The Holiday Hoax (7 page)

When it stopped, JD cradled my face with two hands, keeping his touch gentle. Something in his eyes was sweet and honest. I had never seen anybody look at me like that before.

Our gazes held.

I made a small sound and pulled JD to me for another kiss. Our mouths fused together. Riveted, I felt energy racing through my veins as I savored JD’s lips, even as my erection throbbed.

We started to breathe roughly. My tongue traced JD’s, and I tasted his warm, welcoming mouth. JD’s arms closed around me. I clutched his shoulders as he let out a low moan. Everything else melted away. Our eyes met again briefly. JD’s were heavy lidded with desire, black and piercing, and my heart slowed for a second. Then it sped up as the kiss deepened.

There was a loud noise in the hallway, just outside his door, and the sound of my sister and my mom laughing at something.

JD broke it off, panting. “Evan?”

I pressed my hand at his neck. JD’s pulse raced. His skin was extremely warm. “I better go before they come in here. Tomorrow, okay? Let’s talk then.”

I
WOKE
early, despite a night of sleeping only in small doses. I hadn’t been able to forget JD’s face enough to dream of something else. It was as if part of him had made its way inside me and kept me awake.

I tiptoed down to the guest room and was going to try and casually ask JD about breakfast. I pretended my heart wasn’t thumping in my chest at seeing him. The kiss had been amazing and intense, but I cautioned myself not to leap too quickly into assuming that it had meant the same to him. I’d already made that mistake once.

When I reached the room, the door was slightly ajar. I could see JD was still asleep. Sunlight lay across his handsome features, and I stared a long moment at JD’s parted lips. He had one wrist thrown over his head, and his legs were curled up. There was a slow rise and fall of his chest. My gaze lingered. Then I sighed and closed the door.

We didn’t get a chance to talk all day. First my sisters dragged JD holiday shopping, and then Noah came over and wanted to do a Wii dance marathon. I could never turn that challenge down, so I danced around my living room as the rock lobster in The B-52s’ old song. Then my mom asked me to help her make Christmas cookies, and no way would I skip that part of the holidays. In other words, there was always a good excuse to put off talking to JD.

I shouldn’t hide. I knew that. I should speak honestly with him, but it was so hard. I was afraid of what he might say. Was it so wrong to want to live in hope?

“Evan, I forgot a few things at the store.” Mom handed me a giant bowl. “Can you get the chocolate chip cookies started, and I’ll be back?”

“Sure.”

But after she left, I wandered out of the kitchen to look for JD, who was in the living room texting on his phone. I’d seen JD texting a few times on his phone, his face disappointed as he checked for replies, but this was the first time he’d caught me watching him.

“It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow.” JD gestured to the phone with a guilty look. “If Shawn were ever to call me, it would be now.”

“Last night you said he’d never accept you?”

“I know, but he’s my brother. Ah, forget it. I’m being dumb.” He looked at me. “Why don’t we change the subject, okay?”

“Okay. Want to make cookies?”

“Sounds good.”

JD and I quickly assembled all the ingredients on my mom’s recipe card, starting with the dry parts, like flour and baking soda, which we tossed into the bowl. We mixed some eggs in, and then JD measured out the brown sugar. After the vanilla and butter were added, we reached the final and best ingredient of all—the chocolate chips. I peeked at JD’s biceps as he stirred the dough. It takes some hard work to stir chocolate chip cookies by hand. Watching his muscles at work, I bit my lip rather than reveal that Mom’s electric mixer was in the nearby cabinet.

JD said, “I love this smell.” He rolled the dough into balls and then handed them to me to place on the ungreased cookie sheet.

“I’d eat it raw if my mom wouldn’t have a fit,” I agreed. I set the timer on the oven. “Has there ever really been a case of salmonella from the eggs in cookie batter? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Yeah, it’s urban legend. Like licking the back of a stamp will make you ill.”

“Or drinking Coke with Mentos can explode your stomach.”

“Lots of surprising things in your kitchen are dangerous in the right circumstances. Nutmeg, for instance, can be a hallucinogenic drug. If you take enough of it.”

“Huh.” The oven beeped as it reached the desired temperature. “I should start hanging out with science nerds more often.”

“We can be useful.” JD took an oven mitt and pulled out the cookie sheet. “But don’t try the nutmeg thing. Too much can kill you.”

“Death by nutmeg? Yep, that’d be the way I’d probably die, all right. It would be fitting.”

“The only thing that would make these cookies better, would be a kiss pressed right in the center,” JD said. “Hershey’s are good.”

“I love chocolate,” I replied. Okay, technically JD really might be thinking about cookie dough, but I seized the opportunity. “Hershey’s, Dove’s, Godiva. I like all kinds of kisses.” I flirted. “Not that those other companies can call their chocolate ‘kisses,’ I think Hershey’s owns the name or something—”
God
,
could I suck any more at this
? “—but I like the taste of any chocolate.”

“Evan.”

JD said my name as if he were in pain. He didn’t seem to think my attempts at seduction were a C minus at best. He was smiling at me as if everything were perfect—more than perfect. He took a chocolate chip from the bag and offered it to me. Opening my mouth, I let the chocolate melt on my tongue. I could taste the tip of JD’s finger for a second and longed to suck it. The chocolate taste lingered in my mouth.

As I reached into the bag and fed a chip to JD, I whispered, “I want some more chocolate.”

“I’m craving more too,” JD said. “I never wanted anything so badly.”

My entire body reacted at those words. A shiver moved through me as he watched. We hadn’t known each other long at all, so why did it feel as if JD understood me better than anybody else in the universe? The scent of cookie dough and chocolate was in the air. I held his arm a moment, afraid everything I was feeling might suddenly vanish. I glanced at the kitchen door.

I reluctantly stepped away. “My mom could return any second.”

When the cookies were done, we devoured the warm, gooey, chocolate chip treats so that when my mom finally came into the kitchen to check on our progress, she had to bake a whole other batch of sugar ones.

“You could have left some of the chocolate chip ones for the rest of us,” Courtney complained.

A
T
SUNSET
,
the entire family had gathered to light the menorah.

“I love chocolate,” Courtney said. Then she scowled. “Why are you two laughing at that?”

“No reason,” I said, not daring to look over at JD. “Mom did make the sugar ones. We’re saving you from having to diet after New Year’s.”

“You’re the one on the stage, weirdo. You should worry about your waistline as much as me.”

“I have an idea.” My mom interrupted our fighting. “Why not skip dreidel tonight and play a game of charades? After all, we have two actors here; it should be a great game if we divide up Tyler on one team and Evan on the other.”

“No, Tyler likes dreidel, Mom. Charades is for little kids anyhow.”

“We play dreidel all the time. If your mom wants to mix it up, let’s do it.” Dad smiled at JD. “You can be on my team.”

Without a doubt, JD stunk at charades. He didn’t even know the sign for movie camera, or to offer “sounds like” clues. My team with Ann and Mom demolished Dad, Courtney, and JD in every round. I didn’t know how to rescue JD at all. The only round he didn’t totally bomb in was from
Charlotte’s Web
.

“Good job!” Courtney gave JD an encouraging high five.

“Well, the farm part was easy for me to act out,” JD said, smiling for the first time that hour, instead of looking as if his head were in a guillotine.

“Why would the farm parts be easy?” Ann asked innocently.

Oh hell
!

Tyler, of course, wouldn’t know squat about farming having lived only at prep schools and embassies. JD, realizing his mistake, floundered to answer. His face turned bright red.

“Our team’s turn! All of you hush up!” I marched to the center of the rug. I made a square shape with my hands.

“Television show!” Courtney shouted.

I continued to act out
Teen Wolf
and prayed the game would end soon.

During a quick break, however, Mom called me into the kitchen to help with some refreshments. I hated to leave JD at the mercy of the others, but I couldn’t refuse. My mom poured some Coke into glasses, filled them with ice, and then turned to me, pursing her lips a moment before she spoke. “Look, sweetie, I can see you’re happy being here with Tyler, but—”

“What? You don’t like him?”

“No! No, I do. But you’re new to all this relationship stuff, and maybe your dad and I should have talked with you more—”

“God, Mom, please! I don’t need a sex talk. I get how it all works.” My face heated.

“Good, I’m glad.” My mom’s face flushed too. “And since you know about sex, and more importantly, you know our rules about having boyfriends—the same rules we have for Courtney and Ann, to be clear—it wasn’t what I was going to say. I do like Tyler, quite a lot, but there is something… off about him. I don’t know how to put this gently, sweetie, but I get the distinct feeling Tyler might be hiding something from us. From you.”

“Jesus, Mom.”

“Evan, listen—”

“No. I’m not going to listen to some bullcrap about Tyler and me.”

“When I was young, before I met Dad, I had my heart broken by guys who were less than honest with me. And you are just like me, Evan. You’re so easy to give your heart to things. People. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

“Mom, just stop talking. I’m too old for you to fix everything. I let you do that way too much when I was a kid.” I drew in a deep breath. “I like Tyler. No matter what you think is off about him, I really like him and—hell, can’t you simply be happy for me? Okay? Can’t you trust me? Even if you don’t trust Tyler.”

“All right, all right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get you this upset.” She handed me the two glasses of Coke. “We should get back.”

L
ATER
THAT
night, having survived Mom’s kitchen interrogation, JD and I watched
It’s a Wonderful Life
on television. I could practically recite every word, especially the part where the drunken pharmacist slapped a young George Bailey’s sore ear. I refrained at first, conscious of JD sitting next to me, but then I gave in to it, quoting softly a few of my favorite lines. JD didn’t look at me strangely. If anything, his eyes crinkled in the corners, and he seemed amused.

“You could act this thing out better than Jimmy Stewart,” JD said. And just like that, I fell hard.

Not because JD had praised me, but because he “got” me. I didn’t have to hold back, or rein myself in, or be anybody but who I was, and that fact was dizzying and terrifying and amazing all rolled into one.

With Tyler, it had been about his looks. I had scrambled after him, accepting his crumbs, thinking I was entitled to no more. JD, in his own way, was every bit as good-looking as Tyler, but that wasn’t what mattered. Act unworthy of more, you get less
.
That had been my problem.

I felt a bittersweet happiness inside me. I was letting JD in, but would it bring me closer to love, or farther away?

“Man up, Goodman.”

“Did you say something?” JD asked.

“Me? No.”

H
OURS
LATER
,
after turning off the Christmas tree lights before I went to bed, I still couldn’t sleep. The thought of JD only a room away was too much. We’d parted for the night after the movie, and in a few days, we’d be back to the dorm. JD would go back to his classes. So would I. Would everything between us, so fragile and new, continue? Or would it fade away? JD had kissed me. But did I have any right to expect something more from him?

I startled when a knock rapped at my door. JD poked his head in. “I saw your light on. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Me either.” I smiled. “Maybe it’s because Santa Claus comes soon?”

JD smiled back. “Yeah, one more day. I can’t wait until Christmas Eve.”

“I thought you disliked the holidays?”

JD flushed. “This year’s been okay.”

“I’m glad.” Seeing my comment only further embarrassed JD, I went on, “And it’s the final night of Hanukkah too.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Yeah. I know for some families it would be a lot to keep straight, but it is just my normal.” I winked. “And my normal has never been straight.”

JD didn’t laugh at my joke. His eyes darkened and he stared in a way that made my heart skip a beat.

I tensed and sucked in a long breath of air. I hoped JD would do something, say something.

But his gaze shifted to my window. He licked his lips. “It’s a nice night. Lots of stars.”

“Hey, come with me a second.”

“Why?”

“Just come on.”

After putting on our coats and shoes, we went into my garage, where I wrestled the old telescope out from the back of a pile of unused stuff. “I almost forgot my sister had this.”

“Will she mind?”

“Mind? She hasn’t dusted off this poor telescope in five years. She could never focus it right. But I bet you could.”

“Sure, I’ll take a look with you.”

I hit the garage-door opener, and we carried the telescope outside. JD adjusted it, his tongue at the corner of his lip as he concentrated. I watched, hands tucked under my armpits, trying not to reach out and touch him. I went back to the garage and found a blanket, which I spread out, and an old radio, which I tuned to a station I liked. Then I sat there cross-legged, watching JD’s every move.