Jesse's Christmas (5 page)

“Thank you,” Jesse said politely and climbed out of the car as quickly as he could without sliding on his butt again. He heard chuckling, but he chose to ignore it and to rise above the need to confront the laughing bastard. Back straight and chin held high, he walked carefully to the hotel door, determined not to turn and look at the source of his embarrassment. For God’s sake, how could one snowfall added to one hot man reduce him to clumsy idiocy?

Once safely back in the hotel and up in his room, he tested the arm that had taken the weight of the fall and experimentally rubbed his ass through his now-wet jeans. He would probably ache tomorrow. Freaking snow. Freaking blue eyes. Maybe he should have another bath.

* * * * *

Gabriel watched the intriguing photographer close the front door of the hotel behind him, and let out one final laugh. Sue him, but slapstick humor that ended with someone flat on his back in the snow was the kind he really liked. Only when no one got hurt of course; Gabriel wasn’t that much of a bastard. He considered going in for a coffee and more of that sinful coffee cake his mom had made yesterday, but he knew if he didn’t get back down to his house soon the Jeep may not make the downward slope.

Carefully he turned in the road and inched down the hill and finally made it in one piece to his house. The bright blue home was a sight for sore eyes. Today had been particularly trying with both Timmy and Abigail throwing up in the classroom. That dealt with, he had to handle Cameron and yet another glue and pasta situation. Whatever possessed him to teach five-to-seven-year-old kids, he did not know. He loved it, he knew that, but on days like today he found himself longing for the Christmas break.

“Hi, Gabe,” Elsa Jonas called over her neat hedge.

“Hi, Mrs Jonas,” he called back.

“Bet the children are excited for Christmas,” she said. “I know Mark is up in the air with excitement. Apparently he’s playing chief ant in the Christmas play.”

“He is, and he’s a very good ant,” Gabriel reassured the proud Gran. “They’re all far too excited.”

He chatted a bit longer, but what he really wanted was to get inside his house, turn up the heating, and relax for at least an hour.

He had planning meetings tonight for both the candle making and the tree trimming, and he just needed to sit down and get some food in his belly before he keeled over with hunger. Having two kids being sick in his classroom had kind of put him off lunch, and it had been hours since breakfast.

With leftover lasagna heating in the microwave, he leaned back on his kitchen counter. This had never been his and Kane’s place. He’d bought it after the split when they’d separated the proceeds of their combined house on the other side of town. So when he was here, looking around at each thing he’d bought or arranged or been given, he was satisfied with his life. He had a huge flatscreen TV, a sound system that he’d saved for a year to buy, and he had sofas so comfy that you could sleep all night on them and not realize you hadn’t gone to bed. He’d never brought anyone back here to his home, but maybe now was the time. Jesse and his hair and his serious eyes and that sleepy smile of his was enough to tempt a saint, and hell if he was going to check out whether someone passing through was up for some Christmas fuck. Nope. He wanted what he’d had with Kane before it all went to shit.

Hell he wanted the love, but he was desperate for a future as well.

The microwave dinged and roused him out of his introspection. After Christmas when the snow melted, he would make the effort. Okay, so he wasn’t going to any big city like the grand ideas his mom had, but he could make the effort to get himself over to Burlington or maybe Rutland. There had to be a cute, slim, wavy-haired, brown-eyed guy there that would take his mind off the excitement that curled inside him whenever he looked at Jesse.

Chapter 5

Jesse woke to find more snow had fallen in the night, but as yet, no more threatened that morning from the clear winter sky. Breakfast was a huge spread of bacon, eggs, and pancakes. There were other guests staying at the hotel now, an elderly couple in their seventies, but only he remained in the dining room after the meal. He wondered why the hotel wasn’t busy in the Christmas season but put it down to the fact that Eden Vale was so isolated as soon as snow fell.

“Hi, Jesse, is it okay to sit with you for a bit?” Diana asked.

“You don’t have to ask,” Jesse answered with a smile. In fact, he didn’t hesitate; suddenly he had questions to ask. He could actually handle the company, and selfishly, he thought he might learn a bit more about the infuriating man who had caused him to fall over in the snow. Never mind that it hadn’t been Gabriel’s fault; the ass had laughed, ergo, Jesse could blame him in all good conscience.

“Are you going to be taking photos at the candle-making demonstration this evening?” Diana asked from next to him, interrupting his thought process.

“I’d planned on it. Anything I should know?”

Diana leaned forward as if to tell a great confidence. “They make candles.” She laughed at her own joke, and Jesse was shocked to realize he had a smile on his own face at the gentle teasing. He supposed it had been a bit of a stupid question on his part. She continued, “The whole thing is the unofficial start to the Christmas festivities and has been held every year since way before I was born.”

Jesse nodded. Tradition made for good art. That took care of day two on the blog, and with a particularly awesome view of the blue house in the snow that he had taken this morning, he was actually three days ahead of himself and it wasn’t even December until tomorrow. “Will you do me a favor?” Diana was asking a question, and Jesse pulled himself away from his internal musings and concentrated on what she was saying. She had stood, crossed to the sideboard, and opened the top drawer. “I have some pictures from last year’s event, and I wonder if you could take them with you when you go. Gabriel said he was going to put them up on the Christmas wall.”

“A Christmas wall? You have a wall somewhere dedicated entirely to Christmas?”

She shot him a look that implied a very big
duh
.

Of course they have a wall for Christmas
. Anything he could imagine connected to Christmas, this town probably had it. He chuckled to himself at the thought and then smiled at Diana.

Then it dawned on him what she’d said. “Gabriel?” The name slipped out without conscious thought, and Diana quirked an eyebrow at this response. “How interesting,” he offered by way of explanation and to cover his own instant eyes-widening-heart-thumping reaction of inner glee that he would be seeing Gabriel again.
What am I? Sixteen?

“He coordinates the candle making for the kids, and you often get local clubs getting involved. It’s all very Christmassy.”

Jesse wasn’t even sure Christmassy was a word, but he didn’t want to say anything as Diana was looking out of the window with a fond expression on her face. She visibly still loved the whole soul-sucking mass of emotions that made Christmas. He took the pack of photos with him and wandered back to his room. Candle making began at five in the evening. There was food, and evidently, now there was Gabriel.

Standing at the window and looking at the same view Diana had been fondly admiring, he attempted to get his thoughts in order. Unless Gabriel was under some kind of familial duress, he plainly had a part in the Christmas countdown, which actually appeared to start on the last day of November. Pretty Gabriel. Think of the photos Jesse could take just of the eyes and the jawline, the stubble accentuating the dip in his chin, and the dimples in his face when he smiled. He kept that thought in his head as he made his way back to his room.  

Jesse’s inner artist would have Gabriel lying in bed with his head resting on a pristine white pillow, his blue eyes a startling contrast to the near black of his hair. The gay man inside him would prefer Gabriel, straight or not, naked, but the artist was willing to negotiate on that one.

He pulled himself out of his daydream and sat at the small desk where his laptop indicated ten new emails. Nine were spam, and the last one was an invite to a friend’s New Year’s party. Drinking until he was sick was how he managed to get through Christmas last year. Thank God he didn’t have to make it to the party this year, and he fired off a quick reply saying he would be working over the holiday. It wasn’t entirely true; his contract ended Christmas Eve. Still, his room was booked until after New Year’s, so he could relax a little. Finally, with emails answered, he could settle to work, and he pulled up the photos he had taken the day before of the pristine snow and the shed. They were still as perfect in subject matter as he remembered, although he could see a few blemishes in the snow. No worries. He could crop the final copies where needed. Opening the word processor, he saved a document and typed Post One.

He finally sent in photo one with the crappy accompanying text he’d come up with, and the paper emailed him back near straight away and were past happy. They talked of splashing the fact they were running a Jesse Connor Christmas all over their website and
wasn’t that good
? Jesse just agreed. He wasn’t entirely sure what was good and what wasn’t at the moment.

Now if only he could think of a single word to type other than a page break and the words Post Two.

Chapter 6

Gabriel was at the hall a good thirty minutes before the rest of the candle makers arrived. He volunteered every year to turn up the heating in the small hall and pull out the tables. The scent of the place, the old dusty smelling storage room, the clean pine of the kitchen, and the air of expectation were things he loved to be the first to see. The hall was used very infrequently now the school had the extension from 2011 paid for by the competition prize for Eden Vale winning best town. But tradition dictated the candle-making group would use this place, and Gabriel loved that last little link to custom.

He threw open the kitchen blinds and filled the big kettle with water for coffee. When it was boiling he pulled out one of the pale blue mugs in the cupboard and found the huge plastic container of milk in the supplies box.

“Are you making coffee?” a voice asked from behind him. He recognized the tone of it immediately. Jesse. He took out another mug.

“Black? White? Sugar?” Gabriel asked without turning around.

“White, one sugar,” Jesse replied. “I so need it just to thaw out from sliding my ass down the damn hill.”

Gabriel’s lips twitched in a smile when he recalled the sight of Jesse on his backside on the path. He forced the smile away as he stirred coffee, added the milk and sugar, then turned to pass it to Jesse.

Oh shit.

Really. Shit. The guy was gorgeous.
All red-cheeked and messy hair, Jesse was grinning at him and holding out his hand for the coffee. God, the man had a beautiful smile. He should use it more often.

Gabriel handed over the coffee with an answering smile and couldn’t help but laugh when Jesse sipped at the coffee and sighed in appreciation.

“Thought you’d be more used to Starbucks,” Gabriel said.

“Mmmm,” Jesse said as he wrapped his hands around the hot mug and let out another sigh. “This may be not be Starbucks, but it is hot, wet, and has caffeine in it. And in this snow and cold, that covers all the major groups as far as I’m concerned.”

“You sound like it never snows in New York.”

Jesse shook his head. “Snow doesn’t last long around my place, sidewalks are cleared, and traffic pretty much turns the snow to slush. ’Cept for when we have ice storm, they last longer than that. Sometimes when you stand on the corner of two roads, you get caught in the icy crosswind that tunnels around the high buildings. Then the chill is as much in your bones as it is here.” Jesse stopped abruptly.

“You miss the City?” Gabriel asked, curious.

“Like a limb,” Jesse replied immediately. “Starbucks is just one of many reasons I want to be out of here as soon as I can.”

“Like?”

Jesse looked confused. “Sorry?”

“What are some of the other reasons?”

“Friends. The theatre. Cell reception.” Jesse shrugged as if that was enough, but there was an expression on his face that Gabriel thought looked a lot like confusion. He didn’t immediately have a huge list of things in the City that were the basis for his life.

“I don’t think I could live in all that chaos,” Gabriel admitted. “I like the sky and the snow.”

“Of course you do,” Jesse offered evenly. “You probably don’t know anything else.”

Gabriel raised a single eyebrow but said nothing as Jesse went pink with embarrassment.

“Fuck, sorry,” Jesse apologized. “I didn’t quite mean it to sound that way.”

Gabriel leaned back against the counter and nursed his coffee. “How did you mean it to sound?”

Jesse evidently hadn’t been expecting Gabriel to call him on what he had just said, and he looked flustered.

“Just that…if you haven’t spent a long time in the city…then…you may not know what it is like.” Jesse finished kind of lamely and couldn’t look Gabriel in the eye. Gabriel was tempted to tease Jesse some more, but in the end he knew he only had a few minutes left before people would arrive and decided to set Jesse right in as few words as possible.

“I went to college in New York. I couldn’t wait to leave, to get back to family and the town and friends.”

“Oh” was all Jesse could manage.

Gabriel couldn’t resist underlining what he was saying. He straightened. “Not all of us small-town boys have never left the place they were born. Hell, some of us have even left the state.” He quirked a grin and deliberately brushed past Jesse on his way out. “Now finish the coffee and help me get the tables out.”

* * * * *

Jesse helped move tables and spent an awful long time not being able to look Gabriel in the eyes. He was such a fucking idiot, but never let it be said that his reclusive nature ever led to him having anything other than rudimentary social skills.