The Promise of Snow

N
EXT
TO
the mall, Jungle Jim’s was Brandon’s least favorite place to go this time of year. Just finding a spot in the behemoth grocery store’s parking lot was a harrowing adventure. Especially a week before Christmas with freezing rain predicted for the weekend.

“Are we there yet?” Brandi asked as Brandon pulled up the parking brake. Her hand was still covering her eyes as he shut off the engine. She was a nervous passenger, but it was preferable to her particular brand of neurotic holiday driver, so Brandon didn’t comment.

“Come on,” Brandon said. “The sooner we get this over with, the better. This place is a zoo.” He grabbed the reusable grocery bags and his mother’s extensive shopping list. The neighborhood Christmas party was in a few days, and his parents were hosting this year. Thus, instead of going with appetizers that could be made with ingredients from the corner Kroger, she’d planned a significantly more exotic menu knowing she could send her only son to Cincinnati’s premier international market, and Brandon’s inner Scrooge had taken over with a vengeance. He had to do the grocery shopping anyway.

“Do you have the wine bag?” Brandi asked. “We are definitely getting you some wine.” She’d been his best friend since freshman year of high school due to a random homeroom seating chart and the matchy-matchness of their first names, and moments like these only cemented the bond. She wouldn’t be able to make the neighborhood party, so she’d thrown her support into the shopping trip from hell.

“The wine bag was the first thing I grabbed,” Brandon told her, “but I’ll choose not to take that as an insult.”

“I’m only looking out for you.” Brandi hooked her arm around his elbow as they made their way across the parking lot, which was still slick in spots from their last snowstorm. Despite the nature of their errand, she was, as usual, dressed to the nines, including impractical yet gorgeous leather wedge boots. Brandon was her human support rail; they had a very symbiotic relationship.

“Oh my God, I don’t think I told you,” Brandon said as they made their way through the produce toward the meat counter. “On top of the Christmas party BS, my mom wants me to call this jerk-off I used to play with as a kid.”

“What jerk-off?”

“You know Maxine?”

“The little old lady who has lived across the street from your parents the entire time I’ve known you? I vaguely recall.”

“Sometimes all you have to say is yes,” Brandon told her. “It’s short, simple, to the point.”

“Speaking of the point?”

“Right. So he’s her grandson, and he and his parents used to come visit her over Christmas when Walter was still alive. Since I was the only kid on the block, we were forced to play together. I think he’s, like, two or three years older than me? Anyway, he just moved to Cincinnati for work or something, and my mom thinks I should show him around.” Brandon had managed to avoid the task so far, but he wasn’t sure he could hold his mom off forever. “The dude was such a dick. He would always show me the cool presents he got, but he wouldn’t let me touch them, and he would hog the Nintendo.”

“Thank God you’re over it.”

“He called me BJ.”

Brandi snorted. “He was hardly the only one to ever come up with that.”

It was true. Had
J
been his middle initial, Brandon might’ve been able to keep it a secret and avoid the obnoxious moniker, but his last name was Jacobs, and kids weren’t all that clever. Not that he’d known what it meant at the time, but he knew by the dickish laughter that followed that it wasn’t good.

“Still,” Brandon said, because it was irrelevant. “So, his name is AJ, so I called him Asshole Jerk.” He laughed at the memory, then frowned when he caught Brandi’s unimpressed look. “I was like ten, give me a break. It was very clever at the time.”

“Whatever.” Brandi leaned in closer and whispered, “The beefcake at the counter is totally checking you out.”

At first, Brandon thought she was talking about the butcher, who was at least fifty and a little bit frightening. Then he spotted the customer who was none too subtly watching them as he waited for his order. No, he was definitely watching Brandon. The corner of his mouth quirked up when he met Brandon’s eye.

Brandon, in turn, bumped into a display.

“It’s like he stepped out of a J.Crew catalog. Jesus.” Brandi made a show of fanning herself, obviously not caring that the guy could see her. “I would climb him like a jungle gym.” She elbowed him and laughed. “Jungle gym.”

But she didn’t think
Asshole Jerk
was funny. “Yeah, I got it,” Brandon said, annoyed, but he couldn’t disagree with her assessment. While his preferences tended to be more along the lines of pretty emo boys with long hair and eyeliner, there was something undeniably appealing about the square-jawed yuppie Paul Bunyan standing in front of them.

He was wearing a navy V-neck sweater over a red plaid shirt, the tails hanging artfully out the bottom over his dark-wash jeans. He had just enough of a beard to look charmingly scruffy, and Brandon wouldn’t be surprised if there was a dimple hidden in there somewhere. The guy seemed the type for it.

“Do you suppose he’ll fit in the cart?” Brandon asked quietly.

“He kind of looks like he wants to.”

Brandon’s palms started to sweat as they approached the counter, and he tried to think up something casual and flirty to say to the guy. A cold approach in the grocery store was far outside his comfort zone. It couldn’t be anything meat related.

For the love of God, do not mention meat or packages or packages of meat,
Brandon thought as he watched the butcher hand the guy’s order over.

He was still trying to think of something when the guy started to move away. “I like your hat,” he said to Brandon as he passed, and Brandon realized he was still wearing the multicolored stocking cap that had the fluffy green ball at the end. Of course he was.

“You could have told me,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at Brandi.

“Don’t even. I have begged you not to wear that hat forever. This is not my fault.” She patted his shoulder and added, “If it makes you feel any better, he sounded like he meant it.”

It didn’t. Brandon pulled the hat off and stuffed as much of it as he could into his coat pocket.

“Your hair’s all fucked up,” Brandi pointed out helpfully.

“Thanks.”

“Anytime.”

“T
HE
PARTY
starts at six o’clock.” Brandon’s mom smacked his hand as he stole a few of the candied pecans she’d made earlier. “Maybe wear that nice green sweater Aunt Karen gave you last year.”

“Mooooom!” Brandon drew the word out, feeling all of five years old again. “Do I really need to come to the party? I haven’t lived in the neighborhood for twelve years. Can’t you just give me the food?”

The look his mom gave him was answer enough. “It won’t kill you to spend a few hours socializing with the neighbors. They’ve known you your whole life, they want to know how you’re doing. Maxine was just asking about you the other day.”

Brandon didn’t know if it was sweet or tragic that his mom continued to insist that the block full of gossips and busybodies really had his best interests at heart. “Whatever,” he said morosely, ignoring her pointed comment about Maxine. Hopefully her jerk-off grandson had managed to find his way around like the adult he supposedly was.

“That’s the spirit.” His mom patted his cheek. “Now go home and get cleaned up. You might want to shave too.”

“I am a grown man,” Brandon said petulantly, ignoring his mom’s sarcastic eyebrow raise. Just because he lived ten minutes away and visited his parents at least once a week didn’t make him any less of an adult. “I will do what I want with my facial hair.” He scratched at his cheek and realized he actually did need to shave, but that was his call to make, dammit.

B
RANDON
DIDN
’
T
show up for the party until nearly seven, more because he could than because he had anything else going on. He might’ve waited longer, but he started to get hungry, and if nothing else, the neighborhood Christmas party offered a wide array of delicious appetizers and desserts to choose from.

His mom gave him an exasperated look when she answered the door. “I was wondering if you were going to make it after all.”

“The place looks great, Mom,” he said and kissed her cheek. She had clearly gone into decorating overdrive after he left earlier. There were garlands and wreaths and lights everywhere, but the effect was surprisingly pretty. “It smells even better.” He shrugged out of his coat and started wandering toward the kitchen, where he knew the food would be laid out.

“Go put your coat away.” His mom grabbed his arm and steered him toward the guest room. “And at least say hello to people before you start grazing.”

“Can I say hello on my way to grazing?” he asked, but she’d already bustled away again to resume her hostess duties.

Instead of throwing his coat on top of the pile on the bed, Brandon hung it in the guest room closet, feeling a momentary smugness. It was his parents’ house. He could open closets if he wanted. With all the decorations and the sound of Christmas carols playing softly in the background, Brandon could feel himself getting sucked in by the seasonal cheer and goodwill. It was horrible. He would have to be on his guard.

The first wave of people were in the family room, mostly the ladies of the neighborhood, sitting on the couches and chairs, catching up on whatever it was they talked about. Most of them were his parents’ age or older, though in the past five years or so, a few younger couples had moved in, bringing fresh blood into the group. They turned on him en masse as soon as he walked into the room.

“Oh, Brandon! We’re so glad you could make it,” Jodi, the lady from two houses down, said. “Don’t you look handsome!”

“Hi, hello.” Brandon gave the room his winningest smile and shoved his hands in his pockets, feeling both awkward and a little bit flattered by everyone’s noises of agreement. He was never overly fond of being the center of attention in a room full of women. “I got a little held up at home. How are you all doing?” He nodded dutifully at their various answers and said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to grab something to drink.”

With that Brandon beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen, where most of the men were gathered in a half circle around the food, talking about sports and drinking their beers.

“Where’s the good stuff?” Brandon asked his dad quietly, hoping not to draw too much attention to himself. He could talk Ohio State football if he needed—he’d learned that a long time ago in self-defense—but he tried to avoid it whenever possible.

“Liquor is in the dining room on the buffet,” his dad told him.

Bless his parents’ insistence on an open bar. Brandon could always crash in the guest room if he needed to. It was one of the perks that went along with being able to hang his coat in the closet. Yep, Brandon was living the high life, all right.

There was only one other person at the bar, everyone else clearly having liquored up already. Brandon didn’t recognize him from the back, and wondered if it was one of the new guys on the block, none of whom Brandon really knew. They all looked alike to him: tallish, brown hair.

“Anything good here?” he asked, walking to the makeshift bar.

“Well, now there is.” The guy turned, and Brandon froze when he saw his face. It was yuppie Paul Bunyan. In his home. Getting a drink. Was yuppie Paul Bunyan married to one of the women in the family room?

“You really don’t recognize me, do you?” The guy laughed.

“Yeah, no. The other day at the store. Uh—” Shit. It occurred to Brandon too late that they must’ve met before that. Had he mistaken the guy’s,
hey, I know you
face for flirting?

“I’m the jerk-off you used to play with as a kid. Wow, only not as dirty as it sounds when I say it like that.”

“Oh God, AJ?” Brandon did a double take, trying to see the stocky bully he remembered in the beautiful, tall, and
dear lord
broad-shouldered man smiling at him. “Oh God, you heard that,” he said as an afterthought.

AJ shrugged. “In your defense, I was a little a-hole as a kid. I’m not taking it personally that you thought so.”

“Yeah, well. Wow.” Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. “You’re just… so grown-up.”

“Yeah, you too.” AJ smiled, and the dimple Brandon had guessed at appeared on the right side of his chin.

Brandon wanted to apologize now for not calling like his mother bugged him to do, but didn’t think there was a graceful way to say
I’m sorry I didn’t call now that I want to see you naked.
That was more of a personal regret than an apology anyway. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be necessary. Brandon knew interest when he saw it, and AJ was definitely interested.

“So—”

“There you boys are!” Gloria from the house on the corner came into the room with her empty glass. “We were just talking about you! I remember when you two were kids and used to have snowball fights out in the yard. You were such good friends.”