Winter wonderland, p.15
Winter Wonderland, page 15
“Um…it depends.” He shifted in his chair. “You…want to?”
Kyle shrugged, winked and ate the fry before replying, “Oh, I don’t know. I’m curious, I guess. Mine was with these two guys at school. Do you ever run into the guys? The third leg of the triangle? Is it weird?”
“Not really. Just another hookup.” He considered the question more carefully. “A few of them I did get with individually. But nothing ever serious.”
The next fry Kyle sucked the ketchup off of, which was surprisingly erotic. “See, I’ve never been good at random hookups. I haven’t had a throng of boyfriends, but that’s part of where I went wrong. I always wanted to have a relationship, so it frustrated me when the guy wanted me to pump and dump.”
Paul’s heart warmed. “Yeah. It frustrates me too.”
“See? That’s why we’re good together.” Dipping another fry, he fed it to Paul. “I’d almost convinced myself I was over you, that I’d made it all up in my head and I liked the idea of you, not the real you, and then I heard you broke up with Arthur because he didn’t want a relationship. It was my dream come true. I was sure you were just like me, and all I had to do was show you.” He took a sip of Coke. “If I’d have known a snow penis was the way to your heart, I’d have done that a long time ago.”
Paul laughed. He had nothing to say in reply, but he did run the toe of his boot along the edge of Kyle’s.
Kyle’s teasing expression vanished. “I’m sorry if I’m too exuberant. It’s only that I love being with you, and I’m not used to hiding how I feel about people. But I’ve never been on a date in town before either, so maybe I was assuming more acceptance than there is. I don’t want to make anything awkward for you, especially with your business.”
Paul took Kyle’s hand, holding it tight. “It’s not awkward to be with you. If people have a problem with me dating you, they must have a problem with Arthur and Gabriel too, so there’s nothing gained or lost as far as the shop. But even if it did matter, I’d say screw it.” Pushing aside the remembered glare of his sister, he drew Kyle’s hand to his lips and kissed it. “As you said. I’ve wanted a relationship like this for a long time. And I’m glad it’s with you.”
Kyle drew their joined hands to his own lips, turning their wrists so he could kiss the mirror of the place Paul had. “Same.”
Patty, their waitress, appeared at that moment with a plate of pie choices and a fond smile. “You two lovebirds want some dessert?”
“Yeah.” Paul nodded to the chocolate mousse, which he knew was Kyle’s favorite. “And two forks to share.”
Things were going great with Paul, better in so many ways than he’d ever dreamed. But Corrina’s comment about his family haunted him, and after the incident at the café, Kyle felt like he had to take some kind of action. The problem was, he didn’t know what that action should be, and no amount of Christmas romance bingeing was going to help him. He knew he should talk to Paul directly about it, but he couldn’t figure out how. Not without either rubbing salt in a wound or asking him to address things he didn’t want to talk about.
In the end, Kyle split the difference. He texted Gabriel and set up a meeting with him and Arthur.
He was nervous, going to Paul’s ex for advice. Probably he’d been watching too many bad romances, but all the way over to Gabriel and Arthur’s house, he couldn’t help thinking this would be the part in the movie where Paul walked in at the worst moment possible and there was some Big Misunderstanding. That didn’t happen, and when he arrived, once the niceties were out of the way, he sat across from them at their kitchen table and addressed the whole talking-about-Paul-behind-his-back thing full-on.
“I really do want to bring it up to him,” he assured them. “But I don’t want to step in anything either. I’m not looking for you to tell tales out of school or betray confidences. I only want some advice on how to proceed.” Hopefully tips that didn’t involve a DVD player.
Gabriel and Arthur exchanged a glance. Arthur looked uneasy, and Gabriel all but threw up his hands, his expression saying quite clearly, This is totally your turf, hon.
Arthur rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll be honest, I’m not sure where to start. It’s no secret I’m no favorite with the Jansens, and to be honest, some of that I’ve earned. But yeah, they’re conservative, in all the wrong ways. They don’t make it easy for him. And yeah, I’m pretty sure they’re a big part of his relationship trouble, including the tension you’re feeling. Paul can want to be with you all day long, and you can be the best goddamned man in the world for him. The real threat to the two of you is the shit his family has put in his head. And nobody in the world can take that poison out but him.”
Arthur’s warning left Kyle cold and impotent. He didn’t like it. “What do you mean? What poison?” This sounded so ominous. “Did they…abuse him?”
“Probably some would say so, but it’s one of those gray lines. Not so much physical but emotional. They hate that he’s gay, to start. But he could marry a woman tomorrow, and they’d still find crap wrong with him. It’s as if they need him to be the boil they poke at. Their resident asshole, bearing all their shit so they can feel better about themselves.”
A tidbit from college lit drifted into Kyle’s mind. “Like the story where the villagers keep the kid in the basement, alone and abused and starved, because his suffering keeps the village safe?”
“‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas’ by Ursula K. Le Guin.” Gabriel pursed his lips and nodded. “I haven’t had much contact with the Jansens, but from what I know of them, the analogy holds pretty accurately.”
The thought filled Kyle with rage—and helplessness. “What do I do to stop this?”
Arthur grimaced. “You can’t. You’ll have to bury this idea you can be good enough for him. That you screwing up is what will drive him away. He’ll drive himself away.”
Kyle wrapped his hand around his mug of tea, hating this conversation so much. “So you’re saying I can’t help him at all?”
Arthur looked flustered, but Gabriel simply grimaced. “Speaking as someone coming from a similar background, no, there’s not much you can do. Not the way you’re asking. That sort of stuff hangs with you. Love helps, but it’s not an eraser. Pain has to be carried and processed. Some of it will never go away. With Paul, though, your first step is letting him get used to the idea of having something good. He doesn’t need his family around to make him second-guess it. He’ll get through it, though. What you need to do most is be patient and willing to wait.”
Arthur took Gabriel’s hand in his, kissed the knuckles and kept hold of it on top of the table. “The more I watch the two of you together, the more I think you’re right for one another. He’s always been a hot mess of wanting to be the boss right up until he doesn’t want to be in change anymore, and I can tell you, it’s a real bitch to sort out. Yet you seem to ride that tiger no problem. So stop worrying he’s going to change his mind about you. He wonders the same damn thing. We all do, when we’re faced with the one we want most.”
“I’ll second that.” Gabriel smiled at him. “Up to and including the part where you’re right for Paul, and he for you.”
Kyle flushed, mostly with pleasure. He hadn’t realized how much he’d wanted their approval of him until he had it. “I just want everything to be okay. With every day that passes, I feel more and more like if he decides he doesn’t want me the way I want him, it’ll devastate me.”
Gabriel bumped his head against Arthur’s before winking at Kyle. “Welcome to a serious relationship.”
Kyle groaned. “Can you at least feed me some pap about how it gets better?”
Arthur ran a thumb down his fiancé’s cheek. “It gets different.”
Not exactly the world’s most winsome reassurance. The glance Arthur gave Gabriel, though, packed enough punch to make Kyle look forward to finding out what different meant.
Dating Kyle was tricky, Paul quickly realized, but not for the reasons he’d fretted about ever since he’d seen the man putting the finishing touches on the snow penis. The age difference was only a problem when he thought about it. The bedroom wasn’t any kind of an issue. They had no problem agreeing on what to do for their dates, usually agreeing to stay in and watch a movie.
The problem Paul hadn’t seen coming was how difficult it was to arrange so much as a meal together at the café. Kyle’s schedule was erratic, but he was largely evenings and overnights. This meant if Paul got a call for a late repair job, he was likely to miss Kyle entirely, or they’d have to settle for a quick fuck against the door before Kyle hurried off to his shift. Every so often Paul suggested Kyle sleep at his place if he got off at three in the morning, but they tended to stay up for hours fucking when they did that, and Paul ran the risk of hammering his thumb the next day.
Arthur, surprisingly, had stopped all objections over Kyle and liberally offered to take late jobs alone so Paul could go home. Paul tried to reserve his acceptance of those offers for nights Kyle went in at eleven or had the evening off altogether. Usually Kyle let himself into Paul’s place and had dinner waiting when Paul got home, though a few times Paul had surprised him with dinner waiting in the Crock-Pot. He loved how grateful and moved Kyle was whenever that happened.
Sometimes their whole date was cooking together. Paul’s favorite evenings in were ones where they went to the grocery store together, selected what they’d eat, then worked side by side in his kitchen to make the meal.
It blew Paul’s mind how little they fought. Outside of that night of the blizzard after Paul had kicked Kyle out, they never really so much as raised their voices. After so many years with Arthur, always fighting over things as simple as who drove the truck to work, it was good but slightly unnerving for Paul to feel so easy with Kyle. It wasn’t so much that Kyle was laid-back, more that he was sneaky about how he convinced you to go along with his idea without conflict. Kyle was graceful in all things. Charming. Flirty. Funny.
The only times Paul didn’t care for Kyle’s manner was when they were out in public together, because he noticed sometimes other people seemed to write the script for Kyle on how he should behave, and all too often Kyle let them. Paul suspected Kyle didn’t fight because it was easier to give in, though it could also be because he was too polite to point out they were being assholes. Sometimes Kyle played up the camp, yes, but for him to not do that meant actively resisting other people’s assumptions and expectations.
Paul got a bit of eyebrow over being gay, mostly comments running from teasing slights against his manhood to awkward glances and frowns in the men’s restroom. Kyle got something different. For that matter, so did Gabriel and Frankie. Gabriel got testy when women assumed all he wanted to do was go shopping, and even Frankie was known to grumble about how everyone talked like he was the woman in his and Marcus’s relationship. Kyle got all that too, but Paul quickly realized why he’d panicked about Kyle being too young. People treated him like he was teenage Kurt from Glee, some kind of gay Peter Pan. They might treat Gabriel and Frankie as if they were women, but they treated Kyle as if he were a boy. A sexless boy.
It chafed Paul every time he noticed it. It fucked with his head, because his vision of Kyle was someone who took charge, who made him feel safe without being suffocated. And absolutely he fucked like a man. It upset Paul to see his vision of Kyle so neutered and…well, mocked, in a way. Eventually one night as they ate dinner he said something about it.
Kyle shrugged as he stabbed a bit of salad. “They don’t mean anything by it. I tell myself it’s better than being told I’m Satan’s spawn or going to hell.”
“They shouldn’t dismiss you, though. You’re not a boy. Sometimes I think you’re more man than I am.”
Kyle’s smile made Paul shiver, and something about the way Kyle wiped his mouth with his napkin had Paul wanting to skip the steak on his plate and ask for an entirely different kind of meat. “So long as you don’t see me as a boy.”
Paul pushed his lust slightly to the side, because it was important to him to tell Kyle how he felt. “I don’t. I’m sorry I ever did.”
Kyle reached across the table and stroked Paul’s beard. “It’s okay. Really. It’s easy to fall into stereotypes in a small town. I think it’s less that people want to see me as sexless and more they don’t like things moved too far out of their boxes. It’s a miracle, given the voting demographic, we’re accepted at all. It’s hard for people to make room for something other than the standard male-female dynamic. If I started dating a girl, they’d move me into the man slot with a happy sigh and start asking when I’ll have kids. It’s not so much that they think that’s right, but it’s what they know. Since I’ve been out forever, they put me in a kind of sexless state.” He picked up his knife to cut his steak, smiling ruefully. “Now that I’m dating you, they’ve pretty much decided I’m a young lady with a dick.”
Which was almost word for word what Frankie had complained of. “It isn’t right, though.”
“What in this world is fair? I’m not saying I don’t want to change their minds. Mostly I’m acknowledging it’ll take a lifetime to do so.” When Paul still frowned, Kyle touched his lips again. “Thank you for being outraged on my behalf.”
It was things like that which got Paul. Because with Arthur they’d have argued and ended up having angry sex. With Kyle, the discussion turned into a deeper connection. Kyle touched him a lot as they did the cleanup, and while Paul did the dishes, Kyle stood behind him, fondling his ass until he finally undid Paul’s jeans and groped his cock. The number of times he’d had sex in his kitchen were now too numerous to count. And yeah, the sex was great.
But the companionship was what he was there for, what he cherished. What made his heart soar and ache with fear of loss by turns.
Best yet was the way Kyle folded so effortlessly into his friendship with Marcus, Arthur, Frankie and Gabriel.
One weekend, Marcus, Arthur and Paul went hunting, and as they set off for the tree stand, their men went to Duluth for a day of shopping. When the hunters arrived at the cabin, they rendered the meat and started some stew, and when the shoppers returned in time for dinner, they revealed their discoveries. All three of them had bought something for their partners. Marcus got several packs of new socks and a new tie. Arthur got a six-pack of his favorite local beer and a Terry Pratchett novel, which Paul knew Gabriel would read to him aloud.
Paul received a DVD of While You Were Sleeping.
They ended up watching it the next day instead of heading to the movie theater. Paul hadn’t seen it in years, and he’d forgotten how much he enjoyed it.
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a big city,” he said once it was finished.
“Loud and busy.” Kyle settled his head into Paul’s lap and smiled up at him as he teased fingers through his beard. “I prefer small towns. Our small town.”
Paul didn’t always, but he’d become awfully fond of it lately.
Kyle kept petting Paul’s beard. “Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you. Gabriel and Arthur got engaged last year, Marcus and Frankie this spring. I haven’t heard of any dates set, though. What’s going on there?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Paul looked away, fighting a bloom of embarrassment. And losing.
Kyle sat up, studying him a moment. “Now that was an interesting reaction. I want to hear all about it.”
The more Paul hemmed and hawed, the more Kyle petted him, urging him gently but insistently to spill the beans. Paul sighed. “I don’t know for sure. I really don’t. But I think, sometimes, they’re waiting for me.” His blush heated his whole body. “To find my own somebody.”
The pause between that confession and Kyle’s reply wasn’t overly long, but it felt like an eternity to Paul all the same. He felt ridiculous with the words hanging in the air. He worried what they would make Kyle think. He worried what Kyle might say. But then Kyle shifted on the sofa and straddled Paul, taking his head in his hands, holding his face firmly in place. He brushed a kiss over Paul’s mouth before he replied.
“I’ll have to work harder, then, to show them you already have.”
A second kiss turned sultry, and after a break for air, Kyle stripped them both out of their shirts and pushed Paul onto his back before trailing kisses down the fur of his chest. When he took Paul in his mouth, though, he kept things tender, never driving their passion into a frenzy. He paused often to kiss Paul all over his body, stroking, licking, sucking, but with a reverence that made Paul feel worshipped. Adored.
Loved.
By the time they came together, mouths fused, cocks rubbing together inside Kyle’s sure grip, Paul floated in a perfect haze of tenderness and surrender. It lingered long after he came, and as he drifted to earth again, it occurred to him Kyle was the first man who had ever given him everything he wanted in one package: aggression, tenderness, domination, equality. Affection and delight. Rough fucking and wild passion. He was everything.
He was perfect.
As they lay twined together in bed, listening to the wind blow against the house, Paul shut his eyes and said a silent prayer.
Please let this stay. Please, if I get nothing else in life, please let this stay.
Chapter Thirteen
Paul hadn’t realized how much work Gabriel and Marcus had been doing behind the scenes for Winter Wonderland until he saw it spread across Frankie’s dining room table.
For weeks now, there had been public meetings at the library, notices in the paper, and all manner of repair work for Arthur and Paul on the abandoned storefronts on Main Street. Kyle had turned part of their workshop into a design studio, where he and Frankie huddled together to discuss colors, motifs and other mystical things for the look of the project. Paul had felt the fever of the festival for some time now, and he was excited for it the same as he was for any public event.
