Grumble Monkey and the Department Store Elf (6 page)

Well… except there was a Santa Claus, wasn’t there? Why, he had one of Santa’s elves sitting in his car this very moment.

Hell!

Then he really started to laugh. He could swear by a
place
he didn’t believe in, but he couldn’t swear by God? Something was wrong, wasn’t it?

Shit!

He got up and went to the sink one more time, cleaned the tears off his face, got the ever-present Visine from his pocket, and de-redified his eyes.

And opened to door to find Kit there, hand raised to knock. In fact, the kid almost knocked on his forehead. He was wearing a ridiculous purple sweatshirt with the logo “I Can’t Even THINK Straight.” Hell! People in the store had seen it. Kit didn’t even care, did he? He probably wasn’t even aware of which shirt he’d put on.

“Oh! Sorry! I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”

“I’m fine.”

Kit nodded weakly. “Want to get some ice cream?”

“Ice cream?” He looked at Kit incredulously. “Haven’t you had enough ice today?”

“It’s as hot as Hades in your car. I’m warm as can be. Especially in the inside. I can use some Nutty Coconut and a scoop of Winter White Chocolate.”

Nick’s eyes flew wide, and he burst into laughter. “Oh hell, Kit! You want some
winter
-flavored ice cream?”

“Well, golly. Of course. Sounds
fab
ulous.”

Nick wiped at his eyes again, but at least it was for a better reason. “Lead on,” he said. “Chocolate-Chip Cookie Dough awaits.”

“Chocolate-Chip Cookie Dough? You can get that
any
where!”

“You have what you wants, I’ll have what I wants.”

“Yes, sir,” Kit replied. “Yes, sir!”

N
ICK
LICKED
the ice cream off the pink plastic spoon, and Kit couldn’t help but watch. He’d always found spoon licking kinda sexy, even though Axel—his dorm mate—loved to tease him about it. He would find pictures on the Internet and send them to Kit. To Kit’s embarrassment, they always made him horny. It reminded him of when Joe, one of the few lovers he’d had in his life—well, sexual partners, not
lovers
—would look up at Kit while he was….

“So tell me about this family of yours,” Nick said, breaking into his oral thoughts. “Did you say there were five of you in all?”

Kit smiled and gave a happy sigh. He nodded. “Yup! Well, five kids, not counting Ma and Pa. There’s Ambrosia, the oldest. Piers, he’s the next and my only brother. Then me. Then Valentine and Celeste. Celeste is the youngest. She’s twelve. She’s the uh-oh! Mom didn’t think she could get pregnant anymore. She hadn’t had a kid in seven years.”

“Wow. Of course, that is the danger of heterosexual sex.”

Kit nodded. “Tell me about it. It’s something I don’t have to worry about.
I
can’t get pregnant.”

“But that sure isn’t going to keep you from trying?”

Kit blushed furiously. He could feel the heat as his face burned red.

Nick chuckled. “Okay. So Celeste is the uh-oh!” He took another bite of ice cream.

“Yeah,” Kit said, relieved at the reprieve.

“Some pretty… unusual names.”

“Well, Dad and Mom are Jack and Diane and they always hated their names, especially after that song. They said they wanted kids with unique names.”

“Like Kitten?”

Kit blushed again. “
Keaton
,” he corrected.

Nick nodded and winked at him.

Golly. Kit felt his stomach fill with butterflies. Nick was so… weird. One minute he was such a total cheese nug, and the next he could be so nice.

Kit’s gaze glued to Nick’s mouth. He was licking that spoon again.

“Am I doing something weird?” Nick asked.

Once more, Kit blushed. Caught. Totally busted. “N-no,” Kit said. Hopefully, it didn’t sound as unconvincing to Nick as it did to him.

Nick raised an eyebrow.

Fetch! Quick! Get the conversation back where it was. Problem was, he suddenly couldn’t remember what he was saying.

“Your parents are named Jack and Diane, and they didn’t like their names because of the John Cougar Mellencamp song.”

Yes! That was it. “Yeah,” Kit said. “They didn’t want us to have boring names.”

“Like them.”

Kit nodded.

“Did it backfire on them?” Nick asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, doing something like that can backfire. Sometimes a kid with a different name hates it.”

Kit shrugged. “I always liked mine,” he said.

“Kit or Keaton—”

“Both.”

“—or Kitten?”

“Yeah. Well. Even that one.”

“I’m impressed. I would have hated something like that. I like Nick just fine. Not too different. Not boring either.”

“I like it,” Kit said.

Nick began to scrape the last little bit of ice cream from the pink-and-brown dotted bowl. “Thanks,” he replied.

“No problem.”

Nick put his spoon down. “You about ready? I figure we can be in Terra’s Gate soon.”

Kit rolled his eyes. “I guess it turned out to be a lot longer than two hours.”

“That’s because you meant a regular two-hours-on-a-nice-day two hours, and not an in-this-weather two hours.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. It doesn’t matter. You ready?”

Kit quickly took his last bite, then stood up. “Ready,
mon capitan
.”

“Let’s hit the road then, Jack.”

“And never come back no mo’,” Kit finished.

Nick gave him the funniest look then. For some reason it made Kit shiver. Nick’s eyes had looked… kinda chilling.

“You can say that again,” Nick said suddenly and turned and headed for the front doors.

“G
OSH
,” K
IT
said. “The house sure is dark.”

They’d made the last part of the trip in good time, but it had still taken them an hour to drive forty miles. Between the ice and snow and the fact that the sun had set, they hadn’t been able to drive the speed limit.

“Could they be asleep?” Nick said as they pulled in the driveway.

“No way,” Kit said. He didn’t like this. The Christmas lights were on, but that was probably due to Mrs. McKenna from next door. She usually watched the house when his family went away. She would want to make it look like there was someone home. And her son had probably cleared the driveway. Thing was, it didn’t look like anyone
was
home. Not to him. And how could that be? They should be home by now. Maybe that’s why they hadn’t been answering the phone. But what was wrong? They should have gotten home from California early this morning. Before the storm.

As soon as Nick pulled in the driveway, Kit jumped out of the car, and, fishing his keys out of his coat pocket, he raced for the front door.

“Be careful, Kit” came Nick’s voice. “Don’t fall.”

Kit barely heard him. He unlocked the door and shot into the house. Flicking the light switch just inside, the lights came on to nothingness. “Mom? Dad? Ambrosia? Anybody home?”

No answer. Kit ran upstairs, calling out as he went. But when he reached the upper hallway, he could see all the bedroom doors were open, the rooms dark. His family was open, but they shut their doors at night. Especially his parents and Celeste, his youngest sister. She would padlock her door if Mom and Dad would let her.

“Kit?”

He looked over the hall railing to see Nick standing at the bottom of the stairs, closing the front door. “Up here,” Kit called.

Nick looked up, a question on his face. Kit shook his head. “No. They’re not here.”

The hall phone rang, and Kit let out a shout of alarm. It had nearly scared him to death. He snatched up the phone. “Mom?”

“Kit?” came the male voice on the other end of the line. Who the heck was it?

“Who is this?” he asked. It certainly wasn’t his mom. Or his dad. Or even his brother Piers.

“This is Sloan. From next door?”

“Sloan?” Who? He was so disoriented; it took him a moment to catch on. “Sloan? Mrs. McKenna’s son?”

“Yeah. I take it this is Kit? I saw the car in the driveway. Heard voices.”

“Yeah. It’s me. My parents aren’t here.”

“Yeah. I know. They’re stuck in California. With the ice storms, KCI is closed.”

The airport was closed? “But the ice stopped.”

“I know, Kit. The ice is supposed to start up again any time now. Your mom and dad don’t know if they’re even going to make it until maybe day after tomorrow.”

The world tilted. But that meant….

From very, very far away, he heard footsteps. Nick coming upstairs? Why did it sound so far away?

“Kit? Are you there?” came Sloan’s voice from the other end of the line.

“Yeah, Sloan. I’m here.” Suddenly tears were filling his eyes. Crap! He was going to cry. Not again. He couldn’t cry with Nick coming up the stairs.

“I’m sorry, man. They’ll be home as soon as they can. But with the….”

But that meant. That meant….

“Do you need me to come over?”

Kit shook his head, then realized—of course—the neighbor couldn’t see him. “No.” His throat seized up. A sob was trying to make its way up his throat. He forced it back down. “No,” he managed. “I have a friend here.”

Did he? Was Nick a friend?

“Okay. If you’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Kit said.

“Okay, then. Good night. Oh. And Merry Christmas.”

“Sure,” he muttered. “Merry… merry Christmas.”

There was a click on the other end, and Kit pulled the phone away and just looked at it. He couldn’t even hang up.

“You okay, Kit?” Nick asked, reaching his side.

Kit found he couldn’t answer. Couldn’t move. If he did… why, he would cry like a baby.

Nick took his hand, the one with the phone, tried to take the receiver, but Kit just held on to it all the harder.

“Kit. What’s wrong?”

Kit shuddered and looked down at Nick, who gazed at him with eyes filled with concern. It was that look that broke him.

“They’re not coming home!” he cried and burst into tears.

“Oh crap,” Nick said.

Crap? Not shit?

Then to his surprise, Nick pulled him into his arms. Kit fought it for all of about four seconds and then collapsed, dropping his head on Nick’s shoulder and bawling
just
like a baby.

N
ICK
GOT
Kit downstairs and settled on the couch, and then went to the kitchen to find him something to drink. Hopefully, something with a little punch to it, but he wasn’t sure the parents of nonswearing, all-but-innocent Kit would allow alcohol in the house.

He was wrong. Just as he was about to enter the kitchen, he saw a small bar of sorts on the buffet in the dining room. Not a lot, but there were several decanters with little tiny metal signs hanging around their necks. Scotch. Rum. Vodka. Gin. Good. He grabbed the scotch and started his quest for glasses, and then did a double take.

There was a picture on the wall there, right above the buffet. Or, more properly, a piece of art. It was black and white, pencil work, of a man with his sleeves rolled up, a tattoo on one arm, working a belt sander across a piece of wood. Nick couldn’t take his eyes off it. The piece was amazing. The emotion conveyed in the work was unmistakable. The relationship between artist and model, between model and his connection with his tools and the wood, and more, between artist and
his
tools. For a moment, Nick couldn’t move. Then, of course, he remembered what he’d come for and went into the kitchen and poured some scotch in two small glasses he found in one of the cabinets.

Nick brought the scotches back, sat down next to Kit, and handed him one of the glasses. “Drink this,” he said.

Kit did so, and immediately started to cough. “Geeze! What
is
this?”

“Scotch. I thought you needed something strong.” He guessed Kit had never been the sneak-some-of-the-parents’-alcohol kind of guy.

“Strong? This is the
Hulk
!” Kit coughed some more, and Nick patted him hard on the back. But not too hard.

“Take another drink. Sip it this time.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Hush, and take your medicine.” Nick rubbed Kit’s back in a circular motion. For some reason, he was surprised at how hard the flesh was under his hand. Kit was so thin that Nick hadn’t expected such muscles.

Kit sighed and this time sipped carefully from the glass.

“Feel it?” Nick asked.

“Feel what?”

“The warmth. Spreading out through your stomach?”

“I-I guess. This stuff is still nastier than Nyquil.”

Nick took a sip of his own. Winced. Well. Definitely not Macallan. But it would have to do.

“What happened?” Nick said, and then surprised himself by pulling Kit over so the young man’s head rested on his shoulder.

“Airports are closed. The ice storm is supposed to start up again. My family’s on standby. And with the way they fly, who knows when they’ll get here. It could be next week!”

“Take another sip.” Nick waited until Kit had done so before asking more. “How does your family fly?”

“Well, they’d be on standby already, with my dad’s job.”

“What does he do?”

“Didn’t I say?” Kit sighed. “I never stop talking. Ambrosia is right. I am Chatty Cathy.”

“If you did, I don’t remember.”

“Dad works for the airlines. That’s how we can afford to fly. Especially with so many of us. But now even the people who pay for their seats are waiting. When do you think
my
family will get home?”

“Well….” Nick stopped. Well, what? Kit was right. Whatever could go wrong, would go wrong. Wasn’t that Nick’s motto? Didn’t this just
prove
that if there wasn’t bad luck, there wouldn’t be any luck at all?

But that wasn’t what Kit wanted to hear, was it? Nick needed to say something positive. And if he could find the words to make someone buy a $20,000 painting, couldn’t he find something to say to Kit to make him feel better?

The problem was, he wasn’t good at the “feel good” stuff. Not when he hadn’t felt good himself in about a thousand years.