Chapter 22
W est crawled out of the warm haven of the bed he was now officially sharing with Trey and pulled on jeans. It was Christmas morning, and they were down two guys because they’d left the ranch to spend the holiday with their own families.
Which meant he had to haul his ass out there and play cowboy and do some of the damn chores.
He grinned. Oh, woe was him. He had to do work that he loved. The big thing was it was freaking frigid out there. The last few winters had been mild. This one wasn’t at all.
He slid into longies, then his jeans, pulling on thick boot socks.
“Baby?” Trey’s hands slid over the blankets. “Where’d you go?”
“I got to go out and check the barns and make sure everyone has good water, honey.” He pulled on a base layer, then his shirt.
“Oh, ick. It’s cold out there.”
“And early.” Putting a bike together had made him appreciate his own folks. That shit was nuts. Thankfully horses were no assembly required. So was Zoe’s trike. They’d gotten a store model for a song, pre-assembled. That was all Ben.
“You gonna tiptoe out the door to the patio?”
“Hell, yes. If the kids are still asleep then you get relaxing time.”
“Mmm…I’ll be here waiting for you when?—”
“Papa West?” Zoe banged on their door. “I hep feed horsies!”
“Someone heard you last night…”
“I reckon so. Good thing for her you know what is in the quarantine barn.” West grabbed his boots and winked. “Coming, kiddo.”
He did stop at the bed to kiss Trey. “Merry Christmas.”
“Mmm. Merry Christmas, baby.”
“Papa West!”
He nipped Trey’s lower lip. “Be back.” He loved that he was Papa West now instead of Cowboy West.
She was dressed in her jammies, a coat, and her galoshes. “I do it!”
“Tuck your pajama pants into your boots, kiddo.” She would get cold and he would bring her back, so she might as well stay in her pajamas. And if she fell in the poop, well, she would wash.
God, he loved her determined little face.
“Okay.” She bent down to push the hems into the boots, and then she twirled. “Ta-da.”
“Very nice. Okay, remember what I said?”
“Holds hands. No running. No jumping or screams. It scarzes horsies.”
“You got it. And if I tell you to do something?”
“I doos it so I don’t get hurted.”
“That’s my girl.”
“Uh-uh. I hep feed wif you.” She beamed at him. “It dark outside.”
She was a sweetheart, but she wanted to help, so bad.
“It is. Normally we’d do this a little later, but what day is it?”
“Chrismas.”
“That’s right. So we want to get it done so we can all go be together.”
“Who’s besides us?”
“Mark and Lisa and Belinda will come for dinner. And Ben and Nate.”
“Nos Mal?” She pouted, skipping along beside him.
“Not this time, kiddo. She and Mr. Liam want to have Christmas with just them since they came up for Thanksgiving. But we’ll see them at New Year’s.”
They made it to the barn, and they fed all the animals, checked to make sure everyone had fresh hay, and gave them water. One big fat set of tears was all they had to overcome before he picked his daughter-cicle up and took her back to the house, where Mark had the kitchen in full warm-up mode.
“Do you have a childsicle?” Mark asked. “The boss is on the sofa with the great big blanket, and he’s waiting for her.”
Oh, that was sweet. He headed in to the main room where Trey lounged in his fuzzy Santa dragon jammies, with a cup of coffee, and the world’s biggest faux shearling blanket in history. The thing had to weigh ten thousand pounds and was the warmest blanket he’d ever snuggled under.
They all loved it.
“Daddy!” Zoe cried, and Trey opened up his arms.
“Come here, baby, I will snuggle you and warm you up. Did you feed the horses?”
She nodded against Trey’s shoulder, sniffling. “I hep.”
“You are the biggest helper. Thank you. I know that Papa West loves when you help him.” Trey wrapped the blanket around Zoe as she shivered and cuddled right in. “Are you all done, Papa West?” Trey asked him.
“Yep, we did pretty well. The guys had me set up like a dream.”
“Good deal. You go get your jammies on, and come snuggle with us. Mark’s got coffee going, cinnamon rolls too.”
“Sounds good to me.” He loved that—how Trey the boss was back, and he laughed as he headed down the long hall to their bedroom. When he got there, he found Valentine sound asleep at the end of their bed. “Now that is not being a good herding dog. You are supposed to be focused on Zoe and Trey and you are in here asleep.”
She cracked one eye, wagged once, farted, and went right back to sleep.
Perfect.
He found his fuzzy jammies that matched Trey’s, along with house shoes and a robe, topping off his ensemble with a Santa hat.
Then he headed back toward the front room. They could all just hang out on the couch and stay warm until Noah woke up. That was when they could do the Santa thing.
The TV had a picture of a roaring fire, and was playing Christmas music, so he settled in next to Trey, his body warming from his toes and fingers up.
Zoe was already snoring, adorable little sounds that made him chuckle. She was so fucking cute, and so damn innocent.
And patient, really. At her age, West would have been waking up his siblings.
“She’s a Zoesicle.”
He let one eyebrow lift. “A Zoesicle.”
“How did she do out there? She was excited, huh?”
“She did fine.” West yawned. “I would have gone a little faster on my own, but you know, it was perfect.” It had been. He had a little cowgirl who wanted to help him. It made him proud as hell.
“Is it beautiful?” Trey asked, out of the blue.
“What?”
“Christmas, baby.”
“Oh. Yeah, I mean, it is.”
Trey whapped him gently. “So tell me about it, dork. What’s it look like?”
“Sparkly.”
Trey fastened him with an unimpressed expression. Dude, this was hard.
“The tree is big this year. We got all the different colors of lights, I think. I swear to God, there’s got to be five or six strands. The rainbow-colored ones are closer to the trunk, and the white ones are on the outside. The kids said it made them look like snow.”
“That’s cool, West.”
He settled in, staring harder. “Thank you. Let’s see, what else. There’s the tree skirt. It’s all bright red and it has...”
Trey smiled. “A dark blue satin ribbon around the outside with hand-embroidered snowflakes. Granny made it forever ago. I don’t remember it ever not being under the tree.”
West nodded and squeezed Trey’s fingers. “You’re right.”
“Did you put the star or the angel on the top? There’s both. We always let the littlest kid decide.”
“The angel. She liked the angel. There’s tons of ornaments, all sorts, but you helped with a lot of that.”
“Yeah. And there’s lots of presents?”
“It’s like a toy store exploded in this damn house. Ribbons, bows, paper. Oh my God, I tell you what, I think you went blind just so you didn’t have to wrap presents.”
“Possibly. It is absolutely an option.”
“I’m going to make you do it by feel next year,” West teased. “It can’t look any worse than if I did it, anyway. Now Mark? He’s a champion wrapper.” West grabbed Trey’s hand, squeezing. It was so hard, with Trey not being able to see his face. He was learning to express things to Trey in other ways.
“Oh, can you see that? Ha ha, see? See what I did there? You might… Can you imagine the number of paper cuts involved with blind wrapping? You’d have to let me just tie everything up in cloth.”
“Okay.” West tilted his head. “You know, that’s really not the world’s crappiest thought.”
“What?”
“Well seriously, just think of all the paper that goes in the trash bags. If you did it in wrapping cloth then you could just use it again. I think that’s kind of cool. We could buy just a bunch of different funky Christmas fabrics, tie them up in ribbons and then let them open it and then wash it. Fold it and put it away for next year.”
“Like Furoshiki?”
West blinked. “What?”
“It’s cloth that has this cool knot on the top. Super cool. It’s reusable wrapping fabric, but there’s less pleasure in it, something…but, you know…” He could see Trey, his brain, begin to work. “You know, there’s probably a market for that. If you think about it, somebody did it with Velcro in different sizes to where you could have that satisfying ripping sound.”
“You’re not serious. Are you thinking about doing another company?” West couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Trey didn’t need all that stress.
Trey rolled his eyes and wrinkled his nose. “No, I’m thinking about selling the idea to somebody and letting them make a company and make it work. Still, it’s a neat idea. Reusable wrapping paper. You’ll have to look it up for me and tell me if it’s a thing.”
He snorted. “Look it up for your own damn self. You can make that computer do things without seeing that I’ll never be able to figure out.”
Trey oh so casually just flipped him off, but there was a grin on his lover’s face.
Resilience thy name was James Matthew Blanton the third.
“I’m glad you’re here, baby.”
“Are you?”
Trey smiled, the expression relaxed and gentle, the lines of tension around his poor eyes eased. “Yeah, really. I won’t say that I wished you were here every Christmas, because I stopped wishing. I stopped thinking about it, and honestly I figured you’d gone on and made a whole life with another guy and probably had six kids and a bunch of llamas. And I’d like to know why we still don’t have any goddamn llamas.” Trey chuckled softly. “But really, after that first couple of years, I was just keeping busy, and then of course there was Granny and Kait and the kids and the eyes and… I hadn’t thought about other people. No one. I was just— I’m not even sure I was thinking.”
West could see that.
“I was just doing whatever I could do right then and running to keep my feet underneath me. If I’d fallen down. I was never going to get back up again. Now we’ve proven that when I fall down, there’s somebody here that will pick me up again and vice versa. Like when you wreck the car, kill a cow, and cause me to have another stroke”— that grin went completely evil—“I don’t make you sleep on the couch.”
“Oh, butthead.” He checked to make sure little Zoe was still asleep. “And how do you know you don’t have llamas? It could look like Fortnite with a supply llama out there in the pasture and you’d never know unless someone told you. Maybe it’s a llama conspiracy.”
“A llamaspiracy, huh?”
“No weirder than a Zoesicle.”
Mark tiptoed in then. “Anyone need a refill?”
“Mmm.” Trey held up his cup. “Smells good in there, Mark.”
“I’m thinking about air fryer doughnuts too.”
West snorted. “You know. I’m thinking Mark might be bored now that his sister is here taking care of the kids. He’s adding in all this extra work.”
Trey yawned. “He’s an overachiever.”
Noah stumbled out of the hall to the bedrooms, blinking at the tree, where there was no bicycle sitting. His lower lip quivered. “Did I miss it?”
“Miss what?” Trey asked, glanced vaguely in Noah’s direction.
“Christmas morning.”
“No, son.” West beckoned for Noah to join them. “But Santa had to put a few things in the barn because they wouldn’t fit in the house.”
Noah crawled up on the couch, leaning on him. “Oh.” He yawned hard. “Okay.”
“Never you fear. We got this.”
“I trust you and Dad.”
“Thanks, kiddo,” Trey said, his eyes gleaming a little more than the Christmas lights called for.
“You’re welcome.” Noah knuckled his eyes. “Zoe, it’s Christmas.”
“Uh-huh. I hepped Papa West feed the horsies.”
“Was my bike in the barn?”
“Um. No.”
“Relax, buddy.” West tried hard not to laugh. Lord, that kid was single-minded. “I promise you, I checked.”
“Okay.” Noah sighed. “The cinnamons smell good.”
“They do, huh? I bet there’s hot cocoa too.”
“Totally.” Trey patted Zoe’s back. “Or milk or juice.”
“Milk?” Zoe blinked up at them with great big eyes. “I like warm milk.”
“With a little sugar in it,” Trey agreed.
“Ew.” Noah scrunched up his nose.
“Oh, now, you used to like it too, kiddo.” Trey rose, picking up Zoe, so that was their cue to move to the kitchen, trooping in where Mark had pulled out bacon, and cinnamon rolls.
Half an hour later, the presents were ready to unwrap, and West stomped into his boots and pulled on his coat. “Back in two shakes.” He would get the bike, which was wrapped in a big bag printed with bows, and the trike, and bring them up to the porch.
The horses could wait until it was warmer. Miss Zoe had a tiny stuffed pony under the tree for now.
Trey was grinning huge when West left the house. Yet another thing he would have to tease Trey about going blind so he could avoid… Going out in the cold to retrieve shit from the storage barn.
He carried both bikes up to the porch, then stomped back inside, his balls feeling shriveled.
“It is cold as the North Pole out there,” he told the kids and Trey, going to stand next to the actual fireplace, which was crackling like the one on TV.
Noah went to peek out the door, then bounced. “My bike!”
“After we open everything else, kiddo.”
Noah spun in a circle. “Okay!”
“Stockings first.”
Zoe tore into her presents, exclaiming over her little pony as if it was the real thing. At her age, it didn’t matter. Presents were amazing.
Noah wasn’t much better, but he was vibrating to go see his bike. So finally, Trey laughed and touched his arm. “Let the kid go see his bike, huh?”
“Sure, honey. But no riding it until the guys get out and plow the ranch road, okay? It’s icy.”
“I’ll just sit on it,” Noah said, grabbing his coat and putting on shoes. He ran out, and Trey hugged Zoe to him.
“Are you happy, little girl?” Trey asked. “Uh-huh. I haz and IOUs.” She held up her pony.
“You do! Such a smart girl.”
“And milks. Can I have more?”
“You got it,” West said. “You be your dad’s eyes and watch your brother, okay?”
As if summoned by those words, Valentine came shooting out of the back, whining at the door.
West chuckled, letting her out, then heading for the kitchen.
Sitting there on the kitchen counter sat a bright red box. On the tag his name was written in Trey’s spiky handwriting.
He panicked for a moment because he didn’t know what to think.
What if it was a ring? They hadn’t quite worked out all their stuff, and he wasn’t ready. And not only that, but he wanted to be the one doing the asking. It was important. He wasn’t ready, not yet.
He was going to be, but he wanted to ask.
He picked the box up and listened to it jingle, and he could finally take a deep breath. It wasn’t a ring. It was too heavy to be a ring.
He blinked at Mark, who gave him a smile as bland as the milk he was supposed to be fetching for Zoe. “This for me?”
“It’s got your name on it.”
“Yes, I know that. Where did it come from?”
Mark shrugged, eyes going comically wide. “Santa?”
“Huh, okay.” West slipped it into his shirt pocket, fetched Zoe’s milk, and then headed back to the front room to give Zoe her sippy cup. “Found something in the kitchen.”
“Did you?” Trey grinned at him. “Did you open it?”
“Not yet.” He wanted to see Trey’s face when he did because whatever it was, it was important.
“Well, go for it.”
In the little box there was a set of car keys—well it was one of those fancy fob things. Alongside that sat a little silver key. “What’s all this?”
Trey leaned back, cuddling in his blanket. “You know what the one thing is—that’s your big Christmas present. The other thing is the key to the safe deposit box. It’s at the bank in town, number 349. Should something ever happen to me, you can open it up. It’s got all the information for everything that you need, so you and the kids are taken care of. I just wanted you to have it.”
“Nothing’s gonna happen to you.” He couldn’t bear it.
Trey hooted like a big bird. “It’s a ranch. Things happen. I just wanted you to have that because it’s somewhere safe, in case you ever need it. Your big present’s better. You should go see her.”
West couldn’t speak because no, his big present? This was his big present. This bit of forever that he didn’t deserve. Trey was trusting him with this. That was important and he was gonna earn every bit of faith Trey offered.
“Thank you, baby. I— thank you.”
“Merry Christmas.”
“Papa West! Papa West, Ben found your Christmas from Santa! You have to come and see. Noah’s eyes were big as saucers. “You have to come and see, right now!”
He stood up again, heading out to the back porch where Ben was standing, grinning like an idiot, waving at him. There was the prettiest damn red duallie he’d ever seen, with an amazing horse trailer behind. Bright red and just about shiny, and a huge Santa hat on the top of it—it was like a friggin’ car commercial.
And then, in the truck bed, there was a fucking hot tub, just waiting to be installed, it seemed like. “Good Lord and butter.”
Ben waved to him. “Merry Christmas, boss. Looks like Santa came for you.”
“Merry Christmas, sir. I think Santa came for you too. Come on in. Trey’s looking for you.”
Ben grinned wide, coming around the truck and slowly taking the stairs to the house. “Look at that bike, son. Very nice.”
Noah beamed at him, petting the handlebars. “Santa brought it, I can’t ride it until it’s not so icy, but I’m sitting on it.”
“You’re gonna freeze, son. Y’all looked in the trailer?”
Noah frowned. “The trailer?”
“Uh-huh. Grab your sister.”
Ben chuckled. “I’ll put the critters away once the kiddos see them. They can see Santa brought them, and then I’ll pop them into the barn to settle. Good?”
“Perfect.”
The kids came squealing out, and he scooped Zoe up. “We’re going to look. No screaming.”
“Screams scare the…horsies…” Oh, she was smart. “Papa West? Papa West, horsies?”
Noah blinked. “Our own?”
“Go see?”
He held Zoe up to the trailer where the two yearlings and the two Shetland ponies waited. Ben had managed to put bows on their harnesses. “Papa West. Horses.”
“Yes. Two for you, and two for Noah.”
“Oh wow. Can I ride mine to school? Can I bring them for show and tell? Can I pet them? Can I?—”
West would bet Noah would settle in with his Matchbox cars in front of the fire and crash like a lead balloon. “We’ll all talk about it. Everyone come on in, have some food. I know that Mark’s made tons.”
Noah nodded and climbed down off the tire of the trailer, shivering good and hard. “Cinnamons. It’s yummy. Have a good morning, horses! Merry Christmas!”
“Chrismas Chrismas!”
“It is.” West opened the door and ushered Ben in, Valentine running in after with Noah.
He couldn’t stop grinning.
Santa had brought him a truck and trailer for Christmas.
Ho ho ho.