Chapter Twenty-Six
December turned into a busy blur, but things would slow down soon enough now that he’d reached Christmas day and put in his notice.
Kaiden planned to work the rest of his shifts through New Year’s, but based on what he’d heard about his managers, they had a tendency to magically remove hours from anyone who didn’t stay loyal to the company and dared to quit.
Kaiden didn’t care. The holiday hours gave him just enough to furnish his home with what he needed. A real mattress, a sofa, a television with a solid stand, a coffee table. Hell, a coffee pot. One of those fancy ones that made the foamy lattes Kaiden liked to treat himself with on occasion.
His phone dinged.
Rus included a selfie of him smiling in front of his Christmas tree.
Kaiden grinned, always finding him so sweet when he actually smiled.
Though the scowl was pretty sexy, too. Kaiden returned his own selfie, even avoiding a filter despite the fact he found his face a bit washed out without any makeup, and his hair needed a touch-up of emerald green dye.
Rus replied with puking emojis.
Dylan replied with heart-eyed emojis.
Dylan followed up with a frazzled faced selfie.
Kaiden replied with the laughing crying emojis.
Kaiden continued chiming into the group chat with some silly gifs, but focused more on cleaning up his place since Dylan actually planned on stopping by for Christmas.
Usually, Dylan would be overwhelmed with how busy his place got over the holidays, so Kaiden didn’t have to worry about being festive.
As he worked, his phone buzzed with another unwanted text from his mother, who’d started sending long messages expressing how much she missed him, worried for him, needed him.
Her concern rang hollow in Kaiden’s ear when his absence quickly turned into how he’d abandoned his family, leaving them with nothing.
Funny, since he’d literally left them with most of his bulkier belongings.
Kaiden had blocked everyone else’s number, blocked them on every social he could think of—even the platforms he rarely used—but he couldn’t bring himself to cut off his mother entirely.
Though while her sad messages did tug at his heartstrings, Kaiden refused to move back, and he continued ignoring her request for his new address.
After Sandra’s outburst at the gallery, after the near blows Dylan came to with his stepfather, Kaiden didn’t want to chance what they’d pull on his front lawn.
Kaiden deleted the message without reading it, finding that the easiest solution when faced with wordy guilt trips, then he went back to work until the rumble of Dylan’s car pulled up to his trailer.
Dylan arrived, handing Kaiden a bouquet of blue and white roses for the season.
They were enchanting and almost distracted from the bags of groceries in Dylan’s other hand.
“Before you say anything, I only got stuff I like to cook, so really this is for me. And Rus. Basically, just us. Your fridge will just have to make room.”
“I almost didn’t see the bags, distracted by that sweater.”
It was definitely a top-tier ugly Christmas sweater with a T-Rex Santa Claus, triceratops reindeer, and raptor elves.
“Cute, right?”
“Uh huh.” Kaiden pushed the screen door open, holding it while Dylan carried easily a week’s worth of food into the house.
Kaiden made a point to provide for himself, to prove he could handle this, and while he didn’t find Dylan’s assistance undermining, he also didn’t want to become dependent on it.
So much of his life revolved around believing he had no choice but to rely on his family, trust his family, believe his family when they convinced him he needed them and couldn’t do anything on his own.
And yes, his relationship with Dylan and Rus was one of equals, of trust, of love. But Kaiden didn’t want anything like his lack of providing for himself to sour their connection.
“So, what’re you going to cook me?”
“Spaghetti and meatballs.” Dylan wiggled his eyebrows. “The most suggestive dish.”
“Limp noodles and squishy balls?” Kaiden countered playfully. “That is quite the suggestion.”
“Oop.” Dylan snorted. “I didn’t think that through. Okay, we’re eating hard noodles, so the suggestive dish works.”
“Or we actually have a good meal, and you can show me something hard later.”
“Deal.”
With that, Kaiden helped put away groceries while Dylan started cooking their late lunch or early dinner. While Kaiden unpacked, he found a large gift-wrapped box.
“No,” he whined. “No, no, no. You know I don’t do good gifts.”
“I liked your gift,” Dylan replied as he cooked.
Kaiden had gotten a semi-decent gift for Rus and Dylan thanks to each of their assistance.
Basically, he made them shop for each other and simply paid for the gift.
Sentimentality wasn’t Kaiden’s best quality.
And he gave them both their gifts early because he didn’t like or understand the importance of waiting for the day.
Plus, he was terrible at keeping secrets.
Not to mention, Rus was leaving town, so he needed it early, and if Rus got his early, then it was only fair Dylan did too.
They’d actually made him wait until Christmas Day. Kaiden sort of forgot the whole gift exchange thing was happening.
“What is it?”
“It’s from me and Rus,” Dylan said.
“Do we wait till he’s back in town?”
“No, but you do owe him a gratitude blowie for not making me film the experience.”
Kaiden tsked. “Shut up.”
“Maybe just a gratitude blowie for the awesome gift,” Dylan said as he swaggered back and forth in front of the stove. “I’ll take a gratitude blowie for sure.”
“I bet.” Kaiden went to unwrap the gift, finding himself carefully lifting up the tape and unpeeling the wrapping.
“Just tear it apart.”
“But it looks like y’all put so much work into wrapping it.”
Truthfully, the gift wrapping alone made this special enough to put on display. Maybe he didn’t need to open it at all. Dylan’s protests quickly changed Kaiden’s mind, and he reluctantly ripped open the bundled package.
Kaiden stared in awe. “Seriously?”
“Do you not like it?” Dylan dropped what he was doing and spun around to check on Kaiden.
They’d picked out a few sketch books, some boxes of fancy pencils, colored pencils, and a cool figurine designed to be posed in different positions. Kaiden rarely thought about drawing anymore, but every now and then, he’d mention it.
“I love it.” Kaiden’s face fell into a perfect smile for the perfect gift. “Thank you.”
“Nothing says thank you quite like a—”
“Get back to cooking before you ruin the moment,” Kaiden said a bit sternly as he went to put his gift away in his bedroom, where he’d definitely be dragging Dylan later this evening.
They ate in the living room since Kaiden had never really grown up eating at a kitchen table and hadn’t bothered buying one for his place yet. He still needed to get more furniture. Right now, they made do with the sofa and coffee table.
After finishing their food, Kaiden turned on the television, a small one, but big enough for Dylan and Rus to enjoy when they visited. Dylan leaned back, practically sprawling out on top of Kaiden, using him as a body pillow.
“The point of a couch is so we all have space.”
“What?” Dylan rubbed his back against Kaiden’s chest. “You’re so cozy.”
“Fine.” Kaiden lay back, giving Dylan free rein to rest on him.
About halfway through the movie Dylan picked, he rolled over, sitting with his stomach between Kaiden’s thighs and his head resting almost up to Kaiden’s chest.
“How’s the holiday been going so far?”
“Pretty good, mostly. Helped at a few charities, played an elf a few times.”
“Oh?”
“Yep, you should see me in those striped tights.”
“Now, that would’ve been a hell of a Christmas present.”
“You know, you can get more than one gift.” Dylan grinned.
“Hmmm. But whatever will I get you?”
“I can think of a few things.”
“What’d you have in mind?”
“Let’s do something to make Rus jealous that his flight is still a few days out.”
“Oh? Are you going to write him a graphic text on our exploits?”
“I was thinking a snippet of our good times.” Dylan had this minxy expression.
“You’re not filming me.”
“What about audio?” Dylan teased, wiggling side-to-side on top of Kaiden. “Just a few well-timed moans. Maybe a few slurps.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Fine,” Dylan sighed, retrieving his phone.
“What did I just say?”
“Don’t worry,” Dylan said, tracing his fingers along the screen of his phone. “I’m just making do with what I got.”
After a minute or so, he revealed a stick figure drawing. One stick figure was bent over while another stick figure with an absurdly giant penis—fully detailed and bigger than the two stick figures combined—stood behind the bent-over stick figure. Then there was a crying face in the background.
Kaiden burst into laughter. “Oh my God, that’s horrifying.”
“What? I’m not the artist in the relationship.”
Kaiden’s heart pattered a bit quickly there.
It’d been so long since he’d considered himself an artist. Maybe he could be again.
Could be for the first time. Every sketch, every painting, every attempt over the years held this hollow sensation.
Practice without payoff. The skill of another person entirely.
Even looking at his old work on occasion made Kaiden feel like a fraud.
But he wanted to explore art all the same.
All the time. The passion snuck up on him, creeping its way inside and burrowing into his veins, consuming him.