“I should’ve asked what she did. I should’ve asked more questions.”
Simon’s should haves were usually the push he needed to slide down the ramp of bad feeling, so Jack kissed his cheek and said, “You can ask them questions when we all hang out. Rachel will tell you stories that will make you wonder how children ever make it to adulthood and why adults ever have children.”
Simon smiled.
“Dogs are way better than children. So are cats. And, like, pikas.”
“Softer too,” Jack added.
The food was good, but Jack only had eyes for Simon. They both turned down dessert and walked outside hand in hand.
The moon was full and the stars shone overhead. Halfway to the truck, Jack felt a spot of cold on his cheek and looked up to see the first snowfall of the season drifting down.
“Snow,” he said, and pulled Simon close.
They looked up, white snow falling from a blue-black sky, promising the peace and silence of winter.
“I love the snow,” Simon murmured.
Jack turned him and lifted his chin. Simon’s eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed with cold, and his lips red from the wine he drank with dinner. He was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen.
“I love you,” Jack said, stroking Simon’s cheek.
It was cheesy and geeky and Jack had never meant anything more in his life.
“I love you too,” Simon said. “I never thought I’d... I didn’t...” He shook his head. “Kiss me,” he murmured.
And Jack pressed Simon to his chest so their hearts could pound in conversation, and kissed him as the snow collected in their hair.
Chapter Twenty-One
Simon
Simon had always had a thing about Christmas. It would be simplest to say he didn’t like it. But the truth was that he’d always longed for a Christmas that would feel, well, Christmassy.
Instead, Christmas was spent at his parents’ house and consisted of a marathon session of dodging his family’s well-meaning suggestions about his life, meeting his sister’s boyfriend of the moment, each of whom was treated like a part of the family, and wondering why he came year after year when he always left miserable, feeling like a disappointment, and lugging a stack of flashy clothes and gift certificates to social activities, all of which he donated, like clockwork, the week after Christmas.
So when he and Jack were lying in bed a few weeks before Christmas and Jack asked him what his favorite Christmas had been, Simon didn’t have to think at all, because there was only one Christmas in memory that hadn’t sucked.
“When I was nine I slept under the tree. My parents didn’t want me to because they didn’t want to leave the lights on all night, but all I wanted was to be able to look up and see it all lit up like stars in the dark.”
Jack made a sound of satisfaction against his neck. Jack loved to look up at the stars.
“Maybe Kylie was sick or something and they were distracted, but they let me and it was magical. I took my duvet and pillows and made a little nest so my head was by the trunk and I could look up through the branches.”
That night he’d dreamt that Santa was tiny—the size of an ornament—and that when he’d come down the chimney Simon had put him in his pocket and carried him around like a comforting friend.
It was also the year that Simon had realized other kids had grown out of their shyness while he was beginning to feel like his brain was wiped clean when someone spoke to him.
“What about you?” he asked Jack.
“I used to like it a lot. As a kid. After my parents died Charlie and I didn’t really do much. It seemed too weird. Sad. Then I was off at school. When I moved back here we just never quite picked it up again. Usually we have dinner and watch shitty movies or something.”
Simon said, “Hmm,” and tightened his arms around Jack, but his mind was working double-time.
* * *
He got Charlie’s number out of Jack’s phone and sent the text with trembling fingers. Charlie wrote back right away to say that, yes, he wanted to come to the cabin for Christmas Eve. He also offered to help with whatever Simon might need.
What Simon needed first was the perfect gift. He started looking over Jack’s shoulder when he was on the computer and peering at him while he went about his day, wondering what was lacking in his life that Simon could find for him and wrap in brightly colored paper.
After two days of this detective work, Jack pinned him against a wall and said, “What’s wrong with you?”
“N-nothing?”
Jack peered at him.
“You’re being weird.”
Simon took this as a signal to stop looking for the perfect gift and turned his attention to planning the perfect celebration.