Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf (3 page)

“That’s just the load of bull Spencer used to dish out. My parents don’t walk around in public holding hands and kissing on street corners. Why should I?”

Then, taking a final chance: “Is Spencer your boyfriend?”

“Boyfriend!” Nick spat. “I hate that word! Boyfriend! I’m thirty-two years old, not twelve. I have
partners
, not ‘boyfriends.’ And no. He’s not my boyfriend. He’s my ex.”

Thirty-two? Dang! And here Kit thought Nick was about forty! This guy must have lived a hard life. Of course, Kit didn’t say any of this out loud. “Oh. I see.” He sighed. “Sorry about that.”

“Why are you sorry? You didn’t have anything to do with it.”

Yowza. What was wrong with this guy? He seemed more and more like a jerk. But he
had
offered Kit a ride. He didn’t have to do that.
Maybe I should just read a book. He doesn’t seem to want to talk.

But then Kit thought of hours without talking, and for him that was almost as bad as hours without breathing. Axel didn’t call him Chatty Cathy for nothing.

“I just meant sorry that he’s your ex. That can be tough.”

“What can? Breaking up or having a boyfrrr… a
partner
to begin with?”

Kit gulped. This conversation was weird. Just weird. Nick never even looked his way. Just shot answers out like he was reading a script or something. Of course, he didn’t want to take his eyes off the icy road. But still. It was almost creepy.

“I’ve never really had a boyfriend before. Not really. Kinda. But not
really
.”

“Now what kind of sense does that make? Either you had one or you didn’t. You can’t kind of have a boyfriend.”

“Well, there was this guy in high school. Nelson. But he wanted everyone to think he was straight. So we couldn’t hold hands or go to prom or—”

“Prom!” Nick finally spared him a glance, his expression aghast. “
Prom
? Hell. You would have taken a boy to prom with you? What? And danced to the slow songs and gotten your picture taken?”

Nick’s words stung him for some reason. What was wrong with him? He was so… so angry. “Well, golly,” Kit said. “Sure. Why not? Everyone else did. Why should I miss out just ’cause I’m a guy?”

Nick shook his head. “You and Spence would have gotten along smashingly. Sitting around talking about Cher and Madonna and DOMA and gay marriage and all that fairy shit.”

Ouch. “Don’t you want to get married someday?” he asked.

“Why? It didn’t work out for my parents. Why should it work out for me? Marriage is a dying institution. Ridiculous. What’s the point? Set yourself up for disappointment? Then have to spend thousands of dollars to get a divorce? No, thank you.”

“But what about our rights? Shouldn’t we be protected in case something happens?”

“Like what?”

“Like sickness? What about insurance or social security or things like that? What about death? I had a lesbian friend once who was with her wife for years.
Years
! Her wife died, and her family came in and took the house, the cars, everything. Threw my friend out in the streets. They even took her clothes!”

“Didn’t they have everything in both their names?”

“I—I…. No. They didn’t.”

“Why the hell not?” Nick gave him another look, one of pure…. Heck. What was it? It almost looked like disgust or something.

“They were older,” Kit explained. “They got together in a time where…. Well! In a time where two women couldn’t go around holding hands in public. Kate said they kept meaning to put everything in both their names, but they just couldn’t. They were too scared. And then Kate’s wife died, and she was just thrown out and had to start all over. Thank goodness she had lots of friends so she had a place to stay. She didn’t even have a job.”

“No job?” The comment was almost a shout. “She didn’t have a
job?
Why the hell not?”

“Well. She took care of the house and—”

“I don’t believe it. You mean she was the housewife, is what you’re saying?”

“Why… I guess so.”

“Then she got what she deserved. What self-respecting person would live off of somebody else? It’s practically stealing.”

“My mom doesn’t work,” Kit said, stunned by Nick’s words. Had he called the man a grumble monkey? Nick was worse. He was a creep. And if the weather wasn’t so horrible, he would ask to be let off at the next rest area. Better that than sit here with this awful man and his awful talk. No wonder Nick didn’t have a boyfriend!

“Your mom doesn’t work?” Nick shook his head. “Too busy watching soap operas and eating bonbons?”

“Okay. That’s it!” Kit had finally had enough. “You leave my mom out of your rotten talk. She raised five kids. She takes care of the house. She pays the bills and makes the meals and makes sure my brother and sisters—”

“Get their laundry done?” Nick asked, cutting him off.

Kit crossed his arms. “Exactly!”

“Well if that is what works, then fine. But I wouldn’t want to live off of anyone. I don’t care if I was legally married or not. I want to take care of myself first before anything else.”

“But what about love?” Kit said with a gasp.

“Love!” Nick snorted. “What the hell has love got to do with it?”

Kit opened his mouth to snap back… then froze, a song filling his mind. “That’s Tina Turner,” he replied.

Nick sighed.

“And you knew it. You’re just as big a fairy as I am.”

“I am not!” Nick looked daggers at him.

“Keep your eyes on the road, grumble monkey,” Kit said and smiled. “It’s dangerous out there.”

G
RUMBLE
MONKEY
? Grumble monkey?
Nick gritted his teeth. Clenched his jaw. And had that little shit called him a fairy? Why, if Kit had been one of his employees, he’d be collecting his final check and heading out the door.

Why, oh why, did I pick this kid up?

Because it’s sleeting like hell out there, and you couldn’t leave him in the middle of nowhere. Who knows when or how he’d have gotten out of there otherwise?

Nick sighed. “What the hell is a grumble monkey?” he asked after taking a few deep breaths.

“It’s a grouch,” Kit said with that giggle in his tone. “A stinker. A grinch. A big old poop.”

“I am
not
a ‘poop.’ And hell! Can’t you say ‘shit’ like a normal person? What are you, four years old?”

“I was raised to be polite. I don’t have to have a potty mouth to be a ‘normal person.’”

“So what the hell do you say when you’ve got a guy in bed? Ask him to suck your ‘pee pee’? What do you do when you want to fuck?”

“Gee whiz. You really do have a mouth on you, don’t you? Do you kiss your mama with that mouth?”

Nick stiffened. Gripped the wheel hard. Took a breath. “I don’t talk to my mother.”

Kit gasped audibly. “Why not?” His voice was filled with shock.

Oh, you really do live in a fairy-tale world, don’t you? You with your mommy staying at home and your daddy working and your siblings all one big happy family.
“She threw me out. Her and my fucking father. Threw me out when they found out I was gay!”
There, you little fairy. What do you think of that?

No answer. Interesting.
No words of wisdom, you little
…. Nick looked to the right, and was surprised at what he saw. He hadn’t quite expected to see that Kit’s mouth had fallen open and those big blue eyes of his were wide and—wet. Glistening. Crying? Nick turned back to the road.
Crying?
What the hell did Kit have to cry about…?

Wait. Something in the road up ahead. What the hell…?

It was a truck. A big one. Semi. And it was…. It was on its side, half in a ditch and half over to the right. The back doors had burst open and there were boxes everywhere. Shit. It was the semi that had roared past them earlier. “Freak out!” cried Kit. “Nick! It’s that truck. The one that—”

“Yes. I-I see that.”
The one that I wished would jackknife. Shit….

No. You didn’t wish it would jackknife. You said it would serve him
right
if he jackknifed that thing. You didn’t wish this on him.

You might as well have….

Well now. Like I have the superpowers to make this happen?

“Look!” Kit pointed out the window. “It’s the driver.”

Sure enough, a man was staggering out from around the trailer of the huge vehicle. He was holding his head, stumbling.

“We gotta stop, Nick.”

Shit!
Would his luck never, ever change? What was he supposed to do? Take the son of a bitch to a hospital?

But as they drew closer, Nick saw the blood and knew very well he had to stop and help the man, idiot though he may be. He slowed to a stop and rolled Kit’s window down. The man turned and looked at them with wide, startled eyes. He had his hand up against the side of his head and the blood seemed to be flowing from somewhere along his hairline. Nick’s stomach turned. He’d always been squeamish about blood. He never let it show. That would be a sign of weakness. But hell, he hated it. Even more than his own. His own, he could deal with. But someone else’s?

“Mister!” Kit leaned out the window. “Are you okay?”

“I—I think so,” the man said in a tremulous voice. “A deer….” He staggered, and quick as a flash, Kit was out of the car.

“Kit,” cried Nick. “Come back!”
Shit shit shit!

Nick jumped out and ran around the car knowing, just
knowing
, he was going to slip and fall, but somehow or other, that didn’t happen. Miracle, he guessed.

Christmas miracle?

No, and please!

“You okay, mister?” Kit was saying as Nick rounded the front of his car and joined the pair, one tall and lanky, the other shorter and wide shouldered and built like a fireplug. Kit had one hand on the man’s elbow and was checking his wound with the other. “Hey. You’re in luck, this isn’t so bad….”

“It ain’t? You ain’t just sayin’ that to make me feel better?”

“Nopers,” Kit assured him.

Up close, Nick wasn’t as sure, but he also didn’t want to look. He was feeling squeamish, and his stomach was all aflutter.

You’re a big old fairy. Just like Kit said you were.

“You have any water in your car?” Kit asked him.

Water? Oh. Water. Of course.
Nick cursed himself again and turned back to his Bentley. “Sure. I’ll get it.” He opened the passenger rear door, and on the floor was a small cooler. He’d moved it there when he let Kit in. He pulled out a bottled water and then moved out of the way as Kit rummaged through his duffle bag and pulled out a pair of white socks, tucked into each other like a ball.
That ruins a pair of socks
, he thought, remembering Charlotte’s advice when he’d left for school.

But what Kit did next did a lot more to ruin them.

Kit opened the bottle and poured a bit onto one of the socks and, assuring the man they were clean, began to wash the blood off his face. Then: “This is silly. You should get in the car.” Kit turned and looked at Nick, and he nodded his permission. Of course. The driver couldn’t stand out here in the sleet. The accident was bigger than Nick’s own goals, and if it meant he might not get to frigging San Fran on time, then that’s what it meant.

Nick moved the cooler, and then grabbed Kit’s bag of laundry and moved it to the trunk while Kit got in on the other side. There was plenty of room for the big bag back there, as Nick had only brought the one small piece of luggage. He hadn’t needed much, after all.

It was only then he noticed the sleet seemed to be letting up a bit. Small favors, but he would take it all the same. He got in the car himself and turned up the heater. “I’ll call 911,” he said. He didn’t know why he hadn’t already.

It was the blood. Made your mind stop working. Fag.

“No need,” said the man as Kit finished up on his face. “I already called.”

But with all this ice, who knows when they’ll get here? Hell! All that blood. Bandage. Going to need
— “A bandage,” he finished aloud. “Kit. You need some bandages?”

“Yeah. Any antiseptic?”

“I’ll check.” Nick got out of the car for what seemed the hundredth time and opened the trunk. He found the small first-aid kit easily enough and knew it was stocked. It had never been used. A nice one, too, and a freebie from the man who had leased him the car. Like Nick hadn’t already been sold on the deal.

Nick brought the kit to the elf-turned-medic, and in no time, the man was treated with who knew what, Nick didn’t watch. And then another miracle: he heard the sirens of… well, something, anyway. A few minutes later, it turned out to be both a police car and an ambulance.

“You guys are heroes,” said the police officer after getting the injured man into the ambulance and then taking both their statements. “You know how many people would have just driven right on by?
Maybe
have called 911?”

Then later, back on the road again: “Why?” Nick asked his passenger.

“Why what?” Kit asked.

“Why did you tell that policeman that I insisted on stopping? That I helped?”

“You did help,” Kit said.

“I stood by and managed not to faint. Big frigging hero I turned out to be. You’re right. I am a fairy. I’m no hero.” Nick bit the insides of his cheeks. He suddenly felt like crying, and he didn’t know why.
It was the blood. The accident. Everything. It shook you up.

“You are a hero,” Kit said. “You helped me. You could have just left me back at that rest stop in the cold.”

Nick shook his head. “I haven’t done anything heroic in years. I’m a selfish bastard. Just like my old man.”

Nick jumped when he felt a hand on his elbow. He looked and saw Kit looking at him. “No. You’re not a bastard. And don’t call yourself that again. You hear me?”

God, he has pretty eyes
.

Nick nodded.

“Okay, then,” Kit said. “Terra’s Gate, here we come.”