The Beary Best Holiday Party Ever (3 page)

Ron laughed. He couldn’t help it.

“
That’s
why I do what I do,” Billy said. “To make fun of
them
. The people who are clueless. The ones who don’t know how to have fun. Who don’t know how to laugh at themselves. The ones who will have a heart attack by the time they’re forty. Not me!”

Ron decided not to mention that people who were overweight were more likely to have a heart attack. It wouldn’t be appropriate. Besides, Billy was right. Surely stress brought on at least as many heart problems as weight—maybe more?

“I’m sorry if some sex partner told you that you needed to lose weight,” Billy said. “That sucks.”

Not just sex partners. Boyfriends. More than one. Including his first. The one in college. Who had been on him as much as his parents.

And, boy, what a splash of cold water in the face it had been when a psychology teacher talked about how many people grow up to marry someone who is exactly like a parent they were trying to escape. How many men “married their mothers,” and how many women “married their fathers.” And shit, hadn’t he done both? Except at the time that particular boyfriend had harassed him so much, Ron couldn’t legally get married to a man.

“You ever been to a bear club?” Billy had asked him, and that was when the door that would reshape his whole future opened a crack.

“No,” Ron had answered, shaking his head. He hadn’t. It would have been claiming his fathood, and he said so.

“You aren’t
fat
,” Billy told him. “Me?
I
am fat.
You
are chunky.”

“Pleasantly plump,” said one of the drag queens.

“Voluptuous,” said the other.

“Rubenesque,” said Annie.

Ron laughed again. He wasn’t even sure why. It surprised him to be laughing about such a thing. It was a relief. And maybe a big old fuck you to his parents and many an ex-boyfriend.

“Our bear club meets next Saturday,” Billy said. “Wanna go with?”

“But….”

“Butts are good,” Bill replied. “We’ve covered that.”

Once more Ron laughed, and the tears that were threatening now were a different kind.
Who is this guy?
he’d wondered that long-ago night (and had long ago stopped trying to figure out; he just knew he was blessed to have him in his life).

“And if you aren’t attracted to full-figured boys, remember this. Bear clubs are for ‘bears and the men who
like
them.’”

But it was right then that Ron quite abruptly realized sometimes he
did
like men with a little something extra—that extra not being between his legs. Why, hadn’t he always liked that guy his sister and female friends had eschewed? Richard Karn from
Home Improvement
? Oh! And Kevin Smith from the
Jay and Silent Bob
movies was far, far sexier than Jason Mewes ever thought about being!

And hairy too. He’d been horrified at men who shaved their chests and crotches. While he tended to like guys who were slimmer than him, he would always like men with a little padding.

It was a realization that changed his life.

Ron was hooked from his very first meeting with the bear club. The Heartland Bear Clan showed him that there could be an entirely different definition for what qualified as sexy when it came to men. Men like himself.

Men who told him their stories—much like his own—of trying every diet known on earth, only to find those pounds creeping up on them time and time again.

At that very first meeting, Ron found he finally accepted that he had lost the battle for a six-pack, only to win the brotherhood of bears.

“H
EY
!”
CRIED
an all-too-familiar voice, and Ron turned from Billy, his best friend, to Paddy, his coleader and established interloper and trespasser. Paddy could only just be called a bear. He had a few spare pounds, but not many. And he was young, a good eight to ten years younger than Ron’s thirty-five. He had the beard, but it was kept cut shorter even than Ron’s. Like an extremely thick auburn five o’clock shadow. A man like Paddy was called a cub.

He had two eyebrow piercings, for goodness sake!

Before he could avoid it, Paddy greeted him with open arms and hugged him tight. It was only because he was fast that Ron was able to dodge the kiss Paddy aimed at his cheek.

“And Billy,” Paddy all but shouted. “Looking
good
! I
love
the dress.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” said Billy, accepting the hug
and
the kiss on his
flocculent
cheek.

Traitor
, Ron thought.

Billy smirked at him over Paddy’s shoulder.

Turncoat!

Billy wiggled against Paddy, which set him to laughing.

Benedict Arnold!

Billy stuck out his tongue.

“Whoa,” said Paddy, pulling away from the bewhiskered Billy. “I’m feeling something awfully friendly rubbing against my crotch there, Billy!”

Judas!

Paddy turned and hopped up on the barstool between Ron and Billy. His back was to their table, his legs spread wide—reminding Ron so much of another night. A night where Paddy had been sitting just like that but on the edge of a bed. Naked. Displaying himself. A night where his beautiful chest and that cute little tummy and all that lovely soft body hair had been there for him to touch. And not just his body hair.

And damn, Ron looked now. He couldn’t help himself.
No!
He forced his eyes upward and, yes, Paddy still had that rounded bit of belly. And then there was his wide chest—pecs versus Billy’s man breasts—that Ron knew were covered with the perfect quantity of soft brown, almost auburn, hair. God, did Paddy
have
to be almost exactly Ron’s type? Then he saw the knowing look on Paddy’s face, the sparkle in his eyes.

For a second there, Ron
hated
the man.

Paddy was wearing a baseball cap (a weakness of Ron’s) and his arms were crossed against a T-shirt Ron couldn’t read at the moment. Good. It was a good thing he couldn’t see what the shirt said. He needed to
stop
looking at Paddy’s chest, anyway. And oh, God, he was wearing a leather bar vest (another of Ron’s weaknesses).

“What’re you boys drinking?” Paddy asked.

“Dirty martini,” Billy said.

Paddy shuddered and looked at Ron.

“Whiskey and Coke,” he replied.

Paddy grimaced.

“I thought the Irish
loved
their whiskey,” Ron said with a flamboyant wave.

“That is such a stereotypical thing to say!” Paddy flagged down a waiter. It was a smart move—waiters were a rare commodity at The Male Box. “Guinness, if you have it,” he told the twink—a kid who could barely be legal and seemed to be using more hair product than all the runway models in Paris.

The boy grinned at Paddy like a star-struck Hollywood fan and scampered off to do as bid.

“As if ordering a Guinness isn’t stereotypical,” Billy said, and then, without warning, he hopped to his feet. “See you later, girls. I
must
be backstage before too many people get a preview of my outfit for tonight.”

“Oh sure,” said Paddy. “
Lots
of people are going to see what you’re wearing! At eight o’clock on a Sunday. The gays won’t be out for at
least
an hour. And that’s only because the show is early on Sunday, and the cocktail prices go back up at eleven.”

It seemed like a facetious thing to say—especially from such a seemingly happy-go-lucky guy—but dammit, it was true.

Wait! Could this be his first proof that Paddington Bear wasn’t the sincere hero everyone seemed to think he was? But before Ron could think too much about it, the waiter returned (Paddy gave him a surprisingly large tip), and with a flashy wave, Billy left Ron alone with his nemesis.

Said nemesis took a swig from his bottle of beer, set it down, and then fixed him with a long (startlingly) blue-eyed look.

“Okay,” Paddy said after a pause that seemed to go on for about a millennium. “Can we clear the air? The reason I wanted to meet with you before our first meeting as leaders of this boyz club is to say that I am sorry for whatever I’ve done to piss you off.”

Ron gaped at him.

Sorry for “whatever” he’d done? Like Paddy didn’t know? Like there was any way he couldn’t know? As if there were anyone who could walk and chew gum at the same time who wouldn’t comprehend why Ron was “pissed off”?

It was enough to make him even angrier.

Yet looking at him, seeing the innocent expression on Paddy’s face, Ron could almost believe him. Unless he was an actor of Oscar or Tony Award caliber, he seemed sincere. How could that be? Had Paddy been so drunk he didn’t remember that fateful night? The things he had said?

“
What
?” he asked. No. Not asked. Squeaked. And oh how he hated how he sounded—how he squeaked.

Paddy nodded, seeming all the more genuine. “I’m not always the most socially adept person on Earth, and I have obviously fucked up with you, and I would like to see if there is anything I can do to make up for it.”

Fucked up?
In one night Paddy had done more to smash Ron’s confidence than anyone in a long, long time. And now he sat here, legs spread like he was expecting a blowjob,
pretending
he didn’t know why Ron didn’t want a thing to do with him?
What balls!

And he did have some balls on him. Figuratively and literally. For one second, the memory came back so clear of them hanging off the edge of the bed that Ron felt his cock stir, and he hated it. Because dammit! He was pissed at the man!

What could Paddy do to make up for it?

How about turn back time and
not
say the things you said that night that made me plummet back about a half decade in feelings of self-worth.

“I do not know
how
you can be a child of mine!”
came the echo of his mother’s voice—and damn he resented that echo. Hadn’t he exorcized that voice?

“Fat! You’re a
fatass
!”
came the voice of his father.
“My son,
my
son, a fatass!”

And even now those words came back, bringing with them so much shame and pain that he thought he might lose his whiskey and Coke.

Ron wanted to punch Paddy. To deck him. To slam his fist into the side of the man’s (fucking sexy) face and knock him off his barstool. Because Paddy was his peer (more or less) and not one of Ron’s parents—who would somehow always be figures of power and giant-tude and authority, no matter that he had moved hundreds of miles away from them.

“Are you shitting me?” Ron exclaimed.

God, that look of surprise on Paddy’s face! Could he really be
that
socially inept? Could he
not
know how deeply his words, seven months before, had hurt Ron?

Paddy looked at him, unblinking.

Really?

Really?

In that moment, to Ron’s shock, he realized Paddy wasn’t joking. He really
didn’t
know what he’d done that late, late night when Ron had been so desperate for a little human contact.

Ron stared into Paddy’s (big beautiful blue) eyes…

…and realized the little cub was being sincere.

That was when Ron saw he had a choice.

He could go on hating the guy.

Or he could figure out how to make this work.

Because he was almost certainly going to
have
to work with Paddy for at least the next year.

Ron sighed. Fought back a sudden and surprising desire to cry.

No! You’re not getting that from me!

And it was that ridiculous desire to cry that gave him the courage to do what he needed to do. For the good of the Heartland Bear Clan. This wasn’t about him. This was about his brothers. He would do the right thing.

“Fine!” he snapped.

“Fine?” asked Paddy—and
God
, did he
have
to look so Bambi-has-just-realized-his-mom-is-dead saying it? And did he also have to look so damned luscious? Did he have to have the same effect he’d had on Ron that night they’d met?

Crap!

Ron sat back, squared his shoulders, and made his decision. “Let’s start over.”

Paddy gave him a big, sweet, and sexy smile. “You mean it?”

Ron nodded once. It was all he could do. “For the good of the boys,” he said.

Paddy grinned. “For the good of the boys!”

And then they began to talk.

“W
HAT
ABOUT
the music?” Paddy was saying. They were discussing the Christmas—
aarrgh!
—no, the
holiday
party, despite the fact that Ron didn’t really want to. “I mean, last year’s music was soooo lame. The DJ was
horrible
.”

Ron shrugged. “That was Bobby. Not good, but the equipment and stuff is his, and he does it for free. You can’t argue with free.”

Paddy rolled his eyes. “I can argue with anything. And in Bobby’s case, he was not only free, he sounded it.”

“Okay, then,” Ron said, wanting—no, dying—for this to be over. “What do you suggest?”

“Well…,” Paddy drawled. “I went to the big, fancy gay Valentine’s Day bash this year. And there was this DJ called Cueball, and he was
radical
.”

Cueball? Paddy wanted them to get
Cueball
to DJ at their party?

“Paddy, Cueball is one of the Midwest’s
hottest
DJs,” Ron said. “I can’t even imagine what he charges.”

Paddy grinned wickedly. “Well… I kind of know him. Maybe he would do us a favor.”

Ron blinked at him.
Kinda know him?
As in the biblical sense?

Paddy gave a little shrug.

God. He did. Paddy had had sex with Cueball, one very, very hot man. And if that kind of man was what Paddy liked, it was no wonder—

“It wouldn’t hurt for me to ask, right? I mean, if he said yes, wouldn’t that be awesome? Think of the guys who would show just for having his name on our ads. Even if he didn’t give us a deal, his name alone would pay for his fee.”