The Stocking Was Hung (4 page)

Sam lets out another cough, remembering my helpful tip to cough if he gets stuck and my brain quickly scrambles to come up with a plausible reason for his slight Southern accent.

“Uh, Logan is in a local production of Oklahoma back in Seattle,” I lie lamely. “He’s just trying to stay in character. Go ahead, honey. Say something else Southern!”

Sam sighs softly and looks at me like he’s about two seconds away from walking back out the front door and running down the street. I hold my breath and keep the fake smile plastered on my face, hoping to God he doesn’t leave. At this point, I’m not even sure if it’s because I’m not ready to face the truth with my family or because I just really want to spend more time with him. God, I need therapy.

“Yee-haw,” Sam replies in a monotone, non-Southern voice.

The fact that he played along, albeit with an annoyed look on his face, makes me want to jump into his arms, wrap my legs around his waist, and kiss the hell out of him. Not good thoughts to have when we’re standing here in front of my family who are all looking at us like we’re insane. And I’m heartbroken, jobless, and homeless. What is it about this guy that makes me forget all my problems and replace them with sexual thoughts? I have sex brain and I might need an intervention.

“Did you see his package, Bev? Leon should unwrap it for us!” Aunt Bobbie slurs from behind my mother, lifting her martini glass in the air.

Oh yeah, his package. That’s what keeps turning me into sex-starved moron.

“You’ll have to excuse my brister, Logan. She likes her vodka,” my mother informs Sam.

His baffled gaze bounces back and forth between my mother and me several times as he asks, “Um, brister?”

“Didn’t Leon tell you?” she asks him before turning her questioning to me. “Leon, why didn’t you tell him? Are you ashamed of your Ancle?”

With a sigh, I shake my head as Aunt Bobbie holds up her martini glass, throws her arm, around my father’s shoulders and lets out a yell. “YEE-HAW!”

Ignoring her outburst, I look back at my mother. “You know I’m not ashamed, Mom, it just never came up.”

Sam still looks like he’s debating whether or not running out into the snow is a good idea as my father steps forward to clear up his confusion.

“Aunt Bobbie used to be Uncle Bob,” Dad explains, like every family has a resident transvestite. “His wife left him when she caught him in her closet trying on all her clothes.”

“Good riddance! She had shitty taste in shoes anyway,” Aunt Bobbie comments from behind him.

“Reggie, take their bags upstairs,” my mom interrupts and steps aside so my dad can start grabbing our things. “You kids go on into the living room while I finish heating up some leftovers for you. I’ve got homemade meatloaf, fried potatoes and sweet corn.”

My mom quickly turns, grabs Aunt Bobbie’s arm, and pulls her with her into the kitchen down the hall, all while my dad loads up his arms with our bags and heads upstairs, leaving Sam and I alone in the entryway.

“I will completely understand if you’ve changed your mind and want to leave,” I tell him softly, the faint sounds of my mother trying to shush my aunt when she won’t shut up about the size of Sam’s package floats down the hall.

“Are you kidding me? She made meatloaf,” Sam replies with a serious look on his face. “Nobody fucks around with homemade meatloaf.”

I can’t help but smile as he slides his warm hand around mine and we make our way down the hall to the living room.

Sam

W
e eat heated-up
leftovers off of paper plates on the couch next to a roaring fire with stockings hung on a mantle overcrowded with pine branches, blinking lights, and enough Christmas knick-knacks to fill ten mantles. The largest Christmas tree I’ve ever seen takes up the corner of the room across from us, and as much as I want to deny it, seeing the softly falling snow out the window next to the tree is kind of nice.

Trying not to look like a fucking pig while Noel’s mom and…Ancle stare at me silently as I shovel meatloaf and mashed potatoes in my mouth—not so nice. After eating nothing but shitty M.R.E.’s (meals ready to eat) for a year and a half, I have a hard time containing my moans each time I bring the fork up to my mouth.

“Leon, I put you in your old room. Logan can sleep in your mother’s sewing room,” Noel’s dad states as he walks back into the room and I set my now-empty plate on the coffee table in front of me, Noel doing the same.

“Reggie, they can both sleep in Leon’s room. It’s fine,” Noel’s mother says with a sigh.

While the two of them argue about sleeping arrangements, I lean closer to Noel. “You need to tell me what the deal is with them calling you Leon. I’m starting to get concerned.”

She turns her face toward me and whispers back. “Later.”

With a smile and a wink, she returns her attention back to her arguing parents while I stare at her profile. Her long, thick hair hangs over one shoulder, and I have the sudden urge to slide my fingers through the silky length, pushing it aside so I have a better view of the smooth skin of her neck. I watch her tongue dart out to lick her lips and I mentally tell my dick to keep his shit together. This Leon nonsense needs to be cleared up soon. If this ancle/brister thing runs in the family and Noel used to be Neal, I will never live this shit down.

While I was preoccupied with staring at Noel and thinking about what her lips would taste like, her father stalks over to us and stands right next to the arm of the couch on my end, peering down at me with his hands in his pockets.

“I’m not very comfortable with my daughter shacking up with you under my roof,” he informs me. “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? Do you like milk, son?”

Noel’s father is about five-foot-six, a small man compared to my six foot height, but the look on his face tells me he wouldn’t hesitate to kick my ass right out the door if I answer his question wrong. I’m not going to lie; I’m a little scared of him right now.

“Uh, yes?” I answer in confusion. “No. Yes. Wait, I don’t know!”

I cough, shooting a worried look at Noel so she can save me from the wrath of her father. It’s like he knows I’ve done nothing but think about having her naked and underneath me since the moment I met her, and our close proximity on the couch with our thighs touching makes it even worse when thoughts of her bare legs wrapped around my waist consume my thoughts.

Noel’s father pulls his hands out of his pockets and throws them up in the air in annoyance. “That’s it! I’m banning milk in this house for the foreseeable future. No milk, no cheese, no yogurt, no dairy products of any kind. Bev, clean out the fridge. I don’t want this guy getting any funny ideas about our daughter’s eggnog.”

Even though getting closer to Noel is a danger to my health since my dick refuses to listen to me, I still lean closer to her again.

“Is he still talking about sex?” I whisper.

“I honestly have no idea,” she mumbles back.

Her father finally stops giving me the evil eye and stalks out of the room, heading toward the kitchen to rid the house of the evilness that is dairy-based foods and beverages.

“You’ll have to forgive my husband,” Bev apologizes with a smile as she holds a cup of coffee in her hands. “This is the first time Leon has brought a man home and he’s a little on edge. You two go right ahead and sleep in her old room together. Shack up, get your groove on, get busy with it…whatever the kids are calling it these days.”

“Mooooom,” Noel complains with a roll of her eyes. “It’s fine if Dad isn’t comfortable with it. S-oooogan can sleep in another room.”

She almost slips and calls me Sam, stuttering out an awkward combination of Sam and Logan, which makes Aunt Bobbie and her mother give her similar looks of confusion.

“Did you just call him Sogan?” her mom asks.

Noel’s leg starts bouncing nervously on the couch next to me, her thigh brushing against mine with each frantic tap of her foot on the floor. I quickly reach over and rest my hand on top of her leg, pressing down gently to calm her, trying to ignore the warmth of her skin through the denim.

“Uh, um, well,” Noel stammers. “Funny story. Whenever I need to tell Logan something, I always start off the conversation with
‘Sooooooooo, Logan’
and it just turned into this joke where I call him Sogan. Ha ha, get it? Sogan? Sooooooo Logan?”

I lightly squeeze her thigh to get her to stop talking, but the muscle of her leg clenching under my hand incites visions of those same muscles tightening around my hips.

“I guess you had to be there,” Noel finishes lamely while her mother and aunt still look at her like she’s crazy.

“You know, if you don’t want to sleep in the same room with this hot piece of man meat, I’ll gladly take your place,” Aunt Bobbie announces brightly as she lifts her martini glass in my direction in a silent toast, waving at me with a wiggle of the fingers of her free hand.

The same hand that clutched my dick like a vice. I shudder a little remembering that moment.

“Is Aunt Bobbie gay?” I whisper to Noel out of the corner of my mouth.

Unfortunately, my whisper carries across the room even over the sounds of Christmas music playing on the sound system set up behind where Aunt Bobbie sits.

“No, but my penis is,” Aunt Bobbie informs me with a drunken smile, polishing off the last drop of her fifth martini since I got here.

Noel suddenly jumps up from the couch, grabs my hand, and pulls me up with her.

“It’s been a really long day, I think we should probably get some sleep,” she blurts out to the women, tugging my hand and yanking me behind her as she moves around the couch and to the doorway.

My body is so exhausted I can barely feel my legs now that I’m standing again and sleep does sound really good right now, but the thought of being in a bedroom alone with Noel all night immediately wakes me up.

“STOP!” Noel’s mother suddenly shouts, causing Noel to freeze as I bump into her back, grabbing her hips to stop us both from tumbling to the floor.

Noel twists in my arms with my hands still holding onto her and we both turn our heads back to look at her mother.

“Look! You’re under the mistletoe. That means you have to kiss. It’s a Christmas law,” she sing-songs happily, then takes a sip of her coffee.

Noel and I both look up while we stand in the entrance of the living room to see a small green plant of some kind, tied with a red ribbon, hanging from the archway above us.

“Um, that doesn’t look like mistletoe,” I muse, staring at the leaves dangling above our heads.

Noel leans her body toward mine, pushing up on her toes to get a better look, and my hands tighten on her hips to keep her steady while pulling her closer at the same time. Our chests press together and the warmth and softness of her fantastic tits underneath her sweater press against me and I feel my dick start to stir once again in my pants.

“Mom, do you have pot hanging from the ceiling?” Noel asks.

“You know your father needs it for his arthritis,” her mother sighs. “Pot—mistletoe, potato—potahto. It’s green and it’s festive, and you have to kiss under it.”

Noel’s head comes back down to look at me and on the tips of her toes, her mouth is level with mine. Her hot, plump lips that she nervously licks like she knows I can’t keep my eyes off of them when she does that.

We both shrug, realizing we’ll never get out of this living room if we don’t do what her mother says. Tilting our heads closer, Noel’s hands come up between us and she rests her palms against my chest. Our lips quickly press together and Noel jerks her head back before I can even enjoy the feeling of her mouth on mine.

“Yep, I think I’ll be taking him from here,” Aunt Bobbie announces.

“Leon, are you his mustache?” her mother asks worriedly.

Noel glances over at her mother in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

Her mother shrugs, setting her coffee cup down on the side table next to her chair. “You know, his mustache. His cover for being gay, like Aunt Bobbie’s dresses,” she explains.

“Hey! I resemble that remark!” Aunt Bobbie shouts, followed by a loud belch.

Noel sighs and rolls her eyes while I stand here wondering what the hell would possibly make her mother think I’m gay. Did she really expect me to maul her daughter right in front of her and stick my tongue down her throat? Not that I’d mind, but I do have some morals and making out with a woman right in front of her family is at the top of my Do Not Do list.

“It’s called a beard, Mom, not a mustache,” Noel corrects her.

“No offense, but that boring kiss says otherwise.” Aunt Bobbie shrugs. “Leon, trade places with me, I’ll show you how it’s done.”

What the fuck? I am NOT gay!

“It’s okay if you’re gay. We like the gays and we fully support them,” Bev assures me with a kind smile.

“I’m not gay,” I state, finally finding my voice and defending myself.

“Okay, whatever you say,” Bev replies, not believing a word.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I mutter, my hands still on Noel’s hips, wondering if I should just lay one on her to shut everyone up.