Turkey in the Snow (3 page)

He escaped then, practically running to the shower. He turned the water on, hot and full, and left his clothes in a puddle as he stripped and jumped in. He hadn’t even soaped his hair before the day caught up with him, and the frustration and the frantic, palm-sweating, heart-pounding fear that somehow
he was doing it wrong.

His body was jerking, his face contorted, his breath coming in gasps before his brain fully caught up to the fact that he was blubbering like a little kid, but once his brain caught up? Game over. He was lost, brain disengaged, while the stress and the panic and the disappointment of the past few months caught up with him, and he cried in the shower like he hadn’t done since his break-up with his first boyfriend.

H
E
WAS
feeling much better by the time Saturday morning rolled around. He’d actually gotten in a long workout on Friday for one thing, and he brought his running shoes and his sweats to work on Thursday for another, and managed twenty minutes of exercise during lunch. He thought he might start doing that a couple of days a week—it helped take off some of the day’s stress when he couldn’t make it to the gym.

Friday night, when he’d dropped Josie off in the gym’s daycare, he was actually disappointed to see that Justin wasn’t there. When he’d asked Jackie, the supervisor, the girl had winked at Josie and told them that Justin was helping to get ready for S-A-N-T-A. After Josie went off to play with the dollhouse, she’d told Hank that Justin had needed the night off to study for finals, and Hank felt stupid. He was a nice kid, but surely, Justin was entitled to a life of his own, right?

But that didn’t change the fact that his stomach was distinctly fluttery on Saturday morning. It took him a while to identify the feeling, and unfortunately, when the cause surfaced, it was in a particularly uncomfortable way.

He’d gotten Josie all ready, and she was sitting in the living room with the few toys she’d had when she’d arrived and a couple more that he’d bought her since. If he left the cartoons on with the volume low, she’d start singing to the dolls. He loved that sound—Amanda used to do the same thing when he was watching her.

He’d just finished his first cup of coffee when Alan and Keith showed up. Alan breezed by him in the entryway without even saying hello.

“Hi, Hank,” Keith said, embarrassed, and Hank grimaced and nodded.

“Hi, Keith.”

“Stop sucking face and get me a beer!” Alan snapped, and Hank grunted, looking to see if Josie had heard. She hadn’t—small blessings.

“There is no beer in this job,” Hank said evenly, and Alan made that little whining sound that Hank deplored so much. Of course, when they’d been together, Hank had found it adorable. That had changed when Hank had walked into their apartment and heard him making it with Keith buried to the hilt up his backside. Poor Keith. Alan had hidden the pictures and told him it was his apartment alone. Keith wasn’t that bright, but he’d been mortified. Well, that was okay—now it was Keith and Alan’s apartment. Hank had been coming home early to tell Alan about his big promotion at the bank they worked at—and now Hank was Alan’s boss.

They’d had to settle into an angry détente—jobs in the financial world were hard to come by these days, and neither of them wanted to look for a new position. So Hank made the teller schedule and did the counts and Alan made snide comments about Hank buying his suits from a funeral home, used. Hank’s raise was enough for him to make a down payment on the house, so moving out was timely, and it was all copacetic—or, at least for Hank, drama free.

And it worked out well when Alan wanted to take an extra day off for Thanksgiving. Hank had a teller with a new baby who needed the hours, but requisitioning for overtime was a pain in the ass, and not the kind Hank used to give Alan, either. This had been Hank’s compromise—come over, break down the bedroom, paint it, and help him decorate it. Three strong men could do it in eight hours, when it would take Hank all weekend by himself.

Of course the downside was working with Alan.

“What do you mean, no beer?” Alan asked, curling up his lip. He had a small pretty face, and a slight build—a born in the butt bottom, as he liked to say—as well as blond hair that he could grow fashionably long. (Hank had tried to grow his thick, brown hair long in college, when they’d been dating. Gel, blow-dryer, it didn’t matter—more than two inches of length, and Hank had what they’d called back in the ’70s, a “’fro.” It was not a good look for him.)

“No beer,” Hank repeated. “I’ve been a little too busy to have a beer lately, is that okay with you? Now here, let me show you what I need done.” He took the guys back to the bedroom and explained the situation—he’d stripped the bed that morning when Josie had been eating her cereal, and he had Alan and Keith on their way to his garage with the mattress when Justin came knocking at the door.

He answered it, hot and breathless, and startled enough to smile warmly when he saw Justin there, fidgeting, wearing his trademark Cal-Fit jacket.

“Come in,” Hank said, gesturing. “Geez, Justin, aren’t you cold?”

Justin had just opened his mouth to answer when Josie saw him, and unlike Alan and Keith, Justin was
not
to be ignored.

“
Justin!”
she squealed, and came running across the living room through the entryway. “You came! Hank said you’d come, but you weren’t there last night so I thought you might be gone. People go sometimes. But you’re
not,
and we’re going to see Santa, right?”

Justin squatted down and hugged her, and talked to her from that level, earning Hank’s eternal appreciation.

“Of course we’re going to go see Santa. And then, if it’s okay with your Uncle Hank, we’re meeting my sister-in-law with her kids at Chuck E. Cheese, and you can play there. Do you want to do that?”

Josie’s face lit up. “Oh
yes
!” She turned to Hank. “Can I go, Uncle Hank? Can I? Oh, please? Mommy never took me because she said it was ’spensive, and I’ve never been!”

Hank cringed at the thought of Chuck E. Cheese—oh hells, the lights, the noise, the giant rat, the crappy pizza… and then he looked at Justin, squatting in his entry way and smiling like he knew
exactly
what Hank was thinking. Hank saw that smile, the slightly crooked front two teeth, how his cheeks dimpled up, the way his blue eyes crinkled in the corners, and his stomach got even more fluttery. He had the sudden realization that
Justin
was taking her to the dreaded faux-pizza den of the six-foot rat, and
Hank
was going to be completely in the clear.

Oh geez, it was enough to make a guy fall a little in love, right there.

“Of course you can, Bunny,” he said, smiling back at Justin and feeling a little shell-shocked. “I’ll just go get some money for games and things.”

“No, Mr. Calder. That’s all right!” Justin stood and put his hand on Hank’s arm as Hank was turning around.

It wasn’t Hank’s sore arm, and he didn’t flutter or grab too hard, but suddenly the two of them stopped still and looked at Justin’s chilled red fingers on Hank’s bicep. Hank shivered, and covered the hand with his own, and turned back around, smiling hesitantly.

“You’re a college student, Justin, and you’re doing a really wonderful thing here. Please let me pay for her games.”

Justin nodded, and Hank wasn’t imagining it—a dull red settled under his eyes and across his high cheekbones.

“Thanks, Mr. Calder,” Justin said quietly. “I appreciate it.”

“Well,
hel-lo
gorgeous!”

Both of them jerked when Alan came in from the garage through the kitchen entrance, Keith at his heels.

“Here, Bunny,” Hank said, bending down to heft Josie into his arms. “Let’s go get some money for Justin and a bag of clothes for you, just in case, okay?” One of his first lessons about having a little girl was that little girls had accidents. If Josie was going to be gone for more than a few hours, an extra change of clothes was very, very necessary. He looked up to where Alan and Keith were zeroing in on Justin and smiled apologetically.

“Justin, this is Alan and Keith. They’re helping me out with the bed. Alan and Keith, this is Justin. Don’t talk to him, don’t touch him, and if you have to communicate, do it in Morse code with your bulging eyeballs, are we clear?”

He scowled in particular at Alan, who rolled his eyes and said, “Touch—
ee
!” and Hank decided this whole thing would go best if it went quickly.

“Okay, Bunny,” he muttered, “let’s work fast, because I’m telling you, Alan works faster.”

Josie, encouraged by the triple threat of Justin, Santa, and Chuck E. Cheese, wasted no time at all in helping to pick out her clothes as well as Lisa, her very bestest most special doll. They were back in the entryway no more than three minutes after they’d left.

Alan was already holding Justin’s arm companionably as he and Keith laughed about something. To his credit, Justin looked like he was trying to escape.

“Alan, hands off before I break your fingers.” The words sounded mild, but Alan let go quickly with a sniff.

“Jesus, Henry, you’re the one who always says you don’t like drama!”

“Well, you’re the one causing it. Go start breaking down the bookcases. Set them up in the garage and move the books. I need to call to see if the delivery is on time.” With that he transferred Josie from his arms to Justin’s, and then gave Justin the bag. “Okay, I’ve got an extra set of clothes, her health insurance card—it’s Kaiser—and one of those little school ID cards, and I know you have my phone number and—”

“It’s okay, Henry,” Justin said, laughing. “It’s fine. Remember—I’ve done this before!”

Hank flushed, and then he realized that Justin had called him Henry, not Hank or Mr. Calder, and he caught his breath again and looked into those dark blue eyes.

Justin winked at him. “Henry,” he said again, with inflection, “I do know how to deal without the drama, okay? Now give your Uncle Hank a kiss, Josie-bunny, and we can leave.”

Josie pursed her lips dutifully, and Hank went in for the kiss—and blew a bubble on them instead. Josie broke into a cackle of glee, and that’s the sound she was making as Justin turned around and took her out the door.

Hank turned around to Alan and Keith—who hadn’t left yet—and scowled.

“You two are, under no circumstances, ever, to touch the babysitter. You are not to talk to him, not to molest him, not to lure him over to pervert central with free beer. You are not to show him your etchings, and I swear to heaven, Alan you asshole, if you so much as fondle his shirt, I will fire you.”

Alan winked. “Now, now, Henry. You know if you do that, you’ll probably lose your job too!”

Hank looked at Keith, who was watching the two of them with the avidity of a tennis enthusiast at Wimbledon, and then grabbed Alan’s arm and frog-marched him down the hall. “Excuse us, Keith,” he called back, “I need to talk to him a minute.”

They got to Josie’s room and Hank pinned his ex-boyfriend to the wall with a glare. “Alan, you’re right. I may not be able to fire you without losing my job, but if you so much as talk dirty to that boy, I will do worse than fire you.”

Alan rolled his eyes in disbelief.

“You doubt that? I guarantee, if you touch a hair on his sweet twinkie little head, I will personally tell every person you are screwing about the other four people you are screwing, including your little experiment in bisexuality, Julie.”

Alan’s mouth had dropped open. “How in the hell—”

“Do you think you’re the only one who likes drama, Alan? I swear to God, you can’t take a piss at work without someone walking into the bathroom and spilling all the business you never wanted to know.” Well, technically, he’d been in the stall, so he’d been doing more than taking a piss, but the point was, he’d overheard plenty—most of it from Alan himself.

Alan’s eyes narrowed and his lip curled. “God, you just can’t
stand
the idea of anyone else having fun, can you? Just have to go make the whole rest of the world as goddamned Puritan as you are!”

Hank grunted. “The Puritans weren’t big on treating people decent, Alan. Find another comparison, but leave me, and my niece, and my niece’s babysitter out of it. Now you’re the one who wanted the day off, and I’m the one who has to deal with the paperwork. You want to make that happen? Move your scrawny uncomfortable ass.”

Alan gasped and held his hand to his mouth like
that
was the most offensive thing about the conversation, and Hank ignored him and started shuttling books.

T
HEY
did it. He was ready to strangle Alan (and have Keith canonized!) by the time they were done, but when Alan and Keith left—Alan actually too tired to bitch, and Keith
very
grateful for both the day off to visit his parents before Christmas
and
the pizza and beer Hank had bought—the room was done.

Hank was in there shutting the window, which had been left open to get rid of some of the paint smell, when there was a knock on the door. He practically ran down the hall, he was so excited to see what Josie would think about it. They’d painted one wall pink and all of the trim in the room lavender, and although they’d left the other four walls white, Hank had put up posters of Disney princesses and Bubble Guppies and Dora the Explorer all over, but that wasn’t the best part. The best part was the day bed—the kind that looked like a long couch and had a little trundle cot that slid underneath—that was all set up in the corner. Hank had ordered it in lavender and also bought a pink comforter with a white eyelet sham with matching pillowcases and pillow shams and even a little canopy.

That bed looked like an iced party cake and Hank was dying,
dying
for her to see it, so she could know that she had a home in Hank’s little house, and that she could stay there as long as she wanted.

He threw the front door open, as excited as he’d ever been about Christmas, only to find her asleep over Justin’s shoulder, so exhausted she was leaving a little puddle of drool on the shoulder of his thin company windbreaker.