I Heard Him Exclaim (8 page)

He stared at the man in the mirror for a long time, wondering when it would kick in that he was wearing his own clothes, that those were his eyes, his mouth, his
face
that he was looking at, even though it seemed as if a stranger looked back at him.

A sharp rap on the door got his attention. “Steve?”
Chandler’s voice.
“Can I come in?”

“Sure. I’m decent.” He turned away from the mirror.

Chandler came in alone. “Poppy’s with the blonde girls.”

“Lynnette and Angela. Angie…”

“Ah.” Chandler drew closer, then reached out and curled his fingers around Steve’s suspenders, giving them a tug. “Nice. Until this moment, I had no idea how much a Santa suit resembles firefighting gear.”

“Yeah. I’ve never thought about that either, but you’re right.”

“I think firefighters are hot. But you, my friend…” Brown eyes scanned him from boots to hair, stopping for a bit in all the good places.

“Am I hotter than a firefighter?”

“Yeah.”

“Is it the hat?”

Chandler moistened his lips with his slick pink tongue. “There’s a whole
je ne sais quoi
here, Bubba, but I’d have to go with the boots. If you keep those clean, I’ll be on my knees later licking them.”

Ah, yeah.
That would be… “Didn’t you know? You’re supposed to
lick
where I tell you to lick.”

“Fat chance, skinny Santa.” Chandler had a way of tilting his head down and looking up at him that stopped his heart. “I’ll lick what I like.”

“If you keep looking at me like that, I won’t be able to leave this room.

“I guess the North Pole isn’t just a river in Egypt, Mr. Claus.”

“Huh?”

“That sounded better in my head…”

“Kiss me.” Steve pulled Chandler into his arms and pressed his lips to Chandler’s until he opened beneath the tender assault, sending his tongue out to play, wrapping his arms around Steve’s neck and kissing him back with a desperation Steve felt all the way to his toes, which curled. Seriously,
curled
, inside his boots. Their noses bumped and their beards rasped together, and it felt just as thrilling, just as exciting and dangerous as anything he’d ever done in his life. Simply kissing Chandler Tracey felt like flying and falling and landing on a soft cloud of
hell, yes.

Finally Steve made himself stop before his fingers started inching into Chandler’s jeans. He needed to pull away before he blew Chandler again—this time with children waiting for them outside the door. He backed off mere inches, then pressed his forehead against Chandler’s and dragged in a deep breath.

“Wait.” Chandler panted. “I…wow.”

“It’s a shame we have to go, but our elves are waiting.”

***

“‘And it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.’” Steve quoted Dickens as he barreled through a group of surly skateboarding teens outside the grocery store. Chandler watched the elf girls follow behind him, giggling.

“Hey, Santa,” one of the tough kids called, “I need five bucks for a pack of cigarettes and another ten for some brews.”

The others laughed. Chandler’s heart sped up a little when Steve froze and turned toward the kid. He’d heard cruelty in that laughter and guessed that dressing as Santa put a target on Steve’s back with some of the bullies in town. Of course, Steve was huge and strong as an ox. But he wondered if—like his—Steve’s memories of being the odd guy out came back quick, and the knowledge that he could protect himself from attack sort of ambled along behind it uncertainly.

“Ho, Ho.
Ho
.” Steve leveled an amused and tolerant look at the kid. “Don’t make me leave you coal, boy.”

Another kid asked, “What’s with the new look, Santa? Didn’t you have a beard last year?”

Steve grinned. “I had to roll with the times. What can I say? All the hotties dig a naked face. Here’s the deal. If you can tell me what your favorite candy bar is—and why—without saying
um, like
or
you know,
I’ll buy it for you. You have one minute. Go.”

The kid hesitated for a second and looked to his friends for help. None of them knew what to make of Steve, but he finally blurted out, “I like Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups because they come two in a package and my brother Dan used to buy them and save one for me.”

“What’s your name, kid?” Steve asked.

“Todd.”

“Okay, Todd, do you think your friends are too cool to get a candy bar from Santa?” Steve offered the same challenge to them. In the end he bought six candy bars and somehow remembered each kid, each name and which candy bar they asked for. He also bought about three hundred full-size candy canes to give away. While Chandler and the elves put those in the trunk of the Super Bee, Steve managed to coax a skateboard out of one of the kids. He performed a couple of tricks on it, then stomped the back of it with his booted foot, causing the front to leap into his hand before he handed it back.

“Here you go, kid. Stay in school, work hard, blah, blah blah. You know the drill. Don’t do dumb stuff…” He waved goodbye and left something behind him—a little magic, a little happiness that was unquestionably, uniquely his to give.

In that moment, which came suddenly and without any fanfare whatsoever, Chandler Tracey fell in love. He realized he wanted a piece of that solid certainty—that simple goodness—so badly it made his throat ache. When it came time to leave, Steve’s gaze met his over Poppy’s head while they buckled her into her car seat. Chandler took hold of his collar and hauled him in for a kiss that felt desperate and stupid, yet meaningful because he imbued it with more honesty than he had ever given to anyone.

But he said nothing. For once he was all out of words.

One of Steve’s clocks had bells that struck on the quarter hour. Chandler hadn’t really noticed it much the night before, but now every sound—the nuance of traffic outside, the party going on three doors down, the trembling, achy original vinyl recording of Nat King Cole singing “The Christmas Song” that played on the old-fashioned phonograph—touched his senses like a feather, tickly and light, making his blood rush and switching his libido into overdrive.

That afternoon they’d gone to the homeless shelter, where people recognized the Super Bee as soon as Steve roared up and parked. Before they could even get out of the car, two volunteers came out to help them, greeting him with surprise and pleasure. They’d been planning a holiday party with gifts donated by local churches, but the man who planned to play Santa couldn’t have been happier to cede the job to Steve, who took over and worked the room like a professional emcee.

People loved Steve’s Santa gig so much, it amazed Chandler that he’d nearly given it up. Poppy and the two older girls thrived on the attention. One of them gave Poppy a “magic wand” so that everywhere she went she left behind clouds of iridescent soap bubbles. Steve did exactly that with happiness, leaving smiling, laughing people in his wake. He talked, he listened and he cared. It wasn’t hard to figure out Steve’s secret. They’d gone all over the place—retirement homes, long-term-care facilities, a hospice-care facility—and everywhere it was the same thing. Steve gave his heart and people simply fell under his spell.

Chandler waited while Steve pulled a couple of Coronas from the fridge and cut up a lime. When he poured himself a shot of tequila, he offered one to Chandler.

Chandler shook his head. “I can’t.”

“One shot? It’s midnight. Even if your girl wakes up, one shot isn’t going to turn you into drunken Uncle Chandler. You’ll be fine.” Steve shot his drink and bit the lime. “It’s better with salt. I miss that shit. You sure?”

“I just can’t.” Chandler picked up his beer and squeezed a lime wedge into the neck. “This is fine.”

Steve’s big body dropped into a club chair across from where Chandler sat on the couch. He was magnificent. He still wore the red Henley that looked like long underwear and a pair of loose-fitting button-front jeans that didn’t always ride high enough on his hips to cover the narrow line of tantalizing flesh that stretched between his hips above his pubic bone. His big feet were bare and even those made Chandler hot, especially when he imagined them rubbing along the backs of his thighs or pressed against the muscles of his chest while he rocked his cock into—

“I know your life has taken what seems like a pretty drastic turn—”

Chandler gripped his beer. “My deal. My problem.”

Steve frowned. “Is that what she is for you? A problem?”

“No…
yes
.” Chandler studied the beer in his hands, reading the nutritional information. “I don’t know.”

“It’s obvious you’ve been pretty tense about this.”

“Hell yes, I’m tense.” Chandler picked at the foil. He didn’t look up. “I mean, I was glad to be Poppy’s godfather. Delighted that they trusted me with that. I love that kid, and I’d do anything for her, but when you think about it,
if
you even think about it, guardianship is an abstract idea. What are the chances that both parents…you never expect—I never even imagined…”

“But now?” Steve prompted him.

“Now I…” Chandler’s eyes burned. “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I’m the right person. There’s so much. She’s a girl, for fuck’s sake. A
little
girl, and surely there must be someone better than me. Someone who can—”

“Your brother and sister-in-law
chose you.
Don’t you think they asked themselves who would be the very best choice? Don’t you think they agonized over that?”

Chandler rubbed his eyes. “Yes… But no, they probably didn’t imagine, any more than I did, that it would ever come to this, really.”

“For what it’s worth, I think you have it in you.”

Chandler got to his feet and walked to the window, where he peered out at the street. Cars were parked along both sides, both ways, as far as he could see. Big party.

This was going to hurt.

He turned back to Steve and finally looked him in the eye. “You don’t know me, Steve. I’m not that guy. I know you’re from this big crazy family and you live like some happy commune where everyone raises all the kids, but where I come from it’s just me. And I’m probably a loser and a selfish son of a bitch, but I didn’t expect to have a kid dropped in my lap and, even though I love her, the responsibility is killing me.”

“Chandler, I don’t know why you think I would judge you—”

“I’m not Santa Claus. I’m not even real sure why people
want
kids. I have this life I like, see, and if Poppy comes to live with me, it’s over. I have to find decent daycare, which I can’t really afford unless I use Poppy’s inheritance… I’d have to take her before work and pick her up after, so she’d spend a full day with strangers. I can’t cook worth a damn, and I have to revamp my apartment or move in to her parents’ house—my brother’s place All his things are there, and I can hardly bear the thought that he’s dead, Steve. I can’t bring myself to go in there and look around, because then it will be real.”

“Chandler, there are people who can help you, people who—”

“I don’t want help. I already feel like a shit heel. I don’t want to have to tell any more people that when push came to shove, I didn’t measure up. I
won’t
measure up no matter what because I’m…” Chandler pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “It’s not that I’m not ready, it’s that I’m never going to be ready. I will never be good enough to take this on. I was heading for Pahrump to leave Poppy with my folks. They didn’t know, but I just can’t do this.”

“I don’t know what I should say.” Steve’s face held only compassion and Chandler hated him for it.

“Say what you’re thinking. You expected better. I’m disappointing everyone, I know. But no more than I’ve disappointed myself.” Chandler put his beer bottle into the trash, then left Steve alone in the living room to think over what he’d said. While he checked on Poppy and got ready for bed, he tried not to recall the look on Steve’s face, still warm yet sad, as he’d left the room. He brushed his teeth, barely able to look at his own reflection in the mirror.

Sure, Steve didn’t judge him. He
probably
didn’t. Steve was far too good a man, too genuine and full of empathy. But that was an awfully lofty height from which to look down at an ordinary man—at a boyfriend—and Chandler didn’t have any illusions about how very ordinary he was. Steve needed someone extraordinary and Chandler wasn’t that man. He fell prey to common, sad little fears and had a strong aversion to responsibility. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to see that he wasn’t exactly Mrs. Claus material.

However, when he left the bathroom, he found Steve outside the door waiting for him. He only had the briefest second to glance at the doorknob to the guest room—to see the sleigh bell early-warning-system hanging there—when Steve pushed him against the wall and kissed him as if his life depended on it.

“Steve—” Chandler broke the kiss and gave Steve’s pecs a little shove. It didn’t budge the man. All over-six-feet of him leaned in, curving around Chandler like a big sexy question mark, nudging his knee between Chandler’s legs.

“Shut up and kiss me.” Steve’s muscled thigh pressed deep into Chandler’s crotch.

Chandler arched involuntarily and gave up a sigh. “Yeah.”

“Maybe you don’t need my advice or my approval but it’s pretty clear you wouldn’t mind my cock up your ass.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Steve. I just meant—”

“Never mind what you meant.” Steve pulled Chandler to him by asserting a mighty kung fu grip on his ass. “It’s no secret I want you.”

“No.”
No
, that cat had definitely left the bag. Steve’s cock was hard, poking over the waistband of his jeans, glistening with a sticky pearl of—

“And it’s not much of a stretch to think you want me back.” Steve’s fingers brushed over Chandler’s cock, which waited, thick and erect, behind the flannel of his sleep pants.

“Come here.” Steve took his hand and pulled him into the master bedroom. He locked the door behind them, then pulled Chandler to the bed.

When Chandler would have glanced back at the door, Steve caught his face between big square hands and kissed him tenderly. He set the pace, breathing Chandler in, bumping noses and rubbing their bristly faces together, grinding against him until both men’s hips were in play.

Chandler lightly explored Steve, moving his fingers over the crisp brush of Steve’s flat top, then following the contours of his head to his neck, his shoulders, along those great pecs to his firm abs, then around back to the ass that powered the rocking motion driving Steve’s hips into his.

“Take off your clothes,” Chandler whispered, thinking that if this was his chance, he wanted that big body covering him skin to skin.

Steve started by pulling off his Henley, then helping Chandler remove his T-shirt as well. Their chests brushed together, crackling, hairy, electric, as Steve maneuvered Chandler down on the bed to pull his sleep pants off.

“Oh, jock. Love that.” He pressed a hot openmouthed kiss to Chandler’s cock through the thin cotton fabric, mouthing his balls, tasting him, insinuating his fingers under the web of elastic in back and up and down Chandler’s crack.

“
Ah.”
Chandler’s hips jerked when Steve’s index finger brushed over the delicate skin behind his balls. Between the pleasure of Steve’s mouth and his insistent fingers, Chandler couldn’t find a coherent word. Reasons to stop before they got too far along paraded themselves before him, not the least of which was the possibility of Poppy waking up, leaving her room and coming to find him. That fabulous long callused finger breeched him for the barest instant, firm and gentle at the same time, causing Chandler to cry out. “Ah yes…
mmm.
”

“What do you say, Chandler?”

“Yeah.” Gods, yes.

The pleasant press of Steve’s weight left him for a minute while Steve pulled his jock off and got rid of his own jeans and shorts. He fumbled around in the nightstand drawer and came up with a strip of condoms and a bottle of lube, then Steve was on him again, nuzzling in, kneeing into the V of his thighs and rubbing their naked cocks against one another. “Steve.”

“Hey,” Steve acknowledged him. He nipped teasingly at Chandler’s throat, mouthing, then licking at his Adam’s apple. His lips trailed a sensitive path under his jaw, back to his ear, and he whispered, “Where do you want me?”

“Everywhere.” Chandler breathed a sigh against Steve’s temple. “I want you all around me and inside me. I want to feel you next week.”
Forever.

When they pressed their lips together, Chandler wondered if Steve understood how much he needed this. How very long Chandler would hold on to each and every single second he got to spend with Steve like this, how much he appreciated Steve’s gentle hands, his soft lips, the brush and crackle of body hair, and the fact that, as far as he knew, they only had this one weekend to get it right.

Steve surprised him by saying, “Chance meeting.”

Chandler stopped in the act of rolling a condom down Steve’s cock. He met Steve’s gaze with his own. “Yeah.”

“Could be a ships-in-the-night thing.”

Steve’s fingers, now slickly coated with lube, found his entrance and prepared him carefully. They worked and stretched him until he had to grit his teeth against crying out from the sheer unbearable tension that seemed to build inside his spine and squeeze his balls.

“Ships,” Chandler echoed, holding his legs behind the knees to give Steve a private, all-access pass to the most intimate parts of his body.

“But I don’t think so.” Steve pulled his hand out and pressed back in with his cock, ratcheting up Chandler’s pleasure while at the same time confusing him with that burning hint of pain that always accompanied it, until he made it past the tight ring of resistance to seat himself fully inside. Chandler gasped in a gulp of air. “I think we lucked into something good.”

“Good,” Chandler repeated, locking his ankles at the base of Steve’s spine. He reached with his mouth for something—anything—that he could kiss or lick or bite while Steve hung there, solidly inside him all the way to his heart, unmoving. “Please, Steve…”

“Hmm? Tell me…”

“Move,”
Chandler ordered. Steve complied, dragging his hips back, then pushing forward again, gently at first, then harder, until he was balls-deep again and Chandler’s head fell back against the pillow and he begged, “Please, please,
please.
”

“
Chandler,
” Steve said thickly. “Whatever you need.”

“Please,” Chandler repeated, caught up in the rhythm, the deep thrust and retreat of Steve’s pistoning hips, the way his open mouth huffed half curses like
ffffff…uck
as he bit his lips, then ran his tongue across them.

At some point, Chandler simply wrapped an arm over one of Steve’s muscled shoulders and threaded the other under his opposite arm. He hung on, still saying
please
, still begging, as he gave up everything for a memory, for one magical moment in time.

“Ah, Steve.”

Steve nudged a hand between them to stroke Chandler off, supporting his weight with one arm while fumbling for the right touch with the other. “This okay?”

“Gods yes!” Chandler hung on some precipice for several impossible seconds, his entire body resonating to Steve’s perfect persuasion, then he hurtled into his release, spattering come all over his stomach and Steve’s chest. He nearly shouted but Steve captured his cries with a passionate, claiming kiss, then followed him over the edge. Chandler absorbed Steve’s moans and dotted kisses over any skin he could reach. Finally, firmly cupping Steve’s face with his hands, he brought his head close and pressed a single kiss to each of Steve’s closed eyes. They lay there entwined, listening to the sound of their breathing.