Chapter 21
Aaron
The elevator is too slow.
The taxi from JFK took forever — gridlocked traffic, snow already starting to come down, the driver muttering about weather he hadn’t signed up for.
I barely noticed. I was watching the city slide past the window, my knee bouncing, my phone in my hand with Sasha’s last text still on the screen: Penthouse.
Door’s open if I’m in the shower. Don’t be late, Aaron Kelly.
I’m not late. I’m early. I practically ran through the Pemberton lobby.
I’ve been in this elevator before. Once. The summer before junior year, right after meeting Diego for the first time. I couldn’t stop staring at the place. Couldn’t stop staring at him.
The number above the door climbs. Fourteen. Fifteen.
Sixteen. Seventeen.
Tonight, neither one of us has to hurry to go anywhere because of what other people might think.
My bag is over my shoulder and my hands are shaking and my whole body knows exactly what’s on the other side of that door. Not a quick hookup. A whole night together. No alarm set for 5 AM, no cab waiting downstairs.
Eighteen.
The doors open to the elegant penthouse floor.
The hallway is quiet. Thick carpet, warm light, that expensive hotel smell I remember from last time. I walk to the penthouse door and my pulse is so loud in my ears that I almost miss the faint sound of music coming from inside.
I knock.
Footsteps. A pause — him checking the peephole, probably. Then the door swings open and Sasha is standing there in gray sweatpants and a black t-shirt, his hair damp, his feet bare, and those blue eyes hit me like they always do.
Every time. Every single time, and I still can’t get used to it.
“Aaron Kelly.” He says my name the way he always does — slow, like he’s enjoying every syllable. My neck goes hot. “You made it.”
“Flight was a nightmare. Turbulence the whole way.”
“Poor baby.” The accent curls around the words and my stomach flips. He steps aside. “Come in.”
I step past him. His hand catches my hip — light, just a brush of his fingers — and my whole body tightens. I haven’t talked to him since that barrage of text messages I sent him the night he went out with Lily. When he told me to book my flight and let him do the rest.
I’m two steps into the suite when I stop.
The penthouse is — different.
The layout is the same — the windows, the sunken living room, the fireplace lit and casting warm light across the marble. Manhattan through the glass, blurred with snow.
But there’s a Christmas tree.
A real one. Tall — at least seven feet — standing in the corner by the windows where the dining table used to be.
White lights strung through the branches, a gold star on top, ornaments that look like someone actually picked them out instead of buying a box of matching ones.
Red, green, gold, a few that are clearly handmade — a tiny wooden hockey stick, a miniature Empire State Building.
Underneath, a tree skirt in dark green velvet.
There are stockings hanging from the mantle above the fireplace. Two of them. One has an A stitched on it and one has an S.
There’s garland along the bar. There’s a wreath on the terrace door.
There are candles — real ones, in glass holders — on the coffee table and the end tables and the kitchen counter.
The whole room smells like pine and cinnamon, and when I look toward the kitchen area I see a plate of cookies on the counter next to a bottle of wine and two glasses.
I can’t breathe.
“How —” My voice cracks. I clear my throat. “When did you —”
“I had some help.” Sasha closes the door behind me. His voice is careful, watching. “The hotel has a concierge service. I told them what I wanted and they —” He nods toward the stockings. “I didn’t know what to put in those, so they’re jammed full of fancy chocolates from the gift shop downstairs.”
“You told them you wanted Christmas.”
“I told them I wanted your Christmas.” He’s behind me now, close enough that I can feel his warmth but not touching. “The kind you have at home. With the tree and the stockings and the cookies. I wanted you to have —”
I turn around and kiss him.
Hard. Both hands gripping his face, my bag dropping off my shoulder and hitting the floor, my mouth on his before he can finish the sentence. He makes a sound and his arms come around me, one hand on the small of my back and one in my hair, and he pulls me in until there’s no space between us.
My eyes are closed. My hands are in his hair. His mouth tastes like wine and I’m here. I’m not leaving.
“I take it you like it,” he murmurs against my lips.
“Shut up.” My voice is thick. “Just — shut up for a second.”
He holds me. I press my face against his neck and breathe him in — soap, his skin, something warm underneath that’s just him — and my chest is so tight I think my ribs might crack.
Don’t cry. Do not cry.
His hand cradles the back of my head. He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t push. Just holds me in the middle of this ridiculous penthouse with the Christmas tree and the Manhattan skyline and the plate of cookies on the counter, and lets me fall apart a little.
I pull back. Scrub my face with one hand. His eyes search my face, and whatever he sees there makes his expression go soft in a way he never lets anyone else see.
“The hockey stick ornament,” I manage. “Nice touch.”
“I thought so.” His thumb traces my jaw. “The concierge wanted to put an angel on top. I told her a star. Your family does a star, yes?”
My family does a star. He remembered that. From one conversation, months ago, when I was talking about my mom’s Christmas decorations and he was pretending not to listen.
“Yeah.” I swallow. “We do a star.”
He smiles. The real one, not the camera one. “Good.”
I lean in to kiss him again — slower this time, his lower lip between mine, his hand tightening in my hair — when something on the television catches my eye.
It’s on mute, but the image is unmistakable: a weather map of the eastern seaboard, covered in blue and white, with a massive swirl of storm barreling down from Canada.
“What’s that?”
Sasha glances at the screen. “Oh. You’re lucky you landed when you did.”
I step away from him and grab the remote off the coffee table.
The sound comes on mid-sentence: — “…unprecedented storm system pushing south from Ontario, expected to bring twelve to eighteen inches of snow across the tri-state area by tomorrow morning. Airlines have already begun canceling flights at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark…” —
My stomach drops.
— “…travelers are urged to make alternate arrangements. This is shaping up to be one of the most significant December storms in recent memory…” —
“No.” I look at Sasha. “No, no, no.”
“Aaron —”
“I fly out tomorrow. I’m supposed to be home tomorrow night.
My parents are expecting me. My mom is making dinner.
Sean and Colin are coming over with their —” I’m spiraling.
I can hear it and I can’t stop it. My hands are in my hair.
I’m pacing. “If I don’t show up, they’re going to want to know why. If they find out I’m in New York —”
“Aaron Kelly.”
“— they’ll know. They’ll know something is going on. My mom will call, she always calls, and if I don’t answer she’ll call Sean and Sean will —”
“Aaron.” His hands land on my shoulders. Firm. Steady. He turns me to face him and ducks his head until his blue eyes are level with mine. “Stop.”
I stop. My chest is heaving. My jaw hurts from clenching.
“We’re going to fix this,” he says. His voice is calm. Completely calm, like he’s calling a play in the third period when we’re down by two. “Right now. Give me your phone.”
“What?”
“Your phone. Give it to me.”
I pull it out of my pocket and hand it over because my hands are shaking too hard to do anything useful with it anyway. Sasha unlocks it — he knows my passcode, has since October, something I never gave anyone before him — and opens my messages. He taps on my mom’s name and starts typing.
I watch his thumbs move across the screen. Fast, confident, like he’s done this before.
He turns the phone around and holds it up so I can read.
Hey Mom, Diego called me last minute for a quick shoot in New York for one of our sponsors. I was going to be back tomorrow but the storm hit and they’re canceling everything out of JFK. I’m stuck here til the weather clears. I’ll keep you posted. Love you, tell Dad I’m sorry.
I read it twice. It sounds exactly like me. The hey Mom, the run-on sentences, the love you at the end. Even the apology to my dad. He got all of it right.
“How do you —” I shake my head. “How do you know how I text my mom?”
“You showed me a conversation once. When she was asking about your schedule. I paid attention.”
Of course he did.
I look at the message again. Diego. A last-minute shoot. The storm as a convenient excuse. It’s airtight. My parents know about the sponsorship deals. They’ve seen the commercials. Diego pulling him to New York for work is the most believable thing in the world.
“Send it,” I say.
He hits send. Hands the phone back.
My phone buzzes almost immediately. Mom: Oh no!! Be safe honey. We’ll miss you. Diego is working you too hard!
The guilt hits fast. She thinks I’m stuck at some shoot. She’s going to set a place for me at Christmas dinner anyway, because that’s what she does — keeps the place set until someone fills it, just in case.
I exhale. My whole body sags.
Sasha pulls me into him. I go willingly — my face against his chest, his arms around my shoulders, his chin resting on top of my head. The fire pops behind us.
We stand there. My breathing slows. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, and after a while the knot in my chest starts to loosen.
“Do you remember the first time you came up here?” His voice is quiet. Almost lazy. His fingers tracing circles on my shoulder blade.
I huff a laugh against his chest. “The summer right before junior year.”
“The summer right before junior year. You stood right there at those windows and pretended the view wasn’t impressing you. Your jaw was going —” He makes a clenching motion with his free hand. “Click, click, click.”
“It wasn’t clicking.”
“It was clicking. I heard it. I thought you might crack a tooth.”
I close my eyes. I can see it — the two of us standing at the glass, the late summer skyline, him so close I could feel the warmth off his skin. Me with my hands shoved in my pockets and my shoulders up around my ears, trying so hard not to look at him that I was practically vibrating.
“You told me I had unusual eyes,” I say.
“You do have unusual eyes.”
“And then you said you wanted to kiss me.”
“And you stood there like a statue.” His hand moves to the back of my neck. Warm. Steady. “You just — froze. And I thought, this handsome boy I can’t resist is either going to kiss me or punch me.”
“I thought about punching you.”
“No you didn’t.”
“No,” I admit. “I didn’t. I couldn’t wait for you to kiss me.”
His arms tighten around me. I feel his smile against my temple.
“Look at you now,” he murmurs. “In the same room. Not frozen.”
“Not frozen,” I agree.
“This is a good thing,” he says into my hair. “You understand that, right?”
“It doesn’t feel like a good thing. It feels like lying to my mom on Christmas.”
“It feels like more time.” His hand moves up and down my spine. Slow. “No rushing to the airport. No one night and then gone. If this storm is as bad as they say, we could have days.”
Days. My breath catches.
“A real Christmas,” he says. “Together. No one watching. No one keeping score.”
I lift my head. He’s looking down at me. Stubble, freckles, those eyes. Behind him the snow is coming down thick — fat white flakes blurring the skyline.
Days. With him. No hiding. No hurrying out before someone sees.
Just us.
I kiss him. He kisses me back and it builds fast — his hand cupping the back of my neck, my fingers gripping the front of his t-shirt, his thigh pressing between mine.
His mouth moves to my jaw. My neck. The spot below my ear that he found months ago and has been using against me ever since.
My head tips back and a sound comes out of me that I’d be embarrassed about if I could think straight.
The panic is gone. Burned off.
“I’ve been waiting so long for this,” I say against his mouth. My voice sounds different. Lower. Steadier than I expected. “I want you inside me.”
He goes still. His hand tightens on the back of my neck. When he pulls back to look at me, his blue eyes have gone dark with want and his breathing has changed and there’s a flush climbing his throat that I put there.
“If you are very polite,” he says, and his voice has dropped into that low rough register that makes my knees weak, “I just might let you take my cock.”
I laugh. I can’t help it. “Let me? Let me? As if you haven’t been —”
“Shh.” He puts a finger against my lips. His eyes are bright with want and amusement, and the way he’s looking at me makes my chest ache. “I’m very generous. Everyone says so.”
“You are unbelievable.”
“And yet.” He grabs my hips and walks me backward toward the bedroom, past the Christmas tree, past the stockings, past the fire. The frosted glass partition is already open. The city lights are pouring across the California king. “Here you are.”
Here I am.