Chapter Ten #2
Troy took another sip. It was sweet, but it was also spicy and comforting and wonderful, and it soothed him like medicine.
“I do it in the slow cooker,” Harris explained. “Then I come home to an amazing-smelling apartment. Do you have a slow cooker?”
“No. I live in a hotel room.”
“Yeah, I know but, like, will you have one when you move into an apartment? Did you used to have one?”
“I barely even know what a slow cooker is.”
“Oh man, they’re great. They cook stuff slowly.”
Troy was really glad he’d agreed to come. He felt better already, listening to Harris say stupid, adorable things. “Why is that good? Don’t you want things to cook faster?”
“So you can come home to a meal that’s been cooking all day! It’s like a little husband.”
That actually made Troy laugh. “That’s bleak.”
“Said like someone who’s never known the love of a slow cooker.”
“I don’t want to hear how you thank the slow cooker for dinner.”
Harris laughed so hard Troy thought they were going to drive off the road. “It’s the best relationship I’ve ever been in. Easily.”
They got on the highway, which Troy thought was weird but didn’t say anything about it. Frankly he didn’t care if they saw a single Christmas light. He was just enjoying the ride.
Harris hummed along to “Winter Wonderland” while Troy sipped his cider and tried not to find everything about Harris painfully charming.
“Is this what you do for fun?” Troy asked. “Look at Christmas lights?”
“Well, not in the summer,” Harris said dryly.
Troy checked himself. He was being a dick again. “What do you do normally? For fun.”
“Lots of stuff. I go out a lot. Or at least I go out as much as I can these days. This job keeps me pretty busy. Wyatt hosts a monthly board game night at his place, so I go to those usually.”
Troy almost laughed. Did his new teammates really get together to play board games? “Like, what? Monopoly?”
“Usually games like Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride.”
Troy had not heard of those, but they sounded nerdy as hell. “Where do you go when you go out?”
“Lots of places. I like live music, so I go to a lot of shows. I go to gay bars. Not clubs very often. I’m more of a pub guy. How about you?”
“Pubs, I guess. I don’t go out much.”
“Unless some weirdo invites you to look at Christmas lights?” Harris teased.
Troy’s lips twitched. “Apparently.”
“Are you going to see your family at Christmas?”
“Nope.” Troy didn’t like talking about his family, but for some reason he said, “My parents are divorced. Kind of a messy one. Mom is traveling and Dad is basically a giant asshole.”
“Oh.”
“He has a new wife, too, and she’s barely older than me. So.”
“Awkward Christmas.”
“Yeah. I’m not sad to miss it. I haven’t cared about the holidays in years.” It wasn’t exactly true. Last year Adrian had surprised Troy in Toronto on Christmas Eve, and they’d had a really excellent couple of days together. Their celebrations weren’t exactly traditional, though.
There was a silence for a few seconds, and then Harris asked, “Did you see your dad when you were in Vancouver?”
“Yup. He still sucks.”
“Sorry.”
Troy could imagine what Curtis Barrett would say if he saw his son riding around Ottawa with a gay man, looking at Christmas lights. “Whatever. Fuck him.”
“That’s a good attitude,” Harris said. “Toxic people aren’t worth your energy.”
“I’m starting to figure that out,” Troy said to the window. The highway was dark, and he actually wouldn’t mind some festive lights to look at right now.
“What about your mom? Is she cool?”
“She’s great. She’s...” Troy sighed. “She was miserable, after Dad left her. And I was too busy with hockey to do much except give her money. Buy her a new place to live in Vancouver. That sort of thing.”
“That doesn’t exactly sound useless.”
Troy knew she’d appreciated the help, but he’d wished he could have done more for her. “Anyway. She’s good now. She met a nice, quiet guy named Charlie who treats her well and makes her smile. So now they’re traveling the world together. Been gone for almost three months.”
“That’s awesome. I’ll bet you miss her, though.”
“Yeah. A lot.”
There was silence between them for a moment, then Harris said, “Can I ask you something? About that dickbag you used to be teammates with?”
Troy almost laughed. “Sure.”
“I can’t really—like, he doesn’t exactly hide the fact that he’s—”
“A dickbag?” Troy offered.
“Right. Why were you friends with him?”
Troy sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this, but he also kind of did.
There was something about Harris that made him want to share.
“We were rookies the same year. Roommates. I knew he was a dick, but he was also exactly the kind of guy my dad loved. So part of it might have been me recognizing him as a guy I should want to be friends with.”
“You must have liked him, too, though. At least a bit.”
“I did,” Troy admitted. “He was fun. Liked to party, liked to spend his money. Loved hockey, and being an NHL star. We would talk about all the cups we were going to win together. All the records we were going to break. The cars we were going to buy.” Dallas had also talked about sex and women a lot, while Troy had awkwardly tried to contribute, but he didn’t tell Harris about that.
“We were close. Until a few weeks ago, he was my best friend. I know it’s fucked up, but that’s how it was. ”
“Have you talked to him since?”
Troy huffed. “No.”
“Jeez. I’ve never liked that guy, and I think you did the right thing and are better off without him, but I’m sorry you lost your friend. That’s rough.”
“Thank you,” Troy said quietly. It was nice to have someone acknowledge the loss he felt for his former friendship, and to make it seem less shameful.
“I didn’t witness anything. I never actually saw him assault anyone.
I feel stupid, but it didn’t even occur to me that he would do that. Until I read those posts.”
“You believed them right away?”
“Yeah. It was a punch in the fucking gut, but yeah. I believed them.”
“Sorry,” Harris said again.
Troy exhaled and released some of the tension that was making his jaw ache. “So where are we going?” he asked, wanting to change the subject.
“Taffy Lane.”
“Taffy Lane? Where’s that? Is that a real street name?”
“Oh man. Just wait. It’s in Orleans and they go all out every year. It’s a total Christmas wonderland.”
Troy couldn’t wait to see what that meant. So he drank his cider and let a jolly bearded man take him to Christmas wonderland.
Taffy Lane was hideous. But also, kind of great.
“How much are these guys spending on electricity?” Troy asked as they slowly drove past a house that must have had tens of thousands of lights all over their house and front yard. There were also several generators running, keeping the cartoon characters on the lawn inflated.
“A lot,” Harris said, grinning.
“Why is there Darth Vader? What does he have to do with Christmas?”
“His lightsaber is candy cane striped. See?”
“Yeah, but...”
“Don’t question someone’s Christmas vision. Just enjoy it.”
Troy frowned at the allegedly festive Darth Vader. Troy wasn’t a nerd or anything, but he knew enough about Star Wars to say, with authority, that Darth Vader was not an appropriate Christmas decoration.
“He blew up a planet,” Troy argued.
“Yeah, but he felt bad about it after. Eventually.”
It was such a ridiculous debate, but Troy couldn’t let it go. “Too little too late. He should have tossed the emperor into that pit sooner.”
Harris laughed. “You are such a geek. Wow. I had no idea.”
“No I’m not. I saw those movies, like, twice. That’s fucking normal.”
“I prefer to applaud Vader’s heroic decision to stand up to his evil friend, no matter how long it took him,” Harris said. He caught Troy’s eye after he said it, as if making sure Troy got his point.
Troy shifted uneasily in his seat. He got it.
“Still a stupid Christmas decoration,” he grumbled.
They drove to the end of Taffy Lane, which took a while since they were in a line of cars that was crawling along. Then Harris drove them around some other nearby streets, which also had some decent decorations but nothing on the level of Taffy Lane.
“I don’t like the light projections,” Troy declared when they were halfway down their fourth or fifth street. “It’s lazy.”
“I hear ya. But combined with other lights, they look pretty cool.”
“It’s too much. I like houses like that one.
” Troy gestured to a small house with a pointy roof.
Lights outlined the gables, windows, door, front porch, and the sides of the front of the house from ground to roof.
There was a big wreath with a red bow hanging on the door.
“That’s classic, right there. Like, that’s the kind of house I’d want to spend Christmas in. ”
“That’s sort of how my parents decorate our house,” Harris said.
Troy could imagine the Drover family farmhouse, sitting perfect and pretty in the middle of a snow-covered apple orchard. That house was probably bursting at the seams with overly loud laughter and love during holidays. “Sounds nice.”
“You should come over on Christmas. The dinner is always amazing. My folks would be happy to have you.” Harris made the offer easily, as if it wasn’t one of the kindest invitations Troy had ever received.
But there was no way someone as miserable as Troy should be tainting anyone’s Christmas festivities, much less a family’s as perfect as Harris’s probably was.
“I can’t. I’m moving into that apartment two days before Christmas and I’m going to just, y’know, get myself settled in there.”
“Offer stands if you change your mind.”
“Thanks.” They were at a stop sign, and their gazes locked for a moment. Harris’s eyes reflected the twinkling lights all around them, and his smile was so warm and lovely that Troy felt a sudden and intense desire to kiss him.
Instead, he looked away. “I should probably get back. Long day tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Harris said. “Hope this helped a bit with your nerves.”
“It did.” Troy knew as soon as he was alone again, all of his anxieties about tomorrow would come rushing back, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to keep taking up Harris’s time. Also, he needed to get his urge to kiss him under control.
As they merged on to the highway, Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” started playing, which didn’t help. The situation was made worse when Harris started singing along.
Troy hadn’t even known Harris for a month. In fact, he barely knew him at all. Why was he so drawn to him? He was nothing like any of the men Troy had been secretly attracted to before. He was nothing like Adrian. He wasn’t even the kind of guy Troy would normally be friends with.
But as he watched the absolute goofball in the driver’s seat cheerfully dueting with Mariah Carey, he couldn’t deny how badly he wanted him. For his own. More than Harris could ever, ever, ever know.