CHAPTER 28
Aaron
Sometimes it feels like my past belonged to someone else or was a story written in a book of fiction rather than a reality I lived. Nights like last night and tonight with Easton are to blame for that surreal feeling.
Wiping the smile off my face as Mariah Carey’s ‘ All I Want For Christmas Is You ’ plays on the radio of the Suburban, I shake my head at myself. The past creeps in on the happiest moments to remind us that even fairy tales start out bleak. Easton is proof enough of that.
“You’re not enjoying this, are you?” I had asked him as we drove around looking at Christmas light displays. “Don’t tell me you don’t like Christmas lights. Oh, my gosh. Wait. You don’t. Do you? I didn’t see any up at your apartment or your tattoo stall.”
It’s true. Shannon has the reception desk decked out with garland and lights and every one of the artists has some kind of decoration in their work areas. Easton’s was its usual blank, sterile setting when I was looking for him in the shop earlier.
Scoffing, he shrugged and lifted a shoulder lazily. “We never put up lights when I was growing up.” Squinting, he gazed out the window at a ten-foot inflatable snowman in someone’s yard like it was a riddle he was trying to decipher. “My mom had one of those tiny little trees she put on our coffee table for a while,” he added casually.
The ‘for a while’ part made me think something bad happened to the tree, so I didn’t ask. He didn’t look sad exactly, just indifferent. I think the indifference broke my heart the most.
“I’m sorry. We can go back. I know you’ve got that mess to deal with and I’m keeping you from it.”
“No. It’s fine. I told you,” he assured me, reaching over and squeezing my hand.
“Easton, you’ve barely looked at the lights the entire time. It’s okay. I can accept when I have a bad idea,” I digressed.
“It’s because I’m too busy watching you looking at the lights.”
I got so lost drinking in the adoring look on his face that I ran over a curb. Nothing says you’re careful with the vehicle someone lent you like running over a curb.
“Like a deranged, drunk-driving Christmas elf,” he murmured playfully as I righted the vehicle.
His comparison wasn’t far off. I love Christmas. And him. God, I am so in love with him.
Pulling into my driveway, I sigh at the sight of the cottage. It’s been weeks since I slept here alone. I’m a big boy. I can sleep alone. I’ve done it countless times in the past two years, but my addiction to my boyfriend is strong.
The wind whips a chilly gust that blows my coat open as I unlock the door, giving me goosebumps. The house is warm but quiet and less inviting, knowing it won’t be filled with Easton’s smooth voice tonight. It’s definitely less empty since his surprise furnishing of it, but perhaps it’s my sentimentality that has me thinking the empty space between the TV console and the front windows would be perfect for a Christmas tree. I wonder if he ever got to experience picking out his own and chopping it down. I used to just put up a fancy artificial one in Seattle that was pre-lit, but when I was a kid, the entire family would go pick one out and my father would cut it down. If Easton thought it was cute watching me ooh and ahh over Christmas lights, I’m sure he’d love my excitement over picking out a tree together.
I told my parents last week that I’d met someone. I wonder if Easton could handle picking out trees together with them as a way to meet them for the first time? Mom is certainly anxious to meet him and looked like she’s finally given up on worrying about me.
Would meeting them make him more aware of not having his own family? I want to give him everything he doesn’t have, but I should try to silence some of my protective instincts. He has Wolf and his friends. They’re their own kind of family, in a way. Maybe I’m just excited at the thought of him meeting mine to show him even more how important he is to me.
I get my coat hung up and shoes kicked off, trying to decide how to spend my evening alone. Hot chocolate sounds like a good way to celebrate my Christmas elf spirit, as Easton would say. Heading into the kitchen, I pull a Swiss Miss packet out of the box and dump it in a coffee mug, pouring the milk over the top of the powder. While it microwaves, I lean against the counter and smile at the puzzle of a lakeside scene we put together the other day. It reminds me of the day he took me to his lake spot and the moment I hoped for a kiss before he swam away.
I got my kiss eventually, but it’s now a memory I’ll forever associate with how fragile love can be and how wary a heart can be of it. I know our love is new, but it feels hard-earned, and I’m proud of that. It means nothing should be able to come between us since we’ve done the hard part already.
The microwave beeps, alerting me my treat is ready. Just as I reach to fetch it, a knock at the door startles me. I never get visitors other than George or Easton, and George certainly never visits past dinner time since he always likes to be home with his family.
Heading toward my front door, my heart does a little skip, wondering if Easton changed his mind. He usually just walks in, but I locked it since I was home for the night and wasn’t expecting him. So much for suffering the night without him. I’m not disappointed in the least that he chose me over cleaning up his plumbing mess.
“Well, hello. Oh…” My sexy greeting is cut off when I realize the man at the door is definitely not Easton.
He’s an inch or two taller, with wider shoulders under a black peacoat and a black stocking cap on his head that matches his midnight beard. His skin is tan and the brown eyes behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses are the same chocolate brown as…
“Hello,” he says, the sound of his voice jarring the memories inside me loose. Taking a step closer, he pulls his glasses off and flashes a sheepish smile. “It’s me, babe. I promise. I’m real.”
The blast of cold air that hits me runs a chill down my spine as though someone walked over my grave. My heart wallops against my ribcage as my jaw flaps uselessly without a sound.
“Ja-Ja-Jason?”
“It’s good to see you,” he whispers, inching toward the threshold.
Am I dreaming? I have to be dreaming. Or I’m being haunted. He looks so real. Completely different with a beard and glasses and tanned, but real! And he’s coming toward me. He can’t be real. I saw remains, remains with his wedding ring on his finger. I buried him. I picked out his casket. I…I…
Backing up, my legs feel like broken toothpicks, wobbling beneath me as he follows, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. Oh, God. He is real. There’s a mass, an entire living, breathing body in front of me, in my house. He’s real, whoever or whatever he is. He’s not a ghost or a hallucination.
“Jason?” I squawk, unable to conjure any other sensible question.
“Yeah, babe. It’s me.”
That voice. I know that voice. I remember that voice.
My legs buckle. My knees slam onto the hardwood floor and I catch myself with my palms. The room is spinning. Maybe I’m spinning. I can’t seem to get enough air into my lungs. Have I lost my mind?