A Small Miracle Happened (2 page)

“And the street names are cringe-worthy.” Chris paused. “I snickered when I realized I was moving onto Prince Albert Circle. But a place on Agin Court might be better for morale. I’d feel inspired to win the Hundred Years’ War whenever I came home.”

“Ah, the residents of Agin Court. The few, the happy few—”

“—the band of brothers,” they finished together.

“More like unhappy few, if the residents’ meetings are any clue.” Dan glared at the doorway to the kitchen. He swore that crack grew every time he looked at it. “But do you think the developer asked someone for a bunch of posh English names, and a lit major with a sense of humor came up with these?”

Chris picked up another slice. “How else do you explain Mansfield Parkway and Court Darthur?”

After the pizza was gone, Dan placed the menorah in the front window, admiring the figures and their joyful parade.

Chris watched from the couch, sipping a glass of the red wine Dan had poured. “I thought menorahs were old-fashioned candelabra things. This one is…quirky.”

Dan laughed. “There are lots of designs. My cousin Tyler had one that looked like a baseball diamond, and my sister bought her husband one in the shape of a reindeer. You stick the candles in the antlers. It looks completely ridiculous, which I suppose is the point. His family is Christian, and she’s gotten into all kinds of crossover kitsch. She puts up what she calls a Hanukkah bush each year and decorates it with Stars of David.”

Chris leaned forward. “What’s the meaning behind the candles? Is it because winter is coming and the days are getting shorter?”

“No. At least I don’t think it has anything to do with that. It’s to commemorate the victory of the Maccabees.” Seeing Chris’s blank expression, Dan asked, “Did you ever see the
Rugrats
Hanukkah show or one of the other kids’ holiday specials?”

“I wasn’t allowed to watch regular TV channels when I was little, only videos my parents had approved.” He must have the shock on Dan’s face, because he added, “They were okay with some Disney stuff. They just didn’t like things like
Sesame Street
or
Power Rangers
. My mom homeschooled me for a few years, so most of the kids I knew were from our church, and they didn’t get to see those shows either. I guess by the time I was old enough to watch what I wanted, I was too old for them.”

Reeling a little at the thought of a childhood without
Nickelodeon
or Big Bird, Dan turned back to the window. “The holiday is based on a miracle that supposedly happened when the Maccabees rededicated the Temple in Jerusalem.” He set the candles in the menorah. “Oil that should only have lasted one night, which wasn’t enough for the dedication ceremony, burned for eight days. So you start with one candle and add another each night until the last, when you have eight.”

“But there are nine slots, and you’ve set out two candles. What’s with the extra?”

“It’s the candle you use to light the others.” Dan backed up, then recited the Hebrew prayer his uncle had drilled into him two decades earlier.

“What’s that mean?” Dan had worried a guy named Christian might find the ceremony laughable or distastefully strange, but his guest seemed merely curious.

“Uh, blessed is the Lord of the universe, who lets us, uh, live to light these candles? Something like that. I hope. If I pronounced it correctly.” He struck the match, then held it to the
shamash
. He hesitated. “Um, how old are you, Chris?”

Chris’s eyebrows rose. “Twenty-seven.”

Dan stepped back. “I’m twenty-eight. In my family, the youngest kid lights the candle the first night. Then the next oldest, and so on, going back to the youngest if you run out of kids.”

Chris stood, nothing in his expression indicating he found this odd. “And since we don’t have any kids…” He reached for the shamash, then looked over his shoulder. “Okay to do it just like this?”

“That’s fine.” Dan watched as the flame leaped from one wick to the other. He still wasn’t sure why this meant so much to him. Just a few months ago, he would have said being Jewish wasn’t a big part of his identity. It was an accident of birth, and the source of some of his family's favorite traditions. But after moving to a smaller city with a much smaller Jewish population, he’d felt different because of his background. That sense of alienation had evaporated, thanks to a stranger who’d listened, accepted, and was participating in one of those traditions.

“My grandmother taught me to put a menorah in the window. She says it lets the neighborhood know she’s proud to be Jewish.” He gazed out the window and across the street. “Kind of like your rainbow flag. It says, ‘This is who we are. Deal with it.’”

“Confession time. I put the flag up because I didn’t have any curtains and needed the privacy.” Chris laughed, and Dan enjoyed the sound. He liked men with voices deeper than his own light tenor.

“It still makes a statement.”

Chris stuffed his hands in his front pockets, looking uncomfortable for the first time since he’d arrived. “I was going to buy real curtains, but then a couple of the neighbors made remarks, so I couldn’t.”

Dan understood immediately. “Ah. Because they’d think you removed it because of their complaints. I get that. Bastards.”

“Oh, they didn’t say they wanted it down because it was a pride flag.” Chris rolled his eyes. “They said it was
a bit too colorful
for the neighborhood.”

“The neighborhood is a bit too colorless for me, and the flag is the only thing I like seeing when I come home.” Dan’s glance was sly. “Unless its owner happens to be on his porch.”

Chris blushed. Dan decided he was moving too fast, so he stared at the candles. “I feel silly making such a fuss about Hanukkah. It’s not even a major holiday, you know. It’s more for kids than adults.”

“‘Childhood is not from birth to a certain age, and at that certain age the child is grown, and puts away childish things.’” Chris spoke dreamily, watching the flames, while Dan stared in surprise at his profile. “We need childhood, even once we’re grown. It’s ‘the kingdom where nobody dies.’ It’s where we’re safe.” He seemed to feel Dan’s gaze and turned, his fair skin flushing even more. “Um, that’s from a poem I just remembered.”

“It’s great.” Dan’s first impression of Chris had been he was a pleasant and sexy man, but not a complicated one. You expected guys who drove pickup trucks and looked like farmers to be simple and, if not straight, at least straightforward. But Chris had proved he could recognize a Shakespeare reference, and now he was quoting poetry. “‘The kingdom where nobody dies.’ We all need to hide there sometimes, don’t we, even when we know it’s an illusion? Otherwise life is just too hard.”

Chris surprised Dan again by taking a step forward, setting his big hand on the back of Dan’s neck, then tilting his head up for a kiss.

The sweetness of the wine and those sugar cookies overwhelmed him at first, and then faded into the taste of Chris himself, strong and male. Dan found himself backed against a wall, trapped by the bulk of the bigger man. Chris wasn’t much taller, but his shoulders were broader, and he had at least fifteen pounds of solid muscle on Dan. But Dan didn’t feel threatened. There was nothing coercive in the way Chris kissed him, nuzzled his neck, and ran gentle hands up and down his spine. Dan realized Chris deliberately left space between them, touching with his mouth and hands, but not crushing their bodies together. Those sweet, openmouthed kisses were a question, not a demand.

Dan answered by slipping his hands around Chris’s neck, drawing him in. Chris gasped as their bodies connected, hard and needy. Dan ground his hips against a promising bulge in Chris’s jeans. Chris groaned and, in a sudden move, grabbed Dan’s ass.

Dan wasn’t sure who started fumbling at waistbands first, but he suspected he was the culprit. He was sure he liked the feel of the thick cock that almost fell into his hand. When it slid silkily against his own, he had to bite down on his lip to keep from coming too quickly.

He needed even more control when Chris’s hand wrapped around both cocks, then rubbed them together. His thumb flicked over the heads, and Dan lost all power of conscious thought for the next several endless minutes.

As he came, Chris’s mouth crushed down on his again, tongue shoving inside with no gentleness now. Dan was suddenly aware that he’d been shoved hard against the wall. He was glad of its support as Chris continued to grind into him. Dan’s knees had gone weak, and he was shaking in reaction.

Chris came a few seconds later, giving a grunt of pleasure before he moved back half a step. They stood, foreheads pressed together, arms still around each other, panting. They were tucked into the corner next to the big front window. Dan was relieved they were out of sight from the street, even with the curtains thrown wide and the menorah doing its best to light the room with two small candles. Very slowly, far more cautiously than they had come together, they pulled apart.

They smiled at each other with the awkwardness of two barely acquainted people who had just been privy to each other’s strongest sensations. Before either could speak, a phone began playing the incongruous notes of Paul Simon’s “Mother and Child Reunion.”

Dan was going to let it go to voice mail, but when he recognized the ringtone, he jerked away, straightening his clothes as he rushed to accept the call. “Did she have the baby?” The words burst out of him in place of a more conventional greeting.

He sagged as his mother’s voice responded in a soothing tone. “No, not yet. She had a doctor’s appointment today, though, and they said she’s starting to dilate, so it should be soon.”

The only kind of dilation Dan was familiar with in a medical sense involved the eye doctor, and he was sure that wasn’t what his mother meant. Since he was also sure an explanation would appall him, he didn’t ask for one. “Okay. I hope she doesn’t go into labor in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner.”

“So say we all. Your father’s right here. He wants to talk to you.”

Dan glanced at Chris, who was standing in the corner, tugging his sweatshirt down to hide his stained clothing. He ducked his head and moved toward the door, mouthing,
I’d better go.

“Just a second.” Dan held the phone to his chest. “You can stay.”

Chris shook his head. “I have to change.” He was whispering. “But…do you have someplace to go tomorrow? For Thanksgiving dinner, I mean.”

Dan almost wished he didn’t, because it sounded like Chris was about to ask him along to wherever he was going. But he nodded. “A coworker invited me to have dinner with his family.”

Chris nodded back, then left by the front door as Dan went back to his conversation.
Damn
. He loved his parents, but they could have had better timing.

Chapter Two

Second night—Thursday

Chris left Terry and Warren’s house before dessert was served. His face had hurt from the effort of smiling even before the turkey made an appearance. He finally bailed when Terry started arguing with his father. Everyone else had seen the verbal brawl coming and fled to the kitchen, leaving Chris sitting in the middle of a fight about some construction job. Terry was a good friend, but he and his father were always having screaming matches fueled by the stress of the family business. No one could explain to Chris why they continued to work together.

Terry’s husband, Warren, didn’t even try. When Chris slipped into the kitchen to say his farewells, Warren just rolled his eyes. Terry’s mom apologized, handed Chris a plastic plate covered with plastic wrap, and thanked him for coming.

He thanked them for having him before escaping, feeling guilty. But he wasn’t used to that level of acrimony and didn’t know how to cope with it. His own family was well behaved to the point of being pathological, which was why he hadn’t been invited to their house this year. His father was sorry, but sharing dinner with a homosexual would make most of the Parsons clan uncomfortable. His mother assured Chris he was welcome to Sunday dinner as long as he checked first to make sure Uncle Martin and Aunt Debbie weren’t coming too. Apparently Uncle Martin was incapable of digesting green bean casserole if there was a sodomite in the vicinity. Since the sight of Uncle Martin gave Chris heartburn, he tried not to let the situation bother him.

He wondered if any family found a happy medium between those extremes, or if Thanksgiving was just an ironically named joke, an opportunity for people to make their nearest and dearest as unhappy as possible.

Next year he should boycott the holiday. Find something else to do. He smiled, remembering the unexpected celebration he’d enjoyed with his neighbor last night. But from what Dan said, it was unlikely Hanukkah would coincide with Thanksgiving the following year. He’d have to make the most of the distraction it offered now.

When he'd found the package on his doorstep the day before, Chris’s impulse was to shove it in a corner of his foyer until he could find time to take it to the post office and have them return it to the sender. But then he noticed the guy who lived across from him had just come home.

Chris saw Dan watching him, and was fairly sure the glances weren’t motivated by disgust at the rainbow flag. And Chris certainly didn't feel any disgust at the sight of the slender man with a mop of black, curly hair. In fact, after catching sight of Dan raking leaves one afternoon, Chris had decided he was the only really decorative object Prince Albert Circle had to offer. The mysterious box made an excellent excuse for an introduction.

He was surprised to find out the package actually did belong to Dan. His ploy turned out better than he anticipated. Dan smiled warmly and welcomed him in without hesitation. So little hesitation that Chris was tempted to warn him about stranger danger. But he didn’t want to plant a seed of doubt about himself, so he followed Dan into the living room, enjoying his delight at the box of childhood treasures.

Up close, his neighbor was even better looking than he appeared from a distance, with a flirty, friendly personality that made him instantly likable. Chris quickly came to the conclusion that Dan was more than a bit out of his league.