Jesse's Christmas (7 page)

“Coke?” Gabriel’s voice was soft in his ear, and the soft tone surprised him out of his introspection. Choir practice had undoubtedly ended, and the group was on to the social part of the evening. “Or maybe you’d like to get out and grab a beer instead?”

The last was said with such an open and warm smile, Jesse’s chest tightened in response. Was he reading this wrong? He was sure he’d just caught Gabriel checking him out, a sapphire gaze raking from head to toe and back again, but he’d been known to be wrong before. Was Gabriel just a really nice guy? A nice guy who had called him cute and checked out how he looked? Or should Jesse trust the instinct that said Gabriel played on the same team as Jesse?

“Beer would be nice.”

There, give Gabriel a nice safe answer. Don’t give too much of your eagerness away.

Even if Gabriel was gay, who the hell was he to think he would be interested in Jesse? Gabriel was gorgeous; Jesse considered himself to be passable in looks. What was it Jonah called him? He thought back to the last words shared with Jonah that had meant anything at all. Once Jonah had said he wasn’t bad looking for a geeky photographer. He couldn’t remember anything else specifically. Jonah hadn’t been one for affection. Why did he, for one minute, expect Gabriel to be any different? With his candles and helping his mom out with snow shoveling, it had to be all some act. Why should Gabriel be any different than Jonah, who proved to be a damn good actor?

“I don’t think we’ll get too far out of town in this snow. Do you want to come back to my place?”

Jesse snapped back to the conversation, and at the words, his cock went from zero to full-on interested in seconds. All thoughts of how men were all bastards went straight from his head. His cock didn’t seem to worry whether Gabriel with the eyes was single and/or even gay. His luck could well be in. He groaned inwardly. If the magnitude of his sex drive was anything to go by, beer at Gabriel’s probably wasn’t what he needed. Sex was what he needed. Someone to just bend him over and fuck all this angst from his head. That would stop him from lusting after potential straight boys. So the town was cut off by the snow. Surely there was someone in this captive audience who wanted a casual hookup…

“That would be fine.”
Fine?
Who the hell said fine? Jesse was being offered beer in this gorgeous guy’s home, and Jesse’s cock was well into the whole situation. Alone time, just him and Gabriel and maybe a condom or two. Perfect.

Gabriel grinned at him and then turned away from him to face the small choir of seven women and two men.

“Beer’s at my place if anyone is interested.”

Well, shit.

Chapter 8

Gabriel couldn’t help but see the disappointment in Jesse’s expression. He’d felt really bad for doing it, but he needed to be sure of things before he did what he really wanted to do: Kiss Jesse. Hold Jesse. Do unspeakable acts of licking, sucking, and biting to Jesse. He didn’t want the whole choir back at his house. He just wanted Jesse, inside, with the door shut on the world. His gaydar had always been spot-on in college, and he didn’t think he’d misunderstood the heated looks he sometimes saw coming from Jesse or the kind of adorable tripping over his own tongue the photographer seemed to do on occasion.

Not since Kane had he felt anything like the desire in him for another person, and maybe Jesse was what he needed. To enjoy him while he was here as a prelude to getting out there and finding a guy he could go long term with. Not Jesse—he wanted to go back to the whole bright lights, big city scene—but someone who thought that being with a  small-town teacher was a good thing.

Thankfully only his mom said yes, followed quickly by Austin. The rest of the choir said they needed their beds.

Gabriel needed his bed, only he wanted Jesse in there as well. Not tonight, but maybe soon.

He locked up as everyone left, and it was difficult not to stare at Jesse all bundled up in a dark jacket with a beanie pulled down over his hair. City boy sure looked cute.

“So how many more practices are there?” Jesse asked Austin.

“At least a couple more. We’ve been practicing since September, but it’s always good to go over each harmony.”

“And it doesn’t hurt you like to turn the pages for Mom’s music,” Gabriel teased. His mom shot him a warning look, but Austin just smiled.

“Anything that has me helping out your mom is a plus in my book,” he said softly.

The four of them traversed the snowy lane from the school to Gabriel’s house, and he found himself humming the tune to “Good King Wenceslas”, smiling when Jesse joined in.

“Kind of infectious isn’t it,” he said when they came to the end.

Jesse smiled at him, a genuine smile that reached his eyes. “Better than Mariah Carey,” he said.

Austin huffed behind them. “You dissing Mariah?” he said. “She’s hot.”

Gabriel heard the oof of his mom smacking Austin and their laughter as they fell back a little from Gabriel and Jesse.

“What else do you do? Besides the candles and the singing.”

“I help out with the gingerbread houses, and the cookies, in fact I am chief taster in both. And we have the tree trimming, which is kind of a big thing, I guess.”

“And you’re a teacher.”

“Yep, here in town.”

“What age do you teach?”

“Snot and glue,” Gabriel answered immediately and was gifted another one of Jesse’s smiles. “Fives to sevens for those not in the trade. We have a mixed-age class here because the school is small.”

“And you like what you do?”

“Yes. I love it. Do you like what you do?”

Jesse went quiet as they walked; they were nearly back at Gabriel’s, and he wished he’d asked sooner because he really wanted to know the answer.

“It’s not about loving what I do,” Jesse finally answered. “It’s me. Even when I hated it and the muse left me, I would have my camera with me, I just never shot anything.”

“Why did you hate it?”

Jesse shook his head. “That’s a long story and one that’s best left alone.” He chuckled. “Let’s just say my muse has woken up a little and let out a big yawn.”

“It’s a recent thing then, this block?”

“Uh huh.”  

“So what brought it back?” He was curious as to the way the creative process worked in someone. Jesse merely looked at him and shrugged.

By then they had reached Gabriel’s door, but they waited for his mom and Austin to catch up. Seemed like Jesse didn’t really want to answer that particular question, and Gabriel wanted to know why. Maybe he could ask again later.

“This is your house?” Jesse said as he peered up in the moonlit and white-snow-brightened darkness. He sounded surprised to realize where he was.

“Yep. For three years now.”

“I took photos of it from the hotel on that first day. The blue house in the middle of all the pale-colored ones.”

“That’s what I fell in love with,” Gabriel admitted. “The color.”

“Coffee,” his mom said dramatically as she arrived at the door. “I’m cold.”

He let everyone in and shut the door after them. A selfish part of him really wished that his mom and Austin wouldn’t want to stay long.

* * * * *

Jesse sat on the sofa in the indigo blue house, the very one he had seen from the top of the hill. He contemplated how he had ended up squeezed in between the school principal and Diana, the only other two who had taken Gabriel up on his offer. He didn’t remember that being piggy in the middle of a senior-citizen flirtation had been an option in his head when he said yes.

He took a beer gratefully and then balanced a large bowl of snacks on his knees. It made sense for him to do it, Diana said.

“After all, you are in the middle,” she helpfully pointed out as she sipped on hot coffee.

Gabriel, the bastard, was sitting in a chair on his own nursing his first beer and looking over at Jesse with a thoughtful look on his face. Jesse wanted to ask him what he was thinking but didn’t dare in case what Jesse heard left him disappointed. He stared back, and their gazes met. Neither appeared to want to back down, and it became this awkward, uncomfortable, wholly hot staring contest. Jesse watched Gabriel take every sip of beer, looked at Gabriel’s throat when he swallowed, and then back up to blue eyes. Gabriel, damn him, was nearly sucking on the end of the glass bottle and…jeez…was he licking his lips? Jesse shifted in his seat, and the chips on his knees wobbled dangerously. Diana caught them in time and placed them on the table. Jesse tipped more beer to his lips to hide his embarrassment.

“Would you like to stay to eat something?” Gabriel asked. He apparently wasn’t directing the question to his mom, as she was busy making excuses and giggling like a girl with Austin. The two of them left in a flurry of snow with shouted goodbyes, and suddenly, it was just Gabriel, Jesse, two beers, and a half-eaten bowl of chips.

“Would you?” Gabriel leaned forward in his chair.

“Would I…what?” Had Gabriel asked him something?

“I have steaks. Would you like to stay?”

“There’s dinner at the hotel,” Jesse answered immediately. He was entirely torn between upsetting the mom and leaving the son.

“Not tonight, I don’t think. I believe the other two families in the hotel are out, and Austin is taking Mom to his house for dinner.”

“Oh.” Should he complain? Hadn’t Emma paid the hotel for dinner, bed, and breakfast?

“So I’ll cook you something to make it up to you.”

“Okay.” Jesse could handle eating, and he stood up as Gabriel did. The sitting room wasn’t big, and they were nearly toe to toe.

“Two questions though.” Gabriel sounded so damn serious. “And you’ve got to promise not to hit me.”

“Okay?” Jesse said hesitantly. He hated the question and answer portion of evenings in anyone’s house, let alone guys he was fantasizing about.

“Are you gay?”

Well, that cut straight to the chase.

“Yes.”

“You with someone back in the city?” Gabriel edged his way closer, and Jesse looked up. Gabriel was maybe three inches taller than his five-ten and as broad up close as Jesse had imagined.

“No, not anymore,” Jesse confirmed.

Something in Gabriel’s eyes compelled him to add more, and he even opened his mouth to speak, but Gabriel didn’t give him the chance. When their lips met, there was no hot and heavy demand between them. There was instead an achingly sweet and tender kiss. Gabriel tasted just as Jesse imagined, of beer and chips and the winter air outside. Jesse roughened the connection, but Gabriel was pressing him away, slowing him down. Jesse didn’t want slow. He wanted to connect so bad that he needed hard and fast and now, but whining low in his throat simply sounded petulant. Gabriel kept control of the kiss, and after a few seconds, Jesse started to relax. He rested his hands on Gabriel’s hips and tilted his head to deepen the contact, and Gabriel cupped Jesse’s face with a gentle touch. This wasn’t like any kind of kiss Jesse had ever experienced, and before he even took the next breath, something cracked inside Jesse. He feared it might be the first level of protection around his heart.

When Gabriel pulled away, he had a smile on his face.

“Wow,” he said quietly.

“Uh huh,” Jesse replied.

“Are you any good at salad?”

Jesse frowned as he followed the change in conversation.
Food
. They were talking about dinner.

“I can cut a tomato with the best of them,” he boasted. He followed Gabriel into the kitchen, which proved to be a mix of old and modern. A microwave sat next to a state-of-the-art coffee machine. “You take coffee seriously, then?” he observed simply for something to say.

“Who doesn’t? It’s not like we have a Starbucks in town.” Gabriel grinned as he said this, and Jesse itched to pull out his camera to shoot photos of that perfect expression.

Gabriel passed him a knife and a container of salad fixings, and they worked easily together. There wasn’t much talking, but there was a whole lot of looking. For every glance Gabriel sent sideways, Jesse found himself smiling. This was nice. Cooking together, standing in a kitchen with smiles and a secret between them that was the start of something hot.

The steak was perfect, the baked potatoes fluffy with small melting pools of butter inside, and the salad was just like a salad should be.

“I hear you’ll be working at the school soon,” Gabriel said, and Jesse nodded.

“I want to focus on the children’s expectations of Christmas.”

“I imagine they expect gifts and food, and in Cameron’s case, a huge book of practical jokes.” Gabriel was laughing as he said this. Clearly Cameron was one of Gabriel’s class for him to make a comment like that.

“Kids like Christmas,” Jesse offered by way of continuing the conversation.

“My class is hopping with excitement. They count down the days on the classroom advent calendar as soon as we put it up on the first of December. Every year the school puts on an alternative Christmas show written by the older kids. I act in it and dress up in whatever they want me to.” Gabriel didn’t seem aware what he had just revealed was something Jesse found achingly cute.

Gabriel was a hot, tight-assed, sexy, blue-eyed teacher who dressed up to star in his class’s Christmas play?

Of course he is.

They cleared away after themselves, and when the kitchen was tidy, Gabriel made coffee that tasted very close to the Starbucks that was Jesse’s lifeblood. He hummed his appreciation, and Gabriel laughed at the sound.

“That’s kind of hot,” he said bluntly.

“It is?”

Gabriel crowded him back against the counter, and Jesse very deliberately placed his mug down and found a natural place for his hands to lay—on Gabriel’s hips. Gabriel cupped his face and stared deep into his eyes.

“Do you make that sound when you’re making love with someone?”

If he hadn’t been already, Jesse would have been zero to hot in seconds at the words. “I don’t know,” Jesse asked truthfully. To be honest he wasn’t sure what he did. He didn’t think he was that vocal—Jonah didn’t really like anything he called porn noises.