Chapter 40
The December air chilled him to his bones. Tensing, he wrapped his arms around himself tight as he cast a vacant gaze across his mother’s snow-blanketed backyard. Could she have perhaps been onto something? What if Mistletoe Grove was in fact where he belonged?
The ringing of his cellphone faded into the background as an image of himself seated warmly at the fire—Brent and his mother both at his sides—filled his mind’s eye. That could be every day, he thought to himself, if he chose to stay here. If he chose to make a home here.
Especially now that he didn’t have anything to hide.
Inhaling deep, he surveyed the starry night sky above. To think he’d spent years hiding his true self from his mom—the woman who’d raised him—all because he’d feared he would be a disappointment.
If anyone was disappointed now, though, it was him. All that time spent pretending, spent consuming himself with needing to be her picture-perfect golden boy, could have been avoided, if only he’d had the courage to show her who he was inside.
A heaviness weighed in his chest as he continued to put off answering his phone. It turned out that in his mother’s eyes, her son had been perfect all along. She’d only wanted him to feel safe enough to be real.
He swallowed down a lump inside his throat. It wasn’t his mother’s fault he’d hidden from Mistletoe Grove so long—it was his own.
Perhaps this was his chance to make up for lost time.
He continued to let his phone ring. What had LA gotten him, really? A job that gave him premature grays, a friend group that required him to hide said grays, a prescription for Xanax strong enough to take out a horse.
But LA life—or at least, what he’d once imagined to be LA life—was everything he’d ever wanted as a scared gay kid growing up. Getting out of this Podunk town, escaping to the glitz and glam of the city—chasing that dream had been the one thing keeping his younger self going.
Now that that dream had come true, however, Graham wondered if along the way it had gradually morphed into a nightmare.
His mother had a point, curse his sugarplums. This so-called promotion, big break it might have been, still wasn’t guaranteed.
Even if he did manage to pull off this cockamamie scheme, nothing had been promised.
Mr. Burns had simply said that if Graham wanted a shot at the title he coveted, he needed to get Coco through Christmas unscathed.
An overwhelming sinking feeling hit him.
What if this all turned out being for nothing?
What if he’d in fact put his whole life on pause, dragged an infamous pop culture princess literally across the country, concocted a charade as her devoted and loving boyfriend, and opened a Pandora’s Box of harebrained hometown shenanigans only to return to LA for a pat on the back and a company-branded coffee mug?
It was, he hated to admit, a very possible outcome of this whole misadventure.
But what about another possibility? A possibility that didn’t entail returning to LA?
The thought of coming home to Brent at the end of each day lit a warm glow in Graham’s chest. A glow that could perhaps even outshine the lights of Sunset Boulevard.
The ringing of his cellphone pulled Graham back to the present.
Get a grip, Bartlett, he reminded himself.
This is simply more Christmas malarkey getting to you again.
It doesn’t matter how good the idea of coming home to Mistletoe Grove sounds, because it’s all just a fantasy.
Sure, your life in LA may not be perfect, but it’s a life that most gays would give up their blue Instagram checkmark to have.
And even if this promotion is still up in the air, do you really want to throw away everything you’ve worked for because a few folksy townies have got you feeling verklempt?
He thumbed his phone’s answer button. “Mr. Burns, how nice of you to call.” It was the opposite, of course, of how he really felt. When Mr. Burns rang, it wasn’t to brighten your day.
The voice on the other end of the line came rapid-fire. “I just got off the phone with the studio, Bartlett.”
Instantly, Graham’s heart rate flatlined. God, this was worse than he thought. “Oh?”
Burns responded with a chuckle that left Graham dumbfounded. “Don’t short-circuit, Bartlett. I’m calling with good news.”
The remark lent Graham a full-body sigh of relief. Well, this was certainly unexpected.
“The head cheese at the studio is pleased, Bartlett. They made a big bet casting Coco in this film, you know, and the way things are going, it’s shaping up to pay off big—for all of us.”
At this, Graham arched a curious eyebrow. What exactly was Burns getting at?
“I’ll admit I had my doubts whether you could really pull this off,” Mr. Burns continued, businesslike.
“It isn’t lost on me that keeping a client like Coco out of the limelight for any length of time is a tall order for any press agent.
” He allowed a tactful pause. “But clearly, you’re the man for the job, Bartlett.
Holiday with the Wholesomes’s Christmas Day premiere tomorrow is so close we can practically taste it, and there hasn’t been so much as a peep of Coco-fueled scandal in the press.
I don’t know how you’ve done it, young man, but clearly you’ve proven what you’re capable of. ”
Graham felt himself suddenly blush. Mr. Burns, he knew, did not give compliments freely. If the big guy sang your praises, he meant it wholeheartedly. “Mr. Burns, I don’t know what to—”
“You can spare me the speeches, young man, because our work’s not over yet.”
Chastened, Graham fell silent. Here was the tough-as-nails boss he knew.
“It’s the home stretch now, Bartlett. And that means the stakes are higher than ever. But with what I’ve observed from you so far, I have the utmost faith you can see this through. Which is why I’ve decided to make you an offer.”
Instantly, Graham’s pulse ticked up. An offer?
“Remember that promotion we talked about?”
Graham reminded himself to breathe. As if his boss had to ask.
“Keep Coco out of the tabloids for the rest of Christmas Eve before tomorrow’s LA premiere, and that job is all yours…Mr. Vice President.”
Graham could have practically squealed then. Hell yes. Finally, after all this work—the blood, sweat, and tears he’d poured into his career were about to pay off.
Visions of the future came rushing at him. He could see it all now. Corner office. Company car. VIP lounges.
The daydream curled his lips into a smile. Finally, his ship had come in. “Mr. Burns, I—”
The creak of the backdoor opening behind him jarred Graham out of his reverie. Spinning on his heels, he found himself face-to-face with another fantasy of his.
And damn, did this one know how to fill out a thrifted sweater.
He couldn’t help but feel a shimmy stir inside his chest.
“Yes, Mr. Bartlett?”
The sound of his boss’s voice across the line snapped Graham back to attention. One second, he mouthed silently to Brent before swiveling back around. “My apologies, Mr. Burns. Clearly, the opportunity’s got me speechless.”
A beat of silence passed before Mr. Burns replied. “So, is that a yes?”
Graham sucked in a deep breath. “No…”
He could practically hear Mr. Burns’s fists tighten on the other end of the call.
Tentative, Brent cocked his head as a glimmer of hope lit in his eyes.
“It’s a hell yes.”
Brent’s glow extinguished instantly.
“Atta boy.” Mr. Burns’ voice had become all smiles. “I knew I could count on you, Bartlett. Come to think of it, you remind me of myself when I was your age.”
Graham tried and failed to ignore the pang in his chest at those words.
“See you back in LA,” his boss continued, cutting off Graham’s attempt to parse his thoughts further. “Burns over and out.”
And just like that, the line disconnected.
Leaving Graham with no choice but to face Brent behind him.
Slowly, he spun back around, like a puppy just caught tearing the couch cushions apart.
Except in this case, instead of a sofa getting ripped open, it was something Graham knew would be much harder to repair.
Brent’s heart.
“How much of that did you hear?” Graham bit his lower lip, nervous.
Brent responded with a shrug that on the surface seemed nonchalant but in fact, Graham could tell, hid a deep, sharp pain. “Enough to fill in the blanks.”
Glum, Graham returned a nod.
“Congratulations on the job,” Brent offered to fill the void.
The praise hit Graham with a sting. “Thanks.”
“So, I guess it’s decided then. You’re officially going back to LA.”
Graham arched an eyebrow, cautious. “I was always going back to LA, Brent.” He spoke the reminder as much for his own benefit as anything.
The shadow that darkened Brent’s face then said that, while he had indeed known this to be true, deep down, a part of him had still held out hope for one last Christmas miracle.
Graham quashed the guilt he felt rising higher in his chest. “Whatever happened to Mr. No-Strings-Attached?”
Now it was Brent’s turn to look guilty. “I think I may have been slightly overconfident in my ability to turn off my feelings.”
The admission received a silent nod from Graham.
God, what a mess. He drew in a centering breath.
This should have been a time for celebration.
Finally, after all his years of hard work—of scarfing down soggy takeout between meetings, of sending urgent emails until dark, of scaring off would-be boyfriends with his never-ending schedule—now he was finally about to get his due.
What sucked was that, in order to get it, he had to hurt the one guy who’d made him question everything.
He took Brent’s hands in his. Even in the cold, the hot cocoa maker’s touch sent a wave of heat radiating into Graham’s system.
“These past few days have been great, Brent. Better than great, in fact. But we both knew this was coming.” He searched Brent’s crystally eyes for agreement.
God, he might as well have been telling him he had six months to live.
“Hear me when I say that reconnecting—with my mother, with Mistletoe Grove, but most of all, with you—has been filled with more magic than I ever could have expected. I promise when I look back at this, when I look back at you, Brent”—here, he lifted his companion’s chin tenderly—“I’d like to remember you as someone special.
What do you say? We may not have much time left, but if you’re OK with it, I’d rather not spend it fighting. ”
What followed would have been a tender moment, had it not been for the wake of road slush suddenly splattering them out of nowhere.
Graham wiped the snowy muck from his face to see an oversized van hightailing down the street as if the driver was chasing an ambulance.
Or, come to think of it, chasing a tabloid-fodder celebrity.
Rubbing his eyes, Graham managed to catch a better glimpse of the vehicle before it whizzed out of sight. He recognized that van, he realized. The logo emblazoned on its side was one he knew well.
All too well.
His pulse took a nosedive. That van wasn’t just any van. It was a news van. A tabloid news van. A tabloid news van for…
Hollywood Today, a.k.a., the scummiest, slimiest, stop-at-nothingest excuse for a magazine to ever send in the paparazzi.
This was not good.