out of bed, thinking I would take my brooding downstairs and fix it a cup of hot chocolate. Eric was dead to the world and didn’t even move as I opened the bedroom door and slipped into the darkened hallway. The house was wrapped in silence. The only sound I could hear at all as I started down the stairs was the faint crackle of the fire dying away in the fireplace.

It wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the stairs that I realized the Christmas tree was lit. I was positive Dad had unplugged it before we all turned in. You hear those horror stories about trees catching fire in the middle of the night, and whether the tales were true or apocryphal, my father was the cautious type. I started into the living room to take care of it and saw then that the room was occupied. Kim was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the tree, wrapped in a bathrobe. I must have made some sort of noise, because he half-turned and looked at me over his shoulder.

�śHey,” I said. �śSorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I didn’t think anyone else was up.”

�śIt’s cool,” he said. �śI couldn’t sleep.”

�śYeah, me neither.” I hesitated, not really wanting to leave. �śUm, I was going to make some hot chocolate. You want a cup?”

�śAlready ahead of you,” he answered, lifting a mug to show me. �śThere’s more. Wanta get a cup and join me?”

�śSure,” I agreed. Right at that moment, I could think of very few things I’d rather do, and since those things also involved Kim�Ś.

I got myself a cup of cocoa and joined Kim in front of the tree.

�śMerry Christmas,” he said, raising his cup to clink against mine.

�śBack at you,” I answered.

We sat in silence for a while sipping our drinks and staring at the tree. I was profoundly aware of Kim’s body near mine, and I wanted to move closer, to bump knees and shoulders, to feel his solid warmth against me. He must have been reading my mind, because he shifted minutely and pressed his shoulder against mine.

�śKim�"” I started.

�śShhh,” he said. He took my cup out of my hand, set it carefully aside, and then he put both hands on my face and kissed me.

Kim’s lips were soft but firm, and he applied just the right amount of suction. He seemed to have settled in for the long haul. It was clear he took his kissing seriously. I like that in a man.

I chased the taste of chocolate into his mouth and explored its sweet warmth thoroughly with my tongue. He started humming in the back of his throat, a single note of pleasure, and the vibration sang in my teeth and the bones of my face. It was intoxicating. Promise? What promise?

After a bit, I started yearning for skin. I fumbled at the tie on Kim’s robe and realized he had put it on over boxer-briefs and nothing more. I slid both hands in and laid them on his chest, feeling warmth and the rise and fall of his breath and the faint thrum of his heartbeat.

He released my lips and threw his head back. I took him up on the invitation and began trailing my mouth down the length of his neck. As I traced the line of his collarbone with my tongue, I began to rub my thumbs, lightly at first and then with more force, against his nipples. The hum became a moan.

Kim reached abruptly for my shirt and pulled it off over my head, forcing me to drop my hands so that he could strip it off me completely. Before I could get my hands on him again, he was pushing me over backward onto the floor and stretching his whole body on top of me. He sucked and nipped his way from my jaw down to my navel, pausing briefly to give my nipples some special attention. I was already rock hard and aching, and when Kim pushed his tongue into my navel, a thin line of heat traveled down from there into my dick, and I almost lost it. When I jerked at the sensation, Kim took the opportunity to pull my sweat pants off my hips and down my thighs, chuckling when my freed erection thumped against my belly.

�śI knew you’d be beautiful,” Kim murmured, more to himself than to me. His words lit me up anyway.

He eased himself further down and buried his nose in my balls for a moment, then began to lick his way up my shaft. Before he could open his lips around the head, I shoved my hands into his hair and pushed back.

�śNot fair,” I croaked. �śYou get naked too.”

He grinned and rose to his knees to shed the robe, then, only a little awkwardly, the boxer-briefs. And he had the nerve to call me beautiful. There wasn’t much light in the room between the tree and the embers of the fire, but it was enough to cast his body in perfect curves and angles. I was nearly hypnotized by the way the cut of his hipbones framed his magnificent cock.

�śI could get used to studying your architecture,” I said.

�śWe’ll have to see what we can do about that,” he replied. �śI hope your family are heavy sleepers.”

Shows you how entranced I was that I hadn’t even thought about that. But they were, and even if they hadn’t been, I’m not sure I would have cared.

�śGet back here,” I ordered, and he dropped down obligingly and began painting my dick with his tongue, catching drops of pre-cum off the head to mingle with his spit. I couldn’t help the extended moan that drew from me.

Kim raised his head and looked at me. �śSixty-nine?” he suggested. �śThat way we’ll both have our mouths too full to make a lot of noise.”

I had to fight not to come just from the idea. I nodded vigorously, uncertain whether I could talk intelligibly at that point. And then Kim was straddling me, and I got my hands on his gorgeous ass and my mouth on his cock and his lips rolled down over my erection and for a while the world narrowed to wet heat and suction and exquisite sensation on the one hand and tangy-sweet hot fullness in my throat on the other.

I couldn’t have said how long we went on. It seemed to last forever and be over in a moment. I pulled off Kim’s cock and took him in hand when I knew I was about to shoot�"didn’t want to risk losing control of my jaw muscles in the heat of the moment�"and Kim took the hint and drew off to stroke me through an orgasm as massive as any I’d ever had. Even as I came down, I could feel him tensing above me, and I borrowed some of my spend from where it had splashed onto my chest and returned the favor.

Kim remained crouched over me for a minute or two while his breathing slowed and his muscles stopped quivering from the intensity of his release. Then he executed a neat dismount and turn and landed on the floor beside me. He rested his head on my shoulder, and I put my hand on his head and toyed with his hair. Neither one of us spoke at first; we just lay there savoring the sweet boneless feeling that follows good sex. But finally I heard Kim chuckle under his breath, and he reached out and swiped at the bottom branches of the Christmas tree.

�śWhat?” I asked.

�śI was just thinking that opening presents tomorrow�"today�"is going to be interesting,” he replied. �śI may never look at a Christmas tree the same way again.”

�śI don’t know. I could learn to appreciate this angle.”

Kim snorted and poked me in the ribs. �śI think maybe having sex under a tree in your parents’ living room is supposed to be a one-time thing.”

He was joking, but it sobered me. Maybe it was a one-time thing as far as he was concerned. I needed it not to be, but I wasn’t sure how to ask.

�śIt was Eric, wasn’t it?” Kim asked abruptly.

�śWhat was Eric?”

�śWhat kept you from, you know, making a move on me.”

�śYeah,” I sighed. �śDon’t be mad at him. He was just�"”

�śLooking out for me,” Kim finished for me. �śI know. He’s kind of protective. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great friend, best friend I’ve ever had. But there are things he just doesn’t get.” Kim sat up and crossed his legs at my side, as if he needed to be upright to think clearly. �śI’m nowhere near as fragile as he thinks I am. I was pretty upset about the way my parents reacted when I came out to them. Who wouldn’t be? But the thing is, I wasn’t really surprised. I was never much more than an accessory to my folks. They had me because in their circle you’re expected to produce an heir, but once you’ve accomplished that, you get on with your social life and leave the kid to the housekeepers and au pairs. Some of them were good to me, but it wasn’t the same thing. So when Mom and Dad kicked me to the curb�Ś well�Ś how much can you miss something you never had?”

I reached for his hand, and he curled his fingers around mine and squeezed, but he was smiling at the same time.

�śI think Eric was projecting,” Kim went on. �śYour family is so amazing. If I had lost a family like this, then I might’ve had something to mourn.”

I used my grip on Kim’s hand to pull myself up beside him and leaned against his shoulder. There was drying sticky�"his and mine�"all over my stomach and chest, so I snagged my shirt from the floor and used it to wipe down. I still felt tongue-tied, afraid to say what I wanted to say and risk disappointment.

�śWhat else?” I temporized.

�śHuh?”

�śYou said �Śthings’ Eric doesn’t get,” I prompted. �śWhat else?”

�śOh. Yeah.” He glanced at me sideways, a hint of uncertainty in his expression, then plunged on. �śEric is totally cool with gays because of how you and your family roll. But he’s straight, so there are still going to be some things he doesn’t understand. Like the fact that gay guys can get together without it always turning into some big drama. I have gay friends who’ve hooked up once or twice and then gone right back to being friends without missing a beat. He’s afraid you and me getting together will ruin the whole family vibe and make things all uncomfortable. But it doesn’t have to be that way, right? We’ll always be friends.”

�śIf that’s what you want,” I said, but my heart was sinking, and I fought hard to keep it from showing.

Not hard enough, apparently, because Kim turned to me suddenly, eyes flashing with�"was that hope?

�śGod, no!” he exclaimed. �śThat’s not what I want at all. What I want is to spend time with you, lots of time, talking and fucking and just being until we see where this is going. And it’s not only because I want to be part of your family, either. It’s because I think I might want to be a part of you.” He flushed and looked at the floor. �śI just wasn’t sure you�Ś.”

He trailed off then, mostly because I planted my lips on his and sucked the words right out of his mouth, doing my not-so-level-headed best to let him know that I was right there on the same page with him.





THE last Bell to be heard from on the subject of Kim and me came out of her room as I was, reluctantly, returning Kim to the guest room. Suze caught us with our tongues in each other’s mouths as she wandered into the hall, sleep-tousled and clad in oversized flannel pajama bottoms, a long-sleeved tee three sizes too big for her, and multi-colored socks�"with toes in them, no less. She stopped dead for a moment and blinked at us. Then she scowled and stomped past us heading for the bathroom, muttering loudly enough to be heard quite clearly, �śWell shit, wouldn’t you know he’d turn out to be gay.”





CHRISTMAS morning was less awkward than I’d feared. Eric was already up when I awoke to Suze pounding on the door to summon me to breakfast, and he greeted me with a sheepish grin that told me Kim had laid it out for him. Suze was still inclined to glower, but when we finished breakfast and gathered in the family room, and Kim sat down next to me on the couch and slung his arm around my neck, I got a thumbs-up from Charlie, a wink from Dad, and smiles from Mom and Olivia that were ridiculously self-congratulatory. We were out. What could I do but relax and enjoy it?

I was a little nervous when Kim opened the last-minute gift I had bought him. I’d called a colleague in the department who taught an aesthetics course and asked for a recommendation. It turned out there was a book of essays on architecture and aesthetic theory written by both philosophers and famous architects. He picked up a copy at a bookstore in the city and overnighted it to me just in time. From the look in Kim’s eyes when he opened it, I’d say it was a success.

Great minds think alike, I guess, because Kim’s gift to me was also a book related to architecture. Only his was a book of pictures by a noted gay photographer comparing architectural elements and the nude male body. It was a gorgeous book and also a perfect example of Kim’s sly humor. I planned on making sure he mimicked every pose in the book for me at the appropriate time.

One of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do was say goodbye two days later when Kim and Eric loaded up the car and started back to school. But I consoled myself with the thought that their college and the university where I taught were not much more than two hour’s drive apart. There would be weekends and breaks, and Kim was already planning to apply for a summer internship in the city. This thing between us was new, after all. We had time to explore and see where it might lead.

Mom, of course, already knew. She stood on the porch beside me as I watched my brother and my lover drive off and slid her arm around my waist. �śNext Christmas,” she said complacently, �śyou and Kim can share the guestroom.”





Mom’s Pimiento Cheese



1 8-ounce block each of extra sharp cheddar and Colby cheese

1 4-ounce jar of pimientos

1 quarter of a small onion

1 tbsp. sweet pickle juice (or to taste)

½ cup Miracle Whip salad dressing



Using an old-fashioned manual meat grinder or the grinding attachment of a stand mixer, grind the cheese with the pimientos and onion into a large bowl. Stir in the sweet pickle juice and the salad dressing to a good spreading consistency, adding more salad dressing if necessary. Cover and keep refrigerated until served. If the spread dries a little in the fridge, stir in a little more salad dressing.





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About the Author





ANDI DEACON wrote and illustrated her first book at age six. A sequel to Black Beauty, it gave a minor equine character a happier ending. Sidetracked for many years, she returned to writing via fan fiction and is now testing the waters of original fiction in her much-beloved genre of hot man-on-man romance. At home in North Carolina with a job, an adorable husband, and two spoiled cats, she still finds time to read, write, watch movies and television, fangirl, and make chain mail jewelry now and then.





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Copyright

Christmas Bells ©Copyright Andi Deacon, 2010



Published by

Dreamspinner Press

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Suite 244-149

Frisco, TX 75034

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.



Cover Art by Paul Richmond http://www.paulrichmondstudio.com

Cover Design by Mara McKennen



This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the Publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/



Released in the United States of America

December 2010



eBook Edition

eBook ISBN: 978-1-61581-750-4