Chapter 10 #3
He’s not mine. But he couldn’t say that. “He has a name, Dad.”
“Mm-hmm,” Dad agreed. “He gonna be changing it anytime soon?”
Adam tripped over a snow-covered tree root. “Dad!”
“What?” Dad said innocently as Adam brushed snow off his knees. “His parents saddled him with Moritz, that’s all I’m saying, and he obviously doesn’t care for it.”
“Yeah, right.”
“And he might as well do it at the same time as his last name, you know, two birds and one stone.”
For God’s sake. Adam snorted a laugh. “We’ve been together like three months.” Two fake months. “You don’t think you’re putting the cart before the horse?”
Dad shook his head, dislodging a shelf of snow from the brim of his toque. “You’re twenty-seven years old, Adam, and you’ve never brought anyone home for Christmas before. Don’t tell me there’s nothing to get excited about.”
Adam trudged along in silence for a few more steps.
The thing was, their relationship didn’t feel fake anymore. A little performative, maybe, but even that had started to feel natural. He’d kissed Mo that morning in front of his parents without thinking about the ruse. Mo was there, and Adam’s body was used to kissing him, so he did. He liked it.
And even if the intent behind inviting Mo home with him was to keep Mo from spending the holiday alone, Adam had to admit that having him around didn’t suck.
He had more even footing now, someone to look to and smile when all the other couples in the family started one-upping each other with tall tales.
What he said was, “You like him?”
Dad huffed a laugh. “You like him, son. That’s good enough for us.”
Adam’s stomach churned with guilt. His family was really reading into Adam’s impulse to invite Mo.
“I wasn’t going to invite him, you know. Mum said I should, but it was too soon.”
“What changed your mind, then?” Dad didn’t sound judgmental, just curious.
“His parents are in Switzerland.”
“What?”
“Yup. They told us over dinner.” Adam snorted. “No, they didn’t tell us—they mentioned it, like it was no big deal. That’s how Mo found out he’d be alone at Christmas.”
“What?” Dad stopped moving.
“Yeah. So I couldn’t help it, I had to bring him.”
“Of course you did,” Dad said with a snort and started moving again. “You never could resist bringing home a stray.”
“Hey,” Adam protested weakly, mostly on Mo’s behalf, because he couldn’t object on his own. As a kid, Adam had found more than a couple of lonely kittens in the woods near the family home, and he couldn’t leave them there.
“Well, I like this one a lot better than that mangey dog of questionable parentage.”
“That dog was clearly a husky mix!” Adam had been claiming that for fifteen years.
“It was half-wolf and ill. You’re lucky your mum and I have more sense than you.”
Adam huffed. “Don’t say anything to him.”
“If you think I’m going to promise never to tell Mo about the time you brought a wolf home—”
“Not that,” Adam laughed. “Don’t tell him I told you about his parents. He’ll think…” Adam didn’t know how to say the next bit without betraying Mo.
“That we pity him and are insincere. I wasn’t going to say anything to him, son.”
Adam’s parents really were the best.
They pulled the tree up to the house, and then in a practiced chaos they were apparently doomed to repeat every year, managed to get the tree into the house and propped up in the stand.
Mom and Mo watched this happen from the edge of the room, unboxing decorations and offering commentary.
“The same debates and arguments every year,” Mom said with a shake of her head as she pulled out some garland.
“Must be holiday stress,” Mo shot back as he pulled a Santa hat and a string of red beads from another box. “Usually, you’re much better at handling wood, darling.”
Adam whipped his head around in Mo’s direction.
The comment wasn’t beyond him—Mo had said racier—but he also had a good sense of audience.
A tree branch next to his head shook, and Adam tore his eyes from Mo, who was pointedly avoiding his gaze, to look up at his dad, who was shaking with silent laughter.
And Adam suddenly became very aware of the fact that he was on his knees.
He shot to his feet and announced that the tree was ready to decorate.
“Good,” Mom said. Her eyes twinkled. She handed over one of the tree light holder-thingys that saved the family from the headache—and fights—of tangled lights every year.
He and Dad started twining them around the tree, passing the coil back and forth.
“I hope we have enough lights for such a big tree,” Mom said absently as she watched them work.
“You don’t always get one that tries to touch the ceiling?” Mo sounded curious. Adam wondered if he’d ever been part of a tree decision before.
“No. Usually, Dunc picks out a six-footer. Or, well, he guides the children to it.” She shrugged.
Dad, because he was a chaos gremlin, opened his mouth. “That’s because trees are heavy and hard to manage. But I guess Adam here thought we could do better now that he’s all grown-up. He insisted on this one.”
Adam would not blush. He wouldn’t.
“Bigger is better?” Mo asked innocuously. “Hmm, well, I know you’re not compensating, so you must be driven by other motives.” He actually fluttered his lashes.
Oh God. What had gotten into him? Usually, Mo was only this outrageous and bratty when he wanted to piss Adam off—or, more lately, to get Adam naked.
“I wonder what could have possibly motivated him to pick such a Hallmark perfect fir,” Mom asked like butter wouldn’t melt.
Adam was surrounded by horrible people.
“It was the nicest,” he grumbled.
Thankfully, now that the lights were almost strung, Mom opened the bin with the ornaments and began to unwrap them from their tissue paper.
“Oh, Adam’s Baby’s First Christmas.” She held the ornament for Mo to take.
He accepted it slowly, held it carefully, an unreadable look on his face as he spun the bauble in his hands and took in the art—Christopher Robin and Winnie the Pooh.
“I always tried to find something that suited my babies for their first one, but Adam was only a few months old. He loved his stuffed bear, though, so this one it was.”
Mo cleared his throat and handed the ornament back. Then he shot Adam a smirk. “Into a bear, huh? Guess some people do change.”
“I was a baby,” Adam said dryly. “I also liked mashed bananas.”
“You’re still fond of smoothies, though.”
Adam shook his head and plugged in the lights.
“Perfect!” Dad said.
Mom handed him something to hang and put her own up. Then she turned back to the box to unearth more.
The four of them worked their way through the box of memories. Mom kept up a running commentary of each ornament she handed to Mo.
“Oh, Adam made that back in first grade. They had the kids glue their school photos in. Questionable choice for this ginger in a red-and-green color scheme.” And, “Oh, the kids gave this to Duncan when he retired. There were tears.” And, “Oh, this one used to hang on my mother’s tree.”
Mo looked particularly spooked about that one. “You sure you trust me not to drop and break it?”
“Oh, I think so. Besides, it wouldn’t be the first one if you did. I started out with a couple dozen, but kids and cats, you know.” She shrugged. “But no point in leaving them in the box!”
When they had perhaps a quarter of the decorations left, Mom called a moratorium: “Chels and Simon and Chuckie have to help too.”
“Not Teddy?”
Adam exchanged glances with his parents. “Teddy has a very specific job.”
Mom held up the spiked star that would top the tree. “Teddy has many talents, but an artist’s eye isn’t one of them.”
Mo blinked. “He’s a bad Christmas-tree decorator?”
“Nobody’s perfect.” Mom patted the star. “But he does have very long arms. We compensate by giving him the most important job. If you think Adam’s tall—”
Mo opened his mouth.
Adam groaned. “Please don’t.”
His parents laughed. Mo closed his mouth again, cheeks pink. Adam couldn’t quite read his expression—he wasn’t upset, and he was definitely amused, but there was something else to it too. Not just embarrassment.
He hadn’t yet put his finger on it when the door opened and admitted Chelsea and her family.
“We brought popcorn garlands!” Chuckie announced at top volume.
Dad winced and turned down his hearing aid.
“You did!” Mom enthused. “That’s fantastic, I was just thinking this tree needed popcorn garland!”
“See, Chuckie, I told you it’d need oh my God.” Chelsea stopped before she even got her first boot off. “That thing is huge!”
“Right?” Mo said brightly, and the world went into slow motion as Adam watched, helplessly, as his fake boyfriend cheerfully uttered the words, “Who knew your brother was such a size queen?”
Dad wheezed on the couch like he was having an asthma attack.
“Right,” Adam said, before this situation could get any worse. “I actually need to borrow Mo for some errands. You have the tree covered, right? Great, okay, let’s go.” And he dragged Mo to the mudroom so they could get back into their boots.
His ears and cheeks were still burning when he closed the door on Chuckie’s volume-indiscriminate voice asking, “What’s a size queen?”
Mo still looked manic.
“Let’s go for a drive,” Adam suggested. “We’re going to need more alcohol.”
“You don’t want to help finish decorating the tree? It kind of sounded like this was some kind of family tradition? Ooh, is the alcohol for after it’s done? Like, are we getting day-drunk on eggnog?”
Adam pushed Mo’s coat into his arms. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
“Because I could get on board with that,” Mo chattered as they got into the SUV.
“Like, first, you get all nostalgic thinking about all the good times you had as a kid with parents who loved you and put your ugly-ass ornaments on the tree every year, and then you spike your hot chocolate and get shitfaced while, I don’t know, caroling or watching It’s a Wonderful Life—”