Christmas Kitsch (Hol) (MM) (11 page)

And with that “better” came being better with school in general. I guess I figured that if my paper had been good enough for Pritchard, then I
was
capable of doing the work. That didn’t make it any easier, it just made it less hopeless. And the idea that I was going somewhere else—somewhere where all the kids weren’t all freakin’ geniuses—made it easier for me to face the fact that I might fail.

And the fact that Oliver would love me even if I did—
that
made all the difference in the world.

So by the time Thanksgiving rolled around, I was excited.

Rex grew up in Seattle, so he was saving all of his traveling time for Christmas. He said his moms were both climbing the walls to see him, and it had
still
taken me almost two months to figure out why he was okay with the gay thing and the bi thing. He said they weren’t exactly excited about the “fuck everything that moves” thing, but still, I was highly aware I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the socket.

I confessed this to Rex, and he’d laughed but looked troubled too.

“What?”

He shook his head. “I’m just sorry we’re not going to be roommates next semester, that’s all.”

Shock to me. “Are you kidding? This semester? I’m pretty sure you could have had a garden slug as a roommate, and he would have been more interesting than me.”

Rex was sitting on his bed, watching me pack. His moms had sent him a homemade quilt when they’d realized Thanksgiving was probably right out, and it was there, in blue and brown, and it reminded me of sea and sand.

“You’re funny,” he said seriously. “And you’re kind. And I’ve never seen someone try so hard to get things right. Don’t sell yourself short, Rusty. I’m looking forward to the whole three weeks after Thanksgiving, so I can take you out after finals. Do you realize you’ve never been to the beach? Or even downtown? Your entire impression of Berkeley is the dorm room and the lecture halls. It’s like flying to Paris and never seeing the Eiffel Tower.”

I felt a sudden pang. He was right. This was my big college experience for the moment, and it was over.

I winked at him, though. “Well, yeah, that would suck. But not if you were flying to London right afterward, and you got to spend the evening having tea with the Queen.”

He laughed then and hugged me, and I had a worry about this larger-than-life, beautiful guy who fucked everything that moved because he
loved
everything in the world.

“I don’t want to leave you here,” I said. “Promise me you’ll call on Thanksgiving, okay?”

He grinned. “I promise.”

“And when you’re lonely, call your moms, and tell them they did a good job for me, okay? You turned out
really
well.”

The only reason I didn’t go eighty all the way home is that it was wall-to-wall Thanksgiving holiday traffic. I went thirty most places, and what was normally a two-hour drive on the outside was suddenly a four-hour drive, and I was almost crying with the itch between my shoulder blades pushing me to get home.

Oliver was on the other side of all these cars. He was waiting for me.

I made a pit stop, though, right after I pulled off on Iron Point Road. There were a bunch of outlet stores there, a nice bathroom, and a McDonald’s, and I was
starving
beyond all reason, and I had to pee, and I felt mussed and like my breath smelled from all the coffee I’d been drinking to keep me sharp.

So I stopped to pee and brushed my teeth in the bathroom sink and combed my hair and splashed some water on my face when I was done. I tentatively looked in the mirror, remembering that a year ago I’d looked dumb and happy. And healthier. I mean, I’d been a
jock—
girls had wanted me, that was for damned sure!

Now? In the washed-out lights of the gas station, with pale skin and bags under my eyes and my arms thinner and a little blue because I’d come in without a sweater and it was
cold
in the foothills?

I looked . . . faded. Would Oliver want me faded? Had he fallen in love with the jock? Silly, right? Because I’d looked
way
worse after he’d kicked me out of bed that day—I’d avoided mirrors for the last three weeks. But still, the idea took some of the hurry out of me when I got back to the car, and I drove up the highway with a little more patience for the now-thinning traffic.

But I didn’t turn around and go back, and after getting off at El Dorado Hills and taking the long series of winding turns that got me to our exclusive little suburb, I was relieved to see my house, white stucco peeking out through the old trees that had grown even taller since I was a kid.

Parked on the road at the start of our driveway, out of sight from the house itself, sat Oliver in his dad’s truck. He was watching the road avidly, and even from a distance I could see his eyes widen and his face light up as I pulled into the mouth of our driveway.

I parked on the side, so someone could get by. The driveway itself was about half the length of a football field, and our front lawn was a big expanse of green in front of the two-story, white house. If someone was watching for me, yeah, they’d see my car there—but I wasn’t worried, really.

Seeing Oliver again—
touching
Oliver again—that was really all that was on my mind.

I threw open my door and tried to launch myself out of the car, but my seat belt brought me back with a jerk, and then I
felt
like a jerk, because, really, who does that? I unhooked my seat belt so quickly it snapped up
hard,
and the belt buckle caught my chin, and my elbow got tangled in it as I was trying to get out of the door and get out all at the same time, and . . .

I sat back in my seat and took a deep breath, then looked at Oliver sheepishly through the open door. He was trying manfully not to roll on the ground in laughter. I could tell. I held up one finger, took another deep breath, and exited the car with slow, methodical movements before I hurt myself. As soon as I shut my car door, I turned around, and was assaulted by a full-court press of Oliver.

I wrapped my arms around his body and held him tight and steady, like you would a wriggling puppy, and he threw his arms around my neck and plastered himself to me, a whole new second skin. I burrowed my face in his neck and breathed him He smelled like beans and rice and chili powder and, incongruously, turkey and gravy—which made me wonder what
his
family was eating for dinner tomorrow night. Underneath the food was the smell of his skin, and I breathed it deeper, rubbing the side of his neck with my nose until he made a little noise—not protest, really, but more of a wanting sigh. He lowered his head then, keeping his chin pointed up, and I bumped my nose and my lips along his jaw and up, until I came to his chin, which I kissed delicately while looking into his eyes.

“I missed you,” I said unnecessarily.

“I missed you too.” His voice was soft, and his breath was on my face. All of my nervousness melted into a warm, buttery need in my stomach. It was the most natural thing in the world to brush my lips against his, trace them with my tongue, taste. Chili spice, horchata, and Oliver, who tasted so good I started to like horchata. Mmm . . . taste again. Groan, open my mouth, feel his open against mine, and take everything inside.

He threaded his fingers through my hair and let me take over, and I reached down and grabbed his tiny, bony ass in two hands. He gave a hard moan and suddenly I was pushed back against the car as he hopped up and wrapped his legs around my hips.

Oh . . . oh . . . oh God, I’m home . . .

The kiss went on. The only sounds were the starlings under the black-gray sky and our ragged breathing as we pulled back and then melded mouths again. We were both wearing hoodies and jeans, and the cold was starting to seep through our clothes, but I didn’t want to let go. Oliver would keep me warm. Oliver
was
keeping me warm, and I
almost
wished he’d let me put him down so I could shove my hands under his sweatshirt and stroke the heated silk of his back.

I’d just had this thought when I heard two things, one of them welcome, and the other?

“
Russell Calvin Baker
!”

“Jesus, Mom! I told you they were talking.”

“You
knew
about this?”

Oliver dropped his feet down and turned, his back up against my chest, his head tucking right under my chin.

“Sorry, Nicki,” he said, grimacing, and my sister ignored him and came running at me. Oliver dodged out of the way so I got to hold my sister, and for the first time since I’d arrived, I felt weepy. She was still here, still in this house. How could I have left her, defenseless and all alone?

“We were so worried,” she said, and then she was literally jerked out of my arms.

“
Russell
!” Mom was wearing a twinset, this one Christmas red to match her cheeks. “We’ve been waiting for you—I had no idea you were . . .
Oh my God
!”

I tried a smile and wiped self-consciously at my face. Oliver had a sparse mustache, and my mouth felt a little razor burned.

“Uhm, we’re sort of in love,” I said, with a half smile.

“You most certainly are not.”

I squinted a little and looked at Oliver. “We are,” I reassured him. “I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

Oliver grabbed my hand and sent my mother a stony look. “I do,” he said. “You can’t be mean to him.” His voice was edged hard, and my mother eyed him distastefully—but also like an equal.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, eyes narrowed. “Just because he chose to—”

“There is no choice,” Oliver snapped. “If it wasn’t with me, it would have been with another boy. If it had never been another boy, it would have been a gun to the temple. There is no choice. I didn’t choose to have brown hair and brown eyes, and I didn’t choose to be gay. But I
did
choose Rusty. And he chose me.”

Wasn’t he awesome? Looking at him, it was like the whole world stopped, and it was Oliver telling my mother all the stuff my guidance counselor and I had talked about, and he hadn’t even been there.

My mother rolled her eyes. “That’s very sweet, but I think that, in the end, Rusty will choose the things that his family can give him over anything that
you
have to offer.”

I thought about it. “Well,” I said, trying to figure out what she was saying, “I’d keep Nicole—but really, I think that’s all.”

Nicole gave a little squeal and clapped, and it looked so childish, my brain slipped, and she was six again, and Estrella was taking us to the zoo.

“Really, Russell? Your sister? What about your education? Your future? The clothes you seem to love and that car?”

I looked behind me at the brown Toyota Prius, which I really did sort of love, because I didn’t ever have to worry about it starting. “I thought the car was a birthday present?”

“We’re still making payments. We can stop doing that.” She looked really smug, her arms crossed, her eyebrows arching, and it suddenly occurred to me what she was really offering me.

“So, you’re saying that if I want to live here and have you guys pay for school and everything, I
can’t
have Oliver?”

She nodded, like she knew what I was going to choose.

“And if I choose Oliver, I never have to go back to Berkeley?”

Next to me, I heard Oliver snicker, and my mother’s expression shifted, like there was something she hadn’t thought of.

I thought of all the work I’d done, and of the solid C+ average I’d been earning, which, although it wasn’t going to set the world on fire, was something I’d been proud of.

“That’s a shame,” I muttered. “I was
finally
getting the hang of that place.”

Oliver patted my hand, and I looked up to see him smiling kindly but also like he could hardly contain his happy dance.

“You’ll do better in junior college,” Oliver said, and I nodded before turning to my mother.

“Wow, Mom, that’s really sort of a no-brainer. Which way did you think I was going to choose?”

“Rusty, don’t be stupid.”

I wasn’t sure what noise was coming out of my mouth then: it was almost a laugh, but it was too shocked, and almost a sob, but too sane.

“Stupid . . .” Oh my God. Of all things. “Stupid?”

Oliver’s arm was tight around my waist. “Rusty, don’t.”

“Did you hear that? She wants me not to be stupid?” In that moment, I went from sort of removed from this whole idea to right there
in
the moment.

“Russell?” She sounded uncertain. Oh, thank God—uncertainty. It would be nice to think she wasn’t doing all this
knowing
it was the right thing.

“You know what’s stupid?” I asked, my voice pitching hysterically. “I mean,
really
stupid? I actually thought you’d be happy to see me.
That’s
what’s stupid.” I looked at Nicole, with her round face and her freckled nose and her sober brown eyes. “I don’t want to leave you here,” I said, and my eyes were hot and my face was hot, and she kissed my cheek and wiped my face with her thumbs.