The Holiday Hoax (8 page)

“Have you always wanted to study science?”

“Yeah. My dad taught me about the stars when I was younger. It was something we shared.” JD’s face softened, and something inside me softened too. I knew, if I let it happen, JD would leave me changed forever.

“Show me your favorites.”

“Okay. But I have a lot of favorites.” JD grinned. “Be ready for a long lecture.”

“I’m ready.”

JD shared the stars with me, pointing out the Pleiades, The Big Dipper, Capella, and Orion. As I moved close to JD, sharing the telescope, I heard Christina Perri’s voice declaring she was “only human.”

“I love that song,” JD said, taking his gaze off the telescope a moment.

“Oh!” I gasped. “You
are
gay!”

“Fuck off,” JD said, and we cracked up.

“I love her too,” I said. “She sings with such feeling.”

We listened to the lyrics a moment as Christina sang of falling down and then finding her way. As JD turned to fully face me, I experienced a lightness filling my head and heart, a hopefulness that was new to me. I licked my lips and then bravely reached for JD and put my arms around his neck.

“This is so….” JD whispered, not finishing his thought.

“Right?”

He smiled. “That’s the word.” He brushed my bangs back from my face and then ran his knuckles softly down my cheek.

With the music still playing in the darkness and the stars above us, we kissed. I clung to him, lost in the feel of JD’s tender lips, his warm mouth. There was nowhere else I wanted to be in the world.

We lay down on the blanket, our shoulders nearly touching as we gazed up at the stars. I breathed in the crisp night air and caught JD’s sweet scent. I could float right off the ground then. If a heart could sway like music, mine was. I had no words for it all, but I kissed JD hard.

We ended up in my room. It was some time after midnight. We’d left the blanket and telescope at the garage door and fumbled our way in, exchanging touches as we went.

With the door firmly closed, we began to kiss once more. JD’s mouth was still soft and warm, and I wanted it so badly.

“Ev—” He pulled away, panting. “—wait.”

“What’s wrong?” My heart stopped. “Was I too aggressive there?”

“Fuck, no.”

“Oh. Okay.” Relief swept through me that I hadn’t somehow messed up. JD was smiling at me, in fact, if a bit nervously.

I wanted to capture JD’s smile and keep it with me always. “So then, what is it?”

“Nothing.” JD looked at me with his dark, vulnerable eyes. “But… I’ve only fooled around with Heather. And that was for show. I’ve never….” JD covered his face with his hands. “God, I can’t. I feel like such a dummy.”

I pried his hands away. “If you’re a dummy, so am I.”

“But you and Tyler—”

“Not really.”

“No?” JD’s eyes widened, his lips parted. “But everybody said?”

“Everybody’s wrong. Yeah, we did fool around some. A few times in his room. But Tyler passed out drunk once, and the other times—mostly groping before things happened fast.
Too fast
, if you get me.” I fought off a blush. “We never finished anything. I thought he was my boyfriend and all that would happen eventually, but I was telling myself stories, as usual.”

“So you haven’t either?”

“Not totally, no.”

“Oh.”

JD looked at me, his gaze as intense as that first time we’d spoken. He stroked the nape of my neck with his fingertips.

“JD, I—”

He leaned in and kissed me, and the rest of my words became a groan. Our mouths were hot and clinging, and I melted into the kiss.
Fucking melted
.

Shuddering, JD finally pulled back. His mouth looked bruised and swollen.

We nestled together on my bed, kissing some more, exploring each other’s bodies a little and talking a lot. We talked about everything. We talked and kissed, and talked again, often laughing. Somewhere in the night, we dozed off, curled in each other’s arms.

And that was exactly how my mom found us in the morning.

“O
H
MY
God!”

“No, Mom, it’s not what it looks like!”

“I trusted you to have Tyler in the guest room. And this is how you repay that trust!”

“Mom, I am eighteen already. I’m not a baby.”

“Our house, our rules. You know that.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Goodman,” JD said, biting his lip.

“Excuse me, Tyler, but I need to talk with Evan about this.”

“Oh for God’s sakes. He’s not even Tyler,” I said.

“What?”

“You heard me.”

I’d expected to feel awkward or ashamed, but I didn’t. There were so many things I couldn’t express before, so many worries I held deep inside. But this, JD’s name, was a truth I welcomed revealing.

“This isn’t Tyler?” Her gaze darted to JD.

“I—” JD closed his eyes as if to gather his thoughts. “Maybe I should just go?”

“No, JD, I want you here. And more importantly, I want you to be yourself. I’m tired of this game. Which was never a game. I always wanted you here, not him.”

“You mean it?”

I held JD’s gaze. “When I heard your brother talk to you like that, it stopped being about Tyler. And it wasn’t all pity either, so don’t get upset. It was you, JD, I liked right away and wanted to get to know better. Everything else gave me the right excuses to act on that.”

“Thank you.”

JD’s voice was brisk, but his eyes had tears brimming in them. In his gaze I could see my own feelings mirrored back.

“It was never a game to me either.”

I went utterly still as JD took my hand and laced our fingers together.

My heart lurched with happiness. I fought to stop my tears from falling. I had finally chosen right.

“From now on, we’ll always be ourselves.”

“Unless you’re on stage,” JD teased.

I turned to my bewildered mom. “This is JD, Mom. Tyler broke things off with me. Actually, we never were together, not really. But JD is my—I mean, we are together—” I looked at JD, who smiled and nodded. “—and I want you to know him.”

Everything slid into place at that moment as I remained there with my potential boyfriend and a future filled with possibilities.

My mom sank against the wall. “I don’t understand any of this.”

“Let me start at the beginning, Mom. I went to the Donut Shack the other day….”

M
Y
FAMILY
loved Christmas Eve, and this one was no exception. My mom and Ann cooked, Courtney and Noah made a big fire and insisted on roasting marshmallows, and my dad mostly bragged about getting his presents “forty percent discounted at Target!”

But this year, everybody wanted to know all about JD too. My mom had liked him as Tyler, but once she’d calmed down about the bedroom thing—mostly innocent, (mostly)—she fell big time for JD and his reasons for being here.

“You poor boy,” she kept saying. “Poor, poor boy.”

JD protested that he’d basically been alone since his folks died and had come to expect his brother’s coldness and that he was fine, just fine—which nobody bought—but he accepted my mom’s hugs anyhow.

To make JD an even more important part of our Christmas, Mom even dug out an extra reindeer sweater for him that Great-Aunt Mildred had shipped to them. My dad refused to ever put the sweaters on, because, he claimed, they “itched,” but everybody knew the real reason was that Dad loathed Great-Aunt Mildred, who had never fully welcomed him because he wasn’t Catholic.

“Look at me,” I protested as I put on my ruby red sweater. It nearly touched my knees, and a reindeer with an extra-long tongue and googly eyes decorated my chest. “I’m taking it off.”

“In a minute. First, a picture,” Mom said.

“Let him take it off,” Dad said. “They itch. And they insult our manhood, right, Evan?”

“Right, Dad.”

“First, a picture. Get together with JD, please. Girls and Noah too.”

“They itch,” Dad said again as the picture snapped.

Seeing my dad’s grumpy expression, Mom wisely changed the plan. “Honey, did you see that Best Buy is having a crazy Christmas Eve sale? You have time to shop before our dinner. We can take another picture later.”

“Oh boy!” Dad’s face lit up. “I’ll be an hour tops.”

He gave my mom a fast kiss.

“He’ll be at least three hours,” she said cheerfully once he’d gone. “I’ll time dinner for then.”

“Okay.” I smiled, relaxed, whereas the last few hours had been tense.

When my mom had told Dad who JD was—how he wasn’t Tyler, and how he’d been in my bed—well, let’s just say that Dad’s jaw had formed a hard enough line to be the Rock of Gibraltar. He hadn’t yelled or anything, that wasn’t Dad’s style, but he’d given me the business, asking questions that went on and on, and concluded by saying, “What were you
thinking
, Evan?”

And I answered, “
Nothing
.” I had spat the word out in a sullen tone, knowing Dad hated it when one of us answered him with words like “nothing” or “fine.”

“Because you never think.” Dad scowled. He didn’t like deception of any kind, which explained why he could never fully support my acting bug. For a minute I worried he might ask JD to leave after this fight.

But then JD, who’d been respectfully silent until then, started talking in that polite, factual way of his about Shawn and about how I’d helped him, and pretty soon my dad had softened as much as my mom.

“We’re glad you’re here,” he told JD in the end, and they’d exchanged a brisk handshake.

With a rush of tenderness, I’d embraced my dad in a tight hug, which he returned. Maybe we would always be different; maybe having a gay actor for a son didn’t exactly
thrill
Dad at all times, but he tried.

We would enjoy a big fancy Christmas Eve dinner once Dad returned, and then my mom went to Midnight Mass too. I liked it and usually went with her. I enjoyed dressing up for it, the songs, the feeling of joy in the air. I wondered if JD would want to go. So far he hadn’t mentioned any family traditions, which made me sad. I worried for JD, whose brother had yet to call. It didn’t look like it was going to be a Hallmark ending. Silently I vowed to have JD be a part of my family for as long as we were friends.

“We open one or two of our bigger presents on Christmas Eve, and for the rest we wait until morning,” Courtney told JD, and he glanced at the enormous pile of stuff beneath the tree. “Our Dad’s easy, he always wants electronics. Mom likes books or bath soaps. Ann’s impossible to shop for. And I like jewelry and anything for my phone.”

“I’m not impossible,” Ann said. “I’m just not predictable.”

“And Evan?” JD looked thoughtful. “What do you guys get for him?”

“I like everything,” I said, not wanting him to feel bad.

I had already bought JD a few things on the sly. A pair of good gloves and a sci-fi book, and I’d hoped to slip out and get him a few extras.

“True,” Courtney snorted. “Stinky loves anything shiny and wrapped.”

“Can you give me a lift to the mall before it closes?” JD asked Courtney. “I have some ideas.”

“No, JD, I don’t need you to buy me anything.”

“Shut up.” JD’s eyes sparkled. “Maybe I want to.”

Knowing what a limited budget he must be on, I was touched.

While JD was out, I snooped in his business. I couldn’t help myself. I knew JD’s last name and the name of his town, so it wasn’t hard to find his brother’s home number. My hands shook as I called.

“Hello?”

“Is this Shawn Laurens?”

“Yeah? Who wants to know?” His voice sounded a little slurred.

“Um… hi. My name’s Evan Goodman, and I’m a friend of JD’s.” I waited. Nothing. I didn’t hear a dial tone, though, so I plunged ahead. “I’m calling to say that JD is staying with my family for Christmas, and I know it would mean the world to him if you joined us here for dinner. I could give you the address?”

I held my breath. Come on, come on, come on.

Nothing again. “Shawn? JD misses you. I know you guys fought, but it is Christmas.”

“Are you his boyfriend or something?”

“Well, um—”

“I don’t know who you think you are, calling me, but this is none of your damn business.”

Shawn hung up. I held the phone to my ear a second, a little shocked. I was only glad I’d spared telling JD about my plan to call his brother. He never had to know about it.

“It’s so fucking unfair!” I cried out. Anger and helplessness raged through me.

I
FAKED
it for a few hours, pretending all was fine, all through the stringing of popcorn ornaments and Mom’s yearly cheesy recital of ’
Twas the Night Before Christmas
, but then JD nudged me at the dinner table.

We’d just stuffed ourselves on ham and sweet potatoes and now waited for dessert. My dad helped clear the dishes, while my sisters jiggled the Christmas presents and tried to guess what was inside.

“You okay?” JD asked.

“I’m sorry your family isn’t here too,” I blurted.

“I’m not.” JD shrugged, his expression solemn. “Shawn would come here and ruin this with his ugliness.”

“Your folks must have been good to you, though, right?” I desperately wanted the answer to be yes. I wanted to hear that they’d loved JD the way families should love you.

“Sure.” JD paused. “My mom could be hard. She was an unhappy person, like Shawn. Maybe it’s just how they are inside. Nothing makes them happy, you know? But my dad and I had good times.” His lips twisted. “I do miss that.”

“Cake!”

Mom came into the room, followed by Courtney. Mom always finished Christmas Eve with a special cake. Her fruitcake, of course. The one I hated and bitched about every year.

This year I took an extra-big slice and ate it, feeling grateful.

Afterward we did a round of presents. I gave Courtney a charm bracelet, my mom a new cookbook and apple cinnamon potpourri from Bed Bath & Beyond, Ann got a new Wii game from me because I couldn’t afford what she might really want—like a small country wrapped in a bow—and I’d passed by a GameStop, and we’d all chipped in to give my dad a new Nikon camera. My folks had bought me a beautiful quilt for my dorm room and an iTunes card, and Courtney and Ann combined efforts to give me tickets to a coming regional theater play. We would open other gifts tomorrow, more practical ones, as well as presents from aunts and uncles and cousins, and stay in our pajamas until noon. Then finally, JD’s turn. My entire family had bought something for him, from scarves to chocolates—and I gave him the gloves and book, feeling a bit sheepish.