He gestured broadly, like he could pluck the words out of the air.

  Wes caught his hands and brought them to his lips, kissing the knuckles of each. His eyes were warm and intense and Adam wanted to let himself drown in them.

  “You’re already doing everything to help Gus feel that way,” he said, soft and sure. “You’re thinking about what is best for her. You’ve practically buried your house alive in lights because she asked for it. And most important, you’re here. You’re spending time with her. That’s what makes it feel like a holiday. That’s what makes it special.”

  Wes’ eyes grew shadowed.

  “At least, I assume so.”

  “Your family didn’t spend time together at the holidays?”

  Wes snorted.

  “The holidays were just an excuse for my dad to throw huge, lavish cocktail parties for all the people he wanted to impress. He and my mom would spend months planning every detail of the food, the drinks, the music, their outfits, and then they’d spend the entire party pretending it was effortless. Lana and I had to be there, dressed to the nines, so they could show us off like ornaments on a tree. But when the guests were gone and the music was turned off, all we had for Christmas was a fridge full of leftover hors d’oeuvres and a pile of fancy, impersonal gifts from strangers.”

  Wes shrugged, his eyes flat.

  “And now?” Adam asked.

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now that you can do whatever you want, how do you celebrate?”

  “Oh. I don’t, really. At all. Anything.”

  “How come?”

  Wes traced Adam’s cheek absently, and when he spoke his voice was husky and low.

  “I guess I never felt like I had much to celebrate.”

  Adam felt the words like they’d been thrown at him, and they hurt.

  Wes—beautiful, brilliant, sweet, generous, weird-in-a-great-way Wes—didn’t feel like he had anything to celebrate.

  Adam’s mission was clear: he had to celebrate the hell out of Westley Mobray.

  “Well that’s settled, then,” Adam said, forgetting he hadn’t said any of that out loud.

  “What’s settled?”

  “You should have Christmas with us!”

  For a moment, Adam thought Wes didn’t like the idea. Maybe it was too soon? Mason had always told him he got too invested, too enthusiastic, jumped the gun. But it felt right to Adam—so right. And when things felt right, he wanted more of them.

  Then Adam realized that Wes had turned away and was clenching his fists because he didn’t want Adam to see the emotion in his face.

  “Come here,” Adam said. He tugged Wes back to him. “Look at me.”

  Wes raised his eyes to Adam’s. His nostrils flared and he licked his lips, and Adam could see the years of solitude and isolation crumble like a cliff face into the sea.

  “I—If you—Really?”

  Adam’s heart swelled with affection for Wes. He wanted to pull him so tight against his chest that he could feel Wes’ heartbeat and the movement of each breath. He wanted to kiss him and kiss him until all they could taste was each other. He wanted to sleep and wake and sleep and wake with Wes’ arms around him and his arms around Wes, and shit, Adam knew what that meant.

  He knew what it meant and he knew it was too soon and Adam, gah, don’t say it out loud! he screamed at himself. But even if he didn’t say it, he knew: he was falling for Wes Mobray. Seriously, deeply, no joke falling in love with him.

  Love. Shit.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Wes

  Adam Mills had invited him for Christmas.

  It was such an ordinary sentence, but it set Wes’ blood on fire with joy and possibility.

  His senior year of high school had been the last time he’d attended his parents’ annual holiday cocktail party. He’d made the obligatory appearance, endured the endless comments about his stint on The Edge of Day, and ducked every offer from an agent or casting director to get him back in the spotlight. The spotlight was, he explained, exactly what he wanted to escape.

  The next year, he’d stayed at Caltech through winter break, making excuses about needing to monitor his experiments in the lab, and he did so for the next three years too, until he graduated. When he started back at Caltech as a grad student, he stopped going home to visit altogether. The invitations became perfunctory, then. More an excuse for his parents and Lana to express their disappointment and hurt than any genuine desire to see him (or so Wes believed).

  Every now and then over the years someone in his cohort would drag him to a holiday party. They were a relief of cheap drinks and frozen hors d’oeuvres and white elephant gifts with budgets of ten dollars or less. But although they were less stressful, he didn’t enjoy them. Just like his parents’ parties, they reminded him that he didn’t belong; just in a different way.

  One year, he was dating Lyle seriously enough that he agreed to accompany him home for the holidays. It had been an exercise in torment because Lyle had told his parents about Wes’ family and they took advantage of any downtime by asking him to tell them stories of Hollywood and what it was like to be on a film set. He looked at Lyle differently after that. He’d been the first person in grad school that Wes had confided in about his family and he’d thought Lyle understood how reticent he was to be connected with them. After all, he’d enrolled in grad school under his mother’s last name precisely to distance himself from his past, his father, and now his sister, because Lana’s star was also on the rise.

  Lyle had blinked wide eyes and apologized, but said he thought his family would be so interested that he’d been sure Wes wouldn’t mind slaking their curiosity.

  Wes hadn’t left in the middle of the trip because he abhorred drama of all kinds. But he’d quietly ended the relationship in his mind right then and there, and ended it out loud a week later when they returned to Pasadena.

  He hadn’t celebrated a holiday since.

  Occasionally on his birthday, he’d buy himself some piece of gear he’d wanted for his work, but he did that not on his birthday as well. And he never, ever, ever acknowledged Christmas (although he enjoyed Zachary’s seasonal texts repurposing cheesy Christmas memes into Chanukah ones).

  But this year...

  This year, he wouldn’t be alone.

  This year, Christmas wouldn’t pass unnoticed and unacknowledged.

  This year, he had two people to share it with. Two people who gleamed like bright stars in the darkness.

  Wes stroked Bettie’s back as he began to dream up the gift he would give to Adam and Gus. It wasn’t impossible, but it would be a time crunch. He decided to put on another pot of coffee and get down to business.

  * * *

  “Daddy says you’re having Christmas with us—is it true!?”

  Wes had opened the door at Gus’ enthusiastic bell ringing, and found her cheeks flushed and Adam waving from across the street.

  “Come on in,” Wes said, saluting Adam and giving him a wink over Gus’ head.

  She was there, as agreed, to create her glowing plant.

  “But is it true, Wes?!”

  She bounced inside and shoved her hands in her pockets, something Adam had taught her to do when she got so excited she wanted to tug on people to get their attention.

  Wes grinned. She was so freaking cute.

  “Yeah, it’s true. That okay with you?”

  “It’s perfection!” Gus trilled, spinning around, and Wes couldn’t help agreeing with her.

  “Cool.”

  “Cool,” she echoed. “Cool, cool, cool!”

  She was practically vibrating with excitement as she skipped after him to the living room where he’d laid out everything they would need.

  He was going to be showing Gus how to flood the plant with the luciferase enzyme instead of splicing it into the plant’s DNA as Wes had done with the trees he planted in the clearing. He had a feeling Gus was far more interested in quick results than long-lasting ones.

  He had packaged luciferase, luciferin, and coenzyme A in nanoparticles to help each one get to the right part of the plant, and suspended them in a solution.

  “Okay, so we’re going to take your plant and put it in this tube. The tube is full of a solution I made that is what will make the plant glow.”

  Gus nodded, eyes wide.

  “Do you know what kind of plant this is?” Wes asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “It’s kale.”

  She wrinkled her nose. “Do you eat that?”

  “Yeah. It’s a very hardy plant that can grow in lots of different environments. If you put it in your window, even in the winter, the cold won’t bother it.”

  She nodded.

  “This is an autoclave. It’s gonna pressurize the solution, which will allow the particles that hold the glowing agent to enter tiny pores in the plants, called stomata.”

  He tapped his own face.

  “Pores are like what we have in our skin. They let our skin breathe. It’s the same with plants. Basically. Once the particles have entered the stomata, it will begin to glow.”

  Gus’ eyes were huge.

  He showed her how to put the kale plant into the solution, then turned on the autoclave, and they watched the plant slowly darken as the solution was pushed in through the stomata.

  “Whoa,” Gus breathed.

  “It’ll take a bit before it starts glowing,” Wes said, not wanting her to be disappointed.

  “Okay. Can we take it to my house so Daddy can see it too?”

  “Sure.”

  She was so excited about the soon-to-be-glowing plant that she only called hello and goodbye to Bettie and the other animals, before grabbing Wes’ hand and pulling him to the door.

  “Just grab my coat,” he said, managing to snag it with one hand before he was encouraged out the door.

  “Sorry.” Gus grimaced and waited impatiently as he pulled it on.

  She shielded the kale plant inside her own jacket for the walk across the street, hugging it to her chest against the cold.

  She reminded Wes so much of himself sometimes.

  “Daddy!” she yelled as they got inside. “I made a plant glow!” She paused and looked back at Wes. “Wes helped,” she added, and Wes smiled.

  Adam came out of the kitchen with an adorable smear of flour on his cheek.

  Wes’ eyes got wide.

  “Oh, no. Daddy. Are you baking?” She asked it with the horror usually reserved for questions like “Was it malignant?” or “Is it contagious?”

  Adam laughed.

  “Never fear. It’s slice and bake cookies. I just used a little flour to roll out the dough. I got Christmas cookie cutters. Wanna help?”

  Plant instantly abandoned in Wes’ hands, Gus made a beeline for the kitchen.

  “Hi,” Adam said. “How’d it go?”

  “Good. I’ll just put this in her room, if that’s okay?”

  “Sure.” Adam studied it. “Is it really going to glow?”

  “It should.”

  Adam shook his head.

  “Jesus. You’re seriously unbelievable, do you know that?”

  The word had been levied at Wes before, yes, but never in the extremely fond, slightly awed tone that infused Adam’s voice.

  Wes caught his elbow and drew him close. Adam smelled of sugar and Wes wanted to see if he tasted like it too. He leaned in and kissed Adam’s soft lips. They tasted as sweet as he smelled and Wes sank into Adam’s warmth.

  Kissing Adam felt like home.

  “Daddy, can I make a Christmas monster!?” Gus called from the kitchen.

  “Sure, sweetie.”

  Adam kissed Wes one more time.

  “I’ll meet you in the kitchen,” Wes said, running his fingers through the hair at Adam’s nape.

  Wes settled the kale on Gus’ windowsill, adjusting the blinds to make sure it would get enough sun. It was a western-facing window, but maybe he’d bring a clip-on plant light over tomorrow if it didn’t seem like the winter sun was enough.

  Gus’ room was a tornado of bits and pieces of things she’d clearly taken apart, or found, or taken off of other appliances. She had a screwdriver, a pair of needle-nose pliers, and a spool of floral wire next to a pile of rivets in a drawer, and everywhere were books, flopped open on their spines and flagged with bits of torn paper as bookmarks. Wes felt like he’d wandered back in time to his own childhood bedroom—although that had been ruthlessly ordered once a week by the cleaning lady his parents employed. In between, though, Wes collected piles of this and that to experiment with, and consulted books for guidance.

  He truly didn’t mean to snoop. He was just curious if he could get a sense of what she might be making.

  On her desk lay an unfinished letter, written in Gus’ chaotic scrawl.

  I know you don’t exist, it said, but just in case you do, will you make Wes stay? Daddy and me are so happy now and I want us to be a family.

  The letter was addressed to Nicholas Santa Claus.

  Wes froze, awash in conflicting emotions. First and most superficial: fear. The fear that someone needing him would end up the way it had the last time, when his father had needed him. With their relationship in tatters and Wes guilty and miserable.

  But when he dug a little deeper there was also hope. That maybe this time, being needed didn’t mean doing something he didn’t want, but participating in something he did. He adored Gus. And his feelings for Adam grew stronger every hour they spent together.

  He took deep breaths through his nose and blew them out his mouth, and slowly, the fear dissipated. He reread the letter and focused on the hope.

  Daddy and me are so happy now. So happy.

  So was Wes. And if Gus and Adam were happy and so was he...then...

  Wes walked into the kitchen where Gus and Adam stood at the kitchen table. Backs to Wes, their blond hair similarly messy, they had their arms around each other and were concentrating on something on the table.

  Wes was filled with such overwhelming affection that he felt his nose tickle and his eyes prick with tears. He put a hand on each of their shoulders and peered over their heads. On the table was...something made out of dough.

  “Is that, um...what is that?”

  “It’s a Christmas monster!” Gus said gleefully.

  Adam smiled up at him.

  “It eats Christmas lights and then it glows, just like my plant. See?”

  She pointed and Wes could vaguely make out a blob that might’ve been fairy lights around what might’ve been the midsection of the creature.

  “Got it,” Wes said.

  “It’ll be better when I frost it,” Gus assured him.

  Over the next two hours they cut out dozens of shapes—Gus had eschewed the cookie cutters immediately, claiming that snowflakes and reindeer were boring, and Wes was inclined to agree with her. They made monsters that ate Christmas trees and Christmas trees that ate monsters. Santa Clauses that were half lizard and half human and tarantula elves. (Adam shuddered at them even in dough form.)

  As the cookies baked, they tinted frosting with food coloring and Adam spooned it into plastic bags he cut the tips off of to make piping bags. “I saw it on Pinterest,” he explained, and Gus started chatting before Wes could ask what Pinterest was.

  To get them the colors they wanted, the frosting ended up a bit runny, so when Wes tried to use green frosting to outline the tree his monster was eating, it mixed with the red frosting he’d used to frost the monster, resulting in a gloppy brown mess that looked less like a monster and more like what you might do if you saw one.

  Adam’s and Gus’ didn’t look much better—in fact, truth be told, Adam’s looked much worse—but no one cared. Adam had put on Christmas music and while outside the snow was coming down in freezing gusts, the kitchen was oven warm and cheery, all of them laughing as Gus launched a monster attack where one of her tree-eating monsters became a tree-eating-monster eater and demolished Wes’ tree-eating monster, smashing both to a sugary paste that she scooped up and ate with her fingers.

  “Monsters are so yummy,” she said an hour later, tongue, teeth, and lips an unearthly blue-green color from the dye in the frosting. She was tired and crashing from the sugar, so Adam got a peanut butter sandwich in her and then put her to bed, claiming that the food coloring would come off on its own eventually.

  Wes cleaned up the kitchen while Adam settled Gus in, getting blue-and-red fingertips for his trouble, and made some mint tea.

  When Adam came back in the kitchen he draped himself over Wes’ shoulders and squeezed him.

  “You angel,” he murmured, and kissed his neck. “Thank you for cleaning up. You really didn’t have to.”

  “’S okay,” Wes murmured.

  Christmas music still issued faintly from Adam’s phone, a tinkly song Wes recognized but couldn’t name. He stood and pulled Adam against him, rocking to the rhythm of the song. With Adam’s cheek on his chest and his arms around him, Wes felt perfectly at peace.

  The wind whistled outside, but Adam was warm and smelled so good. They were half dancing, half swaying, and went on that way for a song and a half, until the music cut out and Adam swore.

  “Phone died,” he muttered.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Wes said.

  They settled in the living room with their tea.

  “Guess what,” Adam said.

  “Hmm?”

  “The plant was glowing just a bit when I turned the light off.”

  “Oh, good. I was worried it might not work and she’d be disappointed.”

  “She was really excited. She wanted to come back out and show you but I made her go to bed.”

  Wes hummed with quiet satisfaction.

 

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