Platonic (34 page)

“Oh, honey.” She reels him in for another round of hugs and lipstick-smearing kisses to his cheeks.

When she lets him go she turns to Mark. “And you! Oh my goodness, I don’t think I’ve seen you since you were tiny!” It’s a complete mis-representation: Mark is tall now but he was tall in high school. “Come here! You owe me a hug!” She grabs him and pulls him in tight.

“We’re going to have the most fantastic Christmas!” she declares excitedly.

“When you’re here and not back at that hotel,” Greg pipes up.

Molly tuts at him and when she walks past, headed for the kitchen, she slaps him on the ass. Everyone in the room hears her tell him, “Be nice.”

He softens, looking after her and then back at where Mark and Daniel are standing next to each other, fighting the urge to entwine pinkie fingers. “Help me set the table?” he says to his son.

***

Molly does a good job of staying close to Greg while they work, cooking waffles and bacon and brewing coffee. She acts innocent, but Daniel knows better and a look exchanged with Mark communicates that. They both understand why she’s making hushed remarks to Greg and they’re thankful. Until recently, Daniel hadn’t told Mark the full extent of his father’s misgivings about them trying the relationship again after ten years apart. Not that his father wasn’t supportive; he just wasn’t so easily convinced of the romance of it as his mom had been. So Molly’s little whispers help.

“Look at the way they look at each other.”

“Oh my God, they coordinated outfits!”

“Wait, is Mark wearing Daniel’s clothes?”

“Look at him trying to get Mark to walk under the mistletoe. I told you we should have hung more.”

By the time Karen and her family arrive, the four of them are already at the table, sneaking bits of bacon. Greg is grinning and talking to Mark about baseball and New York and, when he realizes how relaxed he is, all he can really do is glare at his wife.

***

Mark calls his parents right after brunch, informing them of his plans to spend his Christmas with the O’Sheas and asking if they care. His mother puts up a small fight, saying they are booked to go to the country club and spend it with friends. but his father, yelling from the background, says to let him go. They go to Mark’s parents’ house that evening and drink an expensive bottle of wine together, discussing politics and the job market for fashion designers. It’s formal and strained and Daniel holds Mark’s hand once they’re back in the car and says he’s sorry and that Mark deserves better.

That night, Daniel and Mark slip back to the hotel and drink too much vodka because it tastes so good on each other’s lips. It starts as a game and ends as a game, but in between they learn some things about each other.

Daniel wants Mark to expand his outrageous collection of boxer briefs into lace and bows and satin. Maybe knee-high socks. Or stockings. With garters. A corset? He needs to see them on and work out why and how this works for him.

Mark swallows and says that yes, definitely, they can try that.

Mark wants Daniel to tie him up, and when he can’t quite explain that it isn’t just handcuffs, they end up huddled over Daniel’s laptop, scrolling through websites. Daniel says they can try that, too.

Then they fall back into bed and Mark begs Daniel to let him fuck his mouth.

***

The next morning, a woman wakes them up by knocking on their door and calling overly loudly, “Room service!” While they scramble for their clothes, they also freak out because it’s Christmas Day and they seem to have overslept. Much to his relief, when Mark checks his phone he sees it’s only just past six a.m.

He’s about to tell Daniel that whoever the hell is outside their door it is most certainly not room service when Daniel, who has managed to throw on a robe, opens the door and swears. “Holy shit.”

Jessica Tan bursts into the room—and then wrinkles her nose because the bed is a disaster and Mark is still only in boxer shorts. Reindeer-print boxer shorts. “Gross,” she mutters, screwing up her nose, and says, “Facebook told me ten years ago that you two broke up.”

Neither of them have seen Jess in a decade and the time Daniel takes to answer makes Mark think he’s just as gobsmacked as he. Jess seems to have gotten even taller, more stylish and more ferocious than when they knew her in high school. She was friends with both of them back then, as well as Daniel’s constant competition for final speaker on the debate team and an improbable ally for Mark. And now here she is, standing between him and Daniel in an immaculate white pantsuit with her hair pulled back into a high ponytail. Daniel is blinking rapidly trying to put everything together. “We did. We got back together.”

“Good,” she says. “When?”

“About eight months ago. I don’t under—”

“I’m the concierge,” she announces, hand on her hip and eyes flashing as if awaiting a challenge. “It’s my hotel.”

“If this is about the sheets—” Mark begins.

She wrinkles her nose again. “Eww,” she says and tosses her hair. “I saw you check in,” she tells them, “And I talked to Rebecca, the receptionist, and she filled me in.”

Daniel rolls his eyes, wishing he had put on something more sub-stantial. He tugs the fluffy material down so the hem rests just barely at mid-thigh. “I hardly think Rebecca in reception knows enough to fill you in on anything.”

Jess rolls her eyes. “She said you were disgustingly in love and seemed reasonably desperate for a room.” She pauses. “Was she wrong?”

“We got back together in April last year and five days later Daniel moved to London.” Mark blurts it out and snatches up a pillow to cover his crotch in the process. “He’s moving back to New York in a few months.”

Jess attempts not to laugh but once a giggle has snuck out she gives up, bends at the waist and cackles. “You’re trying long distance? Again?”

“We’re doing very well, thank you very much,” Mark says.

“Oh, I know.” Jess casts her sharp eyes over the bed and the towels still piled where they’d been dropped just outside the bathroom. She runs a finger down the side of one of last night’s empty minibar bottles. “I’m glad you finally worked your shit out. And now I’m here to help,” she says.

***

It’s worth the humiliation of being caught with his pants down, Mark concedes, because Jess seems to be quite enamored of the idea of their whirlwind Christmas romance and also has the entire hotel staff under her thumb. Unsurprising, really.

The honeymoon suite is suddenly half the price and, lo and behold, they have it during the “stay one night, get a second free” promotion. Which, Mark says excitedly, bouncing on the bed, gives them three more nights.

Daniel grins at him and continues to stare at the door Jess just left through, his fingers smoothing the hotel vouchers she stuffed into his hand. “Three more nights,” Daniel repeats. “Three more nights together.” Mark smiles and starts to crawl across the bed. “And today is Christmas and we do not have to be at my parents’ place for at least another four hours,” he continues. Mark keeps on grinning from where he’s perched on the edge of the mattress, waiting for Daniel to come to him. “Merry Christmas to me.”

***

Mark accidentally lets news of their three extra days in the honeymoon suite slip during lunch with the O’Sheas, as well as the fact that it’s a honeymoon suite. Karen has insisted on picking them up and driving them over since she isn’t able to drink, what with being pregnant again. An hour alone with Greg gets Mark drunk, and an hour spent trying to help Molly cook without Mark on the phone or on Skype to explain all the recipes means Daniel has become similarly inebriated.

Now all of them are seated around a table laid with more Christmas fare than necessary. Mark is buzzing and leaning into the heat of Daniel’s body next to him, and Daniel lets his fingers graze Mark’s wrist every chance he gets. When Greg asks what they want to do with the three days before Daniel has to go back to London, Mark just babbles as he is wont to do.

“We’ve got the hotel room until he flies out! It was a…” he searches for the word and takes another sip of wine. “It was fate! Old high school friend! Luck! So we have the suite for three more days, but we’ll come and visit every day! We want to take Molly shopping and we should think of something we can do with you, maybe go and hit some balls in the park or catch a movie. I’d say go fishing but not in this weather.”

Greg tries to say something but Mark keeps speaking.

“I mean, a honeymoon suite at the Hilton is amazing and all but it’s getting a little bit boring after three days and there’s only so much—oh.” He remembers himself, and then he realizes that no one is eating and they are all staring at him with their forks halfway to their mouths. He quickly tries to work out why. He didn’t
specifically
say that three days of sex had left them both a bit too sore to continue for three more…

“Did you guys—” Karen cuts herself off and then starts again. “Holy crap, did you guys…” Her eyes are wide and blinking and she’s gripping her husband’s forearm tight enough to leave a mark.

“Did we what?” Daniel asks. It’s a small comfort to Mark to hear Daniel sound just as confused as he does.

“Did you guys get married?” Karen spits out.

Molly sweeps in quickly, well aware that Greg has already begun to turn slightly crimson. “You said honeymoon suite, boys, and I know you haven’t really spent much time together but I know Daniel is so in love and so it wouldn’t be that big a surprise but it would still be… a surprise. I mean… if you got married? And we would have expected you to have… told us.”

“Oh… oh,” Daniel gasps after a prolonged period of working everything out. Beside him, Mark suddenly dissolves into laughter. “Oh my God, you thought—” Daniel looks outraged. “We did not elope, oh my God, 
Dad!”

Greg backs off pretty fast, hands raised in the air as Daniel turns on him. Mark is still laughing and then hiccupping, then shaking that off and breathing deeply to listen.

“As if I’m going to get married anywhere other than New York, with you two walking me down the aisle and… and a string quartet and, oh I don’t know, doves and a massive wedding cake and a big party! As if I could elope.” Daniel starts to smile, then, and Greg fights his own grin. Karen leans her head on her hands, trying to get her breathing under control, and Molly sports her own small, secretive smile and doesn’t say a word.

“He said honeymoon suite,” Karen says, nodding toward Mark, who is looking at Daniel with a serious expression that makes Daniel’s brow crease for a moment.

“It was the only room available,” Daniel says, nose in the air. “And as Mark said, rather than be a burden on you all, we are staying there for the next three nights.”

“Okay.” Quite happy to be kept in the dark about some things, Greg doesn’t argue. “Okay.”

***

They spend less time in the hotel room than expected. Jess comments on it when she intercepts them in the foyer, and they apologize but explain that family duty calls. Mark still looks love-drunk beside Daniel and Daniel is smiling, so Jess just shrugs and says, “Whatever.”

They visit all the old places from their teenage years, remarking on just how much everything has changed and how it still feels exactly the same anyway. They park in the school parking lot and make out just because they can. They go shopping at the local mall, and Daniel provides ongoing commentary about just how far behind the times the shops are. They go to the park where they had their last big summer party with all their friends, just before Daniel left.

It’s bittersweet, but Mark pulls Daniel in and kisses him under an oak tree, telling him, “I’m not letting you leave me like that ever again. Go back to London, but your heart stays here with me.”

Daniel looks at him calmly and nods.

Daniel slips out for some quality time with his dad, meeting him at a bar to drink beer and talk about the little things. Then he has dinner with Karen, to promise to spend more time with his nephews and rebuff any of her doubts about Mark. He texts Mark halfway through to tell him she’s on their side.

Mark can read between the lines of the text. He knows Daniel struggles with his sister sometimes. He makes sure that when Daniel gets back to the hotel the suite is permeated by the smell of vanilla and Mark is already naked and soaking in the tub.

That’s where Daniel finds him, relaxed and waiting. The shuffle of Daniel’s shoes on the tiles as he toes them off makes Mark smile and crack one eye open.

“Miss me?” Daniel asks, already starting to take off his clothes.

“Terribly,” Mark tells him. “Before you get in, there’s dessert in an ice bucket out there somewhere.”

Daniel looks him over once from head to toe and then goes back to the main bedroom. When he returns with a silver spoon and a tub of vanilla ice cream, he is all the way naked. He slips into the bath and Mark lets him press a warm kiss against his lips. He pulls him down on top of himself for a moment before Daniel glides back to the opposite end of the tub and picks the ice cream up off the floor. Mark shivers when Daniel spoons some into the dip of his clavicle. Daniel giggles at him and then makes Mark gasp by licking it up. They lick ice cream off of each other until their kisses are too sweet, and then they spend another night not talking because
talking
they can do from opposite sides of the Atlantic.

***

The day Daniel leaves, he makes Mark promise not to wake up to see him off. Mark frowns and says he’ll try, knowing he won’t be able to stop himself.

“I don’t want to have to say goodbye to you ever again,” Daniel says. He has said it so many times. This time it seems more serious, though. “So I won’t. Easter, okay?”

In the morning, Mark keeps his eyes closed and his head buried in a pillow that smells like Daniel until he hears the door to their hotel room click quietly closed. He doesn’t cry, yet, just takes long, deep breaths and hopes. Then he heads to his parents’ house to spend a night under his childhood roof before flying back to New York in the morning.

***

Sitting in his childhood bedroom, feeling too big for his bed even though it’s exactly the same size as his one in New York, Mark skims through the mostly junk email that has come through in the last day. Daniel would have only just touched down in Heathrow so he doesn’t expect anything, but there’s an email from Jess that he’s been cc’d on.