33. Kieran
KIERAN
On Christmas morning I wake up alone. Music rises from downstairs, along with the beckoning scents of coffee and frying bacon. It’s only seven, and I don’t have to be anywhere for once in my life. I could roll over and go back to sleep.
Except bacon.
I get up, shuffle into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and then trundle downstairs. Roderick is making French toast and singing away to Jane’s Addiction.
“Hey!” he says, flashing me a quick smile. “Do you have the timing or what? I’m making French toast. Want to help?” He’s wearing sweatpants, messy hair, and my oldest flannel shirt. “Have you made this before? It’s easy.” He glances at me over his shoulder.
“What? No. Show me.” I put my arms around his waist and look down at the counter. He’s got some bread soaking in a dish full of an eggy mixture.
“It’s a great way to use up stale bread. And it’s eggier than pancakes, so there’s more protein.”
“Nice,” I say, kissing the back of his neck. This must be why people like Christmas. I get it now.
“I use a little cinnamon in the custard. But that’s really it.
If you start with good bread, the flavor takes care of itself.
” He uses both hands to flip one soaked slice of bread into the skillet, where it sizzles.
Then he turns his head to speak to me. “Your cuddle game has seriously improved. I’m so impressed. Top marks from the Russian judge.”
I laugh into his neck and kiss him again. “I have a Christmas present for you to unwrap.”
“Is it in your pants?” He nudges his ass against my crotch, and my body does not fail to take the hint. “I love opening presents,” he teases.
“No, it’s under the tree.”
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. You flip the French toast, and I’m going to grab your present out of my car.” He turns around in my arms, kisses me, then slides away to dart outside.
I tap my foot to his loud alt-rock and wonder how my life became so fantastic.
“Oh my God,” Roddy says a few minutes later as he drops to his knees in front of our Christmas tree. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yeah. Some things just can’t be wrapped.” I take a big bite of French toast. It’s terrific—crunchy on the outside with a custardy center.
Meanwhile, Roddy pounces on the guitar case under the tree, untying the bow I lamely strung around one end. “I can’t believe you did this! Please tell me you got a good deal on a secondhand instrument.”
“I bought it new,” I confess. Secondhand for a gift just didn’t feel right. “I hope it’s the right style.”
He lifts the lid. “It’s awesome . God. So much nicer than my old one. You really shouldn’t have done this.”
“I wanted to,” I say before casually stuffing my face with more breakfast. The fact that he’s so excited does unusual things to my heart. He looks, as they say, like a kid on Christmas, as he lifts the guitar out of its case and runs a thumb across the strings.
The deep tones give me a shiver. It really does sound good. I’ve never been happier to spend four hundred dollars in my life.
Forgetting his breakfast, Roderick fusses with the tuning. And then he launches into a pretty riff, right there on the rug.
I give a low whistle. “I thought you said you weren’t very good?”
He shakes his head. “I’m not Nashville good. But I sure like to play. Kieran, seriously, this is just amazing.” He lets out a happy little sigh and then carefully tucks the guitar back into its case. “My present for you isn’t as fancy.”
“I don’t need anything at all,” I insist. And right that minute it’s true. “Eat your breakfast.”
“But it’s your turn.” He pinches a bite of bacon off his plate and pops it into his mouth before ducking out of the room. He returns with a wrapped box and hands it to me. It’s still cold from sitting outside in his car.
I rip the paper off and open the box. Inside I find two things: a flannel shirt in a cognac color and a hardcover cookbook by someone named Christopher Kimball.
The cover is shiny and new, but there are already a bunch of those sticky flags jutting out of the pages.
“Hey, thanks! Did you pick out some recipes for me? But what happened to, ‘You can’t learn to cook from a book’? ”
“Hey—we’re still cooking together. But this way you can be in charge of the menu if you want. Christopher Kimball has some Vermont cred, by the way. I flagged a bunch of dishes that we’re set up to make. Like, I skipped anything that required a food processor or too much attention.”
I run my hand over the cover, imagining all the time we’ll spend together cooking. “Thank you. The shirt is nice, too.”
“Well, that was a selfish purchase. The flannel speaks to my lumberjack fetish. And that color will look great with your eyes.”
“Whatever you say.” I laugh, pulling it out of the box. “I just like the fabric.”
“Good.” He gets up and comes to sit next to me on the couch. “Thank you for that outrageous present. I love it so much.”
“I really liked giving it to you,” I say, feeling more than a little self-conscious. “Now let’s eat this food before it gets cold.
Rod picks up his plate. “I’m going to get some jam for my French toast.”
“Wait.” I say, pointing at the little jug of syrup I’d brought out here with me. “You like jam better than Vermont’s finest?”
Roderick shrugs without meeting my eyes. “Both are good.”
“But which do you like better?” I press.
“What does it matter?” he asks, biting another strip of bacon.
“It matters because you feed me all the time, but you won’t use the syrup I brought here for both of us.”
“I like feeding people. It’s my profession. And that stuff is expensive,” he says.
“It would be,” I concede, “except that Kyle and I made it.” I grab a piece of bacon and bite off the salty, wonderful end.
He blinks up at me. “Really? That’s neat. My lumberjack. Do you carry around an ax while you tap the trees?”
“You’re changing the subject.” And I am really terrible at working through something like this.
But my breakfast smells really good and Roderick looks so right in my living room.
I like having him here, and I need him to know it.
“What if I like feeding you, too? Maybe it makes me happy to share groceries.”
“It’s not personal. I just don’t want to owe you. My ex was really weird about it. He made me feel like a slacker.”
“Well, I won’t,” I say abruptly. And then a bunch of nonsense comes tumbling out of my mouth. “And when you won’t eat the food I’ve bought, I really can’t tell if we’re a team at all. It’s like you don’t want to give me that satisfaction of helping you.”
Roderick flinches. He takes a bite and chews. “Honestly, I really didn’t plan to like you so much. I wasn’t looking for more than a roommate and then a hookup. I thought I’d make you orgasm a few times and send you off to find a boyfriend. But you are irresistible.”
“I don’t want any other boyfriend.” Just you .
“Yeah, maybe I’m irresistible, too. If you like hot messes with car trouble and relationship baggage.”
“Maybe that’s my fetish,” I say, cramming another big bite into my mouth.
“It must be.” We eat in silence for a couple of minutes.
Roderick sets his plate down and then grabs mine and sets it down, too. He climbs into my lap, straddling me. “Merry Christmas, lumberjack. For someone who claims to hate Christmas, you’re pretty good at it.”
“It’s not so bad,” I say, kissing his jaw, then nosing into his hair to take a deep breath.
He smells like bacon and all the good things in life.
If you’d told me two months ago that I could be so wrapped up in another man’s embrace, I would have thought you were crazy.
But here I am, holding Roderick on the sofa.
My boyfriend . I try that word on in my head. It seems odd, but I like the concept a whole lot. I like making breakfast together in the kitchen and opening presents under our tree. “Can we please make another slice of French toast, with syrup?”
Roderick laughs in my arms. “Sure. But I thought you were about to say—can we please have some sex? I have a one-track mind.” He kisses my neck and then slips his hands up under my T-shirt.
“Mmh.” The contact with his skin makes me feel electric. “Now that you mention it, I like this idea.”
Roddy doesn’t argue the point. Instead, he puts his hand down my pants and strokes my thickening cock. His lips move sweetly across my throat. I can’t help it—I thrust into his hand.
“Kieran,” he says against my skin. “There’s one more present I got you for Christmas. But now I’m not sure if I should show it to you.”
“Unngh,” I groan. “Show me later.”
“Well, it’s relevant to the topic.” He slides a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket and unfolds it. “Look, I got tested again.”
I squint at it for a fractional second. “That’s good, right?”
“Yeah, I wanted a follow-up, because of the cheater. And I thought…” He clears his throat. “Well, I thought maybe you’d feel better about fucking me if you knew I was healthy. In case that was holding you back.”
“Oh.” I lean back on the couch and sigh. “That was never holding me back. You’re just plain tasty.” I run a hand up his chest to prove my point. “But we have a lot of fun the way things are. And sex makes me think of…” It’s not easy to say out loud.
“You can just tell me,” he says quickly. “Not everybody likes the idea of anal.”
“Oh, I like it fine as a concept. But I don’t have any game at all. Before…” I pause again. This is super awkward. “I don’t think I ever satisfied anyone. Least of all me. And with you—it’s not like I’ll suddenly know what I’m doing.”
Roderick doesn’t laugh, although I’m not sure I’d blame him. He strokes a thumb across my stubbly cheek and looks me right in the eyes. “That sounds stressful. I get it. But what if this wasn’t an Olympic event? I just want to be that close to you.”
“Oh,” I say slowly. “I don’t suppose there’s a book to teach me this, too? You could put flags on the relevant pages.”
Now he smiles. “Sounds like a really fun book. Especially if there were illustrations.”
“There should be.”
Roddy leans down and kisses the corner of my mouth. Just once. “Tell you what—we could do this mise en place .”
“What?”
“You know when I teach you a new recipe, I arrange all the ingredients so that you can focus on the technique?”
“Yeah,” I say warily.
“Come on.” He climbs off my lap, then tugs on one of my hands. “Come in here for a second.”
I let him lead me into the kitchen. “You fry up the rest of the French toast, because it freezes well, for reheating later.” He hands me the spatula. “And come upstairs when you hear Adele.” He turns the music back on.
“Adele?” I repeat, a little confused.
“Yeah. It’s a ways down the playlist. Meanwhile, I’m going upstairs to prep for you. When Adele starts singing, then you come upstairs. You still don’t have to do a thing you don’t want to. But just consider it.”
Then he turns up the music and turns to leave. “Oh, and make a pot of coffee. For after.” Then he goes.