4
The next day, I called it quits around six, cleaned myself up, and said goodbye to Si.
The Old Bridge Tree Farm was at the other end of the county.
I’d never been before, but you heard people talk about it.
They took their kids to pick apples. They went out there to get pumpkins.
They had a cider donut eating competition, and they did hayrides, and then, in November, they sold trees.
Pre-cut or cut your own. And because I knew what Jonathan Reynolds was like, I had a feeling I knew which one we were doing.
It had snowed sometime during the day—not a heavy layer, but enough that the two-lane was white everywhere except where tires had made tracks through it, and my headlights made the fresh fall light up like a halogen bulb.
The two-lane took me to a gravel lot covered by a skin of packed snow and ice.
Lights hung overhead, outlining the lot and marking a walkway that led to the farm proper.
I parked and joined the families who were making their way toward the trees.
Music played ahead of me, coming from a cinderblock building—“Good King Wenceslas,” with a lot of horns.
The building had a reader board that said MERRY CHRISTMAS and below that OLD brIDGE TREE FARM.
Lined up against the wall were bales of hay—now furry with snow—an old-fashioned sled, cords of firewood, and so many goddamn wreaths.
In spite of the snow, the night was mild, almost pleasant, and the air smelled like balsam and the cold wetness of underfoot slush.
I saw Noah before he saw me. Out of his scrubs, he still dressed the way he always had: a puffer coat with a fur-lined hood, which he had pulled up, probably because he thought it was cuter that way.
Didn’t matter if the night wasn’t cold enough for a hood.
Didn’t matter that the faux fur would give him a rash if he wore it too long.
From what I could see, under the coat he wore an oversized hoodie (black), fleece-lined leggings (also black), the whole outfit finished off with a pair of Uggs.
He’d swapped out the stud in his ear for a dangly earring—green, but I had no idea what the design was supposed to be—and he’d added a pearl choker.
My first—and only coherent—thought was, God damn it, Noah.
Sometimes, when you were with someone long enough, you started to feel like they could hear what you were thinking.
And right then, Noah turned as though I’d called his name out loud.
In that first instant, his expression tightened into not exactly a scowl, but some dense, controlled emotion I couldn’t figure out.
And then it was gone, wiped away, replaced by nothing.
He moved toward me with that quick stride I remembered.
Once, before we’d even started dating, back when he’d been my nurse and I’d been recovering from a gunshot wound, he’d told me you could tell he was a bottom because he walked so fast.
He was almost to me, and he still hadn’t said anything, so I said, “Hi.”
“Hi,” Noah said.
And then we stood there, me with my hands balled up in my pockets, and Noah looking at me and then over my shoulder, at me and then over my shoulder again.
“So,” I said, “that was a fucking disaster last night.”
He had two very sculpted eyebrows, and they both went up. When I didn’t say anything else, he said, “What?”
“When we talked.” He didn’t respond, so I said, “At MagnaCare.”
“Yeah…” Noah said, and he let the word trail off.
“And it shouldn’t have been like that.”
His expression tightened again, and this time I knew exactly what it was—from leaving my boots near the door, from forgetting to move the wet clothes to the dryer, from wanting to eat dinner at home instead of going out. “Okay,” he said. But it sounded like the start of a fight.
“So, going forward, it shouldn’t be like that.”
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if you came here to—to tell me how to behave—”
“I’m not trying to tell you how to behave, you fucking drama queen. I’m apologizing.”
Noah stopped, mouth hanging open. And then he shut his mouth. Finally, in a strained whisper, he asked, “That was an apology?”
And for some reason, it made me smile. “Well, yeah. I mean, the start of one.”
Used to be, that smile would make Noah melt. Now he stared at me like he was trying to melt me—mostly by burning a hole through me with his eyes.
“My parents are inside,” Noah said. He adjusted my coat across my shoulders and picked something off my shirt—it was a thermal Henley, and it was blue. “Good God,” he muttered. “You couldn’t have put on a sweater?”
When he reached for my sleeve like he wanted to check the cuffs, I grabbed his hand. “Knock it off.”
Noah gave me a hint of that fight-me, chin-in-the-air look again, but this time, he let it go. “I told them you’ve been busy getting ready for the house tour, and that’s why they haven’t seen you yet.”
I nodded, but I said, “I’ll help you get through their visit, but we’ve got to get some things straight first.”
He sniffed like I was making a big deal out of nothing.
“I can’t drop everything,” I said. “I’ve got a life. I’ve got shit to do. That means advance notice, plans, not just flying by the seat of your pants. Understand?”
“I want you Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.”
“And your birthday,” I said.
Those perfectly shaped eyebrows went up again.
“Because I don’t want them to think I’m a jackass.”
“You are a jackass.”
“Yeah, but your dad still likes me.”
That shot went home; a hint of color rose into his cheeks, and his eyes got hard.
“What are we talking in terms of physical stuff?” I asked.
A smile like cracking ice spread across his face. “Are you afraid I’m going to make you hold my hand?”
And that shot went home too. But I focused on my breaths, counting out one after another, until I could say, “I’m okay with holding your hand. Am I supposed to kiss you?”
“Oh Howie, I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“Do you want to be a little bitch right now? Is that helpful?”
He wrapped his arms around himself and gave a few little bunny hops in place like he was trying to warm himself up. “Christmas and New Year’s. I think they’ll expect us to kiss. Other than that—” That cracked-ice smile was back. “Whatever makes you feel safe.”
“Great,” I said. “I’ll go in double wrapped.”
“Really nice, Howie. This is a family place. There are kids here.”
“I’ll use a rubber band to make sure they don’t slip off.”
“Did you get it all out of your system? Are you done?”
“Come on, baby,” I said. “You know I can go all night.”
“You are such a child.” Noah took a breath like he might say something else, and for a moment, that classic fuck-around look vanished from his face. The anxiety—the borderline panic—was only there for a moment before his expression emptied out into nothing.
I remembered that, too. From pretty much every time we’d seen Noah’s family.
“Let’s go,” Noah said. He headed for the cinderblock building, and I kept pace with him, close enough to see his face. As we reached for the door, light and warmth poured into his expression: a big smile, wide eyes, I swear to God, his cheeks even got magically pinker.
The music grew louder as we stepped inside, and the room was smaller than I expected.
Red-and-green twinkle lights hung on every wall, mixed with red-and-green ornaments.
To one side, a service desk with a cash register looked like a permanent installation, where a smiling woman in a Santa hat was happily taking a guy’s credit card.
Along the other side, folding tables with mismatched tablecloths held a coffee maker, hot water urns, foam cups, and baskets with packets of hot chocolate and tea.
The carpet was shag and wet with snow, and you could have picked up the whole operation and put it down in a VFW hall and had yourself a nice potluck.
It smelled like burned coffee and people in wet winter gear, and it was so warm that I started to sweat.
Mixed in with moms and dads in denim and flannel, mixed in with the screaming kids, mixed in with a grandpa who had one nose hair that curved almost to his upper lip, mixed in with a pair of twentysomethings who had decided to come as sexy elves and were now desperately hugging their bare midriffs—mixed in with all of that, Noah’s family stood out like a flock of ravens.
Jonathan looked the way he always did, stout, round-faced, his graying hair parted to the side.
Tracy looked the way she always did, with her honey-blond hair cut like she was Jamie Lee Curtis, only Jamie Lee Curtis wanted to talk to the manager.
And Marty—well, Marty looked the way he always did, which was like a wiener had grown legs.
He had Noah’s blond hair, but it was still spiked up like he was seventeen and jerking off into a gym sock, and although he was thin through the chest and shoulders, he carried a paunch that was faintly visible under his Ralph Lauren sweater.
All three of them wore black driving coats.
All three of them looked like they didn’t want to touch anything in the room because they might catch something.
“Howie!” Tracy sang when she saw me, and she floated forward. She hugged me. She kissed me on the cheek. She smelled like peppermint schnapps, and she’d had her neck done since the last time I’d seen her. “You are so naughty. Where have you been?”
“I told you,” Noah said. “He’s got a deadline. He’s trying to finish a really important job.”
Marty laughed too loudly at that.
“Howie,” Jonathan said, shaking my hand. “How are you?”
“All right,” I said. “Good to see you.”
“Good to see you too.”
Marty had hung back, so I offered my hand to him. “Hey Marty. Long time no see.”
“Busy day?” Marty asked. “We thought you might not make it.”
“Lots to do,” I said. “You know how it is.”
Which, he didn’t. Because I might not have heard anything about Marty Reynolds for the last two years, but I had the feeling not much had changed.