The Promise of Snow (2 page)

AJ waggled his eyebrows at Brandon over her head, and Brandon had to cough to cover his laughter. Gloria was nearly ninety and a very sweet and lovely woman. He didn’t want her to think he was laughing at her.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “We were just catching up. It’s been a few years.”

“Oh, it has. It has.” She patted his arm. “And you’ve both grown into such handsome young men. I’m so glad you both could make it tonight.” She patted AJ’s arm too and then moved past them to fix herself a drink.

Brandon watched AJ watch her, grinning at the way his eyebrows went up over the amount of gin she poured.

“Did you see that? That was not her first drink,” he whispered in disbelief once she’d left the room. “How is she still walking? She weighs like seventy pounds.”

“Their generation is hard-core,” Brandon said. “Never doubt it. That woman has had cocktail hour every night before dinner for… I’d say at least sixty-five years, give or take. She could drink both of us under the table in a heartbeat.”

“I guess so,” AJ said, still sounding doubtful. “I might offer to walk her home just in case, though.”

“That’s very neighborly.” Brandon said and watched as AJ shifted from concerned back to flirty with impressive speed.

“I think you’ll find I can be very neighborly.”

“Brandon?” his mom called.

“He’s in the dining room, Bev,” his dad answered helpfully.

“What are you doing?” his mom asked as she came into the room. “Oh, hi, AJ! How are you, dear? Can I get you anything?” She shot Brandon a smug look.

“No, ma’am. I’m good, thank you.” AJ held up his drink.

“Well, if you boys want to head into the living room, we’re going to do a fun activity we just added this year.”

“A fun activity, Mom? What nonsense is this?” Brandon asked as AJ left the room.

“You’ll see,” she said. “Don’t give me that look. You’ve had his number for over a month now. You had plenty of time to talk to him before this.”

“Your smugness is intolerable,” he told her. He started to follow her out into the living room, then turned back to make himself a reasonably stiff drink. It was shaping up to be one of those nights.

T
HE
GROUP
activity wasn’t so bad, though it was hilariously wholesome and sweet. Everyone shared what they hoped for the New Year and a favorite holiday memory, and Brandon’s inner Scrooge surrendered to the festive atmosphere. Early on, however, Brandon realized he could not look anywhere near where AJ was sitting, because the looks AJ was giving him were neither wholesome nor festive. Well, a different sort of festive, perhaps.

After their activity was finished, they sang a verse of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” then broke again for more food and drinks. Brandon made his way to the table to grab a plate, as he still hadn’t eaten anything since lunch, and the drink he’d fixed was perhaps a little too on the stiff side.

AJ was already in a corner of the kitchen, talking to a few of the younger people on the block.

“Well, my mom and uncle wanted Gran to move into a retirement community,” Brandon heard AJ say as he stepped up to the holiday spread. “But this is her home. She doesn’t want to leave yet, so I said I’d come down here and help out. Luckily, I work from home, so the location wasn’t really an issue.”

Brandon stopped, his back still to the group as he loaded his plate, wondering if that was true. The man he’d guessed AJ might be was a far cry from what he’d seen of him so far this evening. He realized he wanted to see more of him, both naked and clothed.

“So, how is work going?” Gary from next door asked as he dumped a spoonful of veggie dip onto his plate. “Your mother said you got a raise recently?”

“Yes, sir,” Brandon said, forced to turn his attention away from AJ. “It’s going very well, thank you.”

“Good, good. Keep up the good work.”

And so it went for another hour or so. Every time Brandon went to find AJ, he was stopped by some neighbor or another asking about his job, his house, Brandi, his love life, and the obstinate few who still asked if he’d found a nice girl yet. It was enough to make Brandon wonder if the whole neighborhood was plotting against him.

AJ was in much the same situation, politely nodding and chatting and acting like it wasn’t at all insulting at his age to be referred to as “such a nice boy.” Whenever he caught Brandon watching him, he would smile or wink, which only made Brandon all the more desperate to get him alone for a few minutes.

“Brandon, there you are!”

“I swear, if one more person says that to me tonight,” Brandon muttered, turning to face his mom. “Yes?”

“Could you run down to the basement and grab another bottle of tonic water? And maybe another bottle of Coke while you’re there.”

“Sure.” It at least gave him an excuse to escape the crowd for a minute. He excused himself and went into the basement to grab the requested items. He was halfway back up the stairs when AJ appeared in the doorway, holding a couple bottles of his own.

“Shh.” AJ handed first the whiskey, then the half-empty bottle of coke over, taking the tonic and full Coke from Brandon in turn. “The coast is clear for now. Who knows how long that will last?” He set both bottles down right outside the basement door, and when he turned back to Brandon, he was holding a couple of red cups. “Can you live without ice?”

“I think I can manage.” Brandon wanted to laugh as AJ shut the door behind him. Was this what they had been reduced to? Sneaking away like a couple of naughty children? Though Brandon would gladly take a few lumps of coal in his stocking for some alone time with his childhood foe. “We’re not quite as formal down here,” he said, motioning to the stacked bins with various seasonal things. He had no clue what was in most of them, really.

The rest of the basement consisted of some shelves and a table that made up his dad’s workshop, a freezer, and some cabinets with enough food storage to see them through the apocalypse.

“At least we won’t starve,” AJ said. “And hey, there’s a couch! I remember that couch!” He sounded sincerely pleased by that fact.

The couch in question was a hideous orange, green, and yellow floral monstrosity that his dad refused to get rid of on the basis that it was still “really comfortable,” and they could re-cover it someday. His mom had finally given up the argument and stashed it in the basement.

“Have a seat.” Brandon nodded toward the couch and held the bottles up. “Let’s get this party started.” He waited until AJ sat down, then took a seat next to him, not too close, but close enough that his interest was clear. He hoped.

AJ handed Brandon a cup, watched him as he poured the whiskey. “I remember when this couch was upstairs,” he said, accepting the bottle from him. “And we would sit up there and play Nintendo until your mom yelled at us to go outside for a while.”

“I remember your turns taking forever,” Brandon said. “I would sit there and watch you and wait for you to die, and you just never would.”

“And then you’d die immediately when it was your turn.” AJ laughed and held up his drink. “Cheers.”

“Cheers.” Brandon tapped his cup against AJ’s and took a sip, wishing they had been able to smuggle a little bit of ice down there with them. “I really did kind of….”

“Resent me?” AJ offered when Brandon didn’t finish the thought.

“I was going to say ‘hate your guts’ but, yeah, let’s go with resent.”

“Yeah.” AJ’s smile was adorably bashful. “It might surprise you to learn I didn’t have a ton of friends as a kid. Can I plead awkward and poorly socialized?”

“Well, you seem to have outgrown it, and I’m overcome with holiday cheer, so sure.” Brandon bumped against him with his shoulder. “Is what you said earlier true? About your mom wanting to move Maxine to a home?”

“Uh, yeah. She had a fall a few months ago and sprained her wrist.”

Brandon nodded. “I remember my mom telling me about that.”

“Luckily, it wasn’t any worse than that, but mom still had to come visit for a while until she healed a little, and, yeah.” He shrugged. “She doesn’t really need full-time care. She can still do almost everything for herself. She just needs someone around to help her with a few things.”

“So you volunteered?” Brandon asked, surprised. It wasn’t something most guys their age would take on.

“Well, Gran’s done a lot for me.” AJ looked down at his cup. “Do you know she was the first person I ever came out to?”

“Maxine?” Brandon asked, surprised.

AJ nodded. “It’s actually—it’s kind of a funny story.” He glanced at Brandon and then looked away again. “She told me when you came out. ‘You know your friend, Brandon, from across the street?’” he said in a high-pitched voice and laughed. “She said she thought it was really great that you could tell your folks, and that something like that must be a hard secret to keep, not feeling like you could be yourself with anyone.”

“So, subtle as a bulldozer.”

“Yeah, that’s Gran.”

“Did she tell you how I actually came out?”

“Just that you told your parents.” AJ cocked his head. “There’s more to the story?”

“Well.” Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. “Early days of home Internet and all that, and I was young and didn’t necessarily think things all the way through.”

“Oh God.” AJ laughed. “Browser history?”

“Betrayed by the Internet,” Brandon confirmed. “I have computer trust issues to this very day. Aside from the inherent awkwardness of the situation, they were really pretty cool about it, though, so I guess it worked out okay.”

“I’m glad it did. I mean, I sort of owe you one for that in a way.”

“Consider that one a freebie,” Brandon said, not wanting the moment to turn too serious. “Hey. Not to change the subject, but did you know who I was the other day, then?”

“I did, yeah.” AJ had the most adorable sheepish grin Brandon had ever seen. He wondered what would happen if he just leaned over and kissed him. “I was going to say something, but Brandi was there too, and when I realized you didn’t recognize me, I sort of chickened out.”

“You never met Brandi,” Brandon said, trying to remember if he had even mentioned her name. Of course, one of the neighbors might have. They all thought she was such a sweet girl. She had everyone fooled.

“Um, right.” AJ took a long sip from his cup before continuing. “So my moving here wasn’t as completely altruistic as it maybe sounded earlier. I mean, I did want to help Gran, but I was also a little curious.”

“About what?” Brandon thought he might know the answer to that, but it seemed too absurd to even contemplate.

“You,” AJ said softly. “After Granddad passed, Gran started coming to Cleveland for the holidays, but she always kept me up to date on the neighborhood gossip. She told me when you came out, and about Brandi, and your being valedictorian. Your scholarships, graduating and moving back home, and what a polite young man you’d grown up to be. Your parents are very proud of you, by the way.”

“Oh.” Brandon sat back and took a sip of his own drink. It was a lot of information to process.

“So, at the risk of sounding like a gigantic creepy weirdo, I’ve had a little bit of a crush on you since I was a kid, and I wanted to see for myself how you turned out.” He paused and asked, “Have I made you uncomfortable? I’ve made you uncomfortable, right?”

“I don’t know.” Brandon finished the rest of his drink in one long gulp, then set his cup on the floor, his head spinning a little as he sat back up. “How did I turn out?”

“All good as far as I can see.”

“Okay, yeah. We’re just gonna….” Brandon took AJ’s drink from him, set it aside, then pounced.

It wasn’t the smoothest seduction ever. The angle was awkward, and AJ laughed and had to adjust his position before Brandon could actually manage a kiss, but after that it was pretty freaking incredible. Brandon pressed him back into the corner cushion of the couch they used to play video games on and straddled his hips as they kissed. A little frantic at first, it settled into a slow, heady make-out session the likes of which Brandon hadn’t experienced in far too long.

He cupped AJ’s face with his hands and brushed his thumbs against his cheeks, his stubble scratching against the pads. AJ tasted like whiskey, and Brandon could feel him smiling between kisses. It made him a little giddy.

“I gotta tell you, this is going much better than I expected,” AJ said.

Brandon’s laugh turned into a groan when AJ slid one hand up under his sweater and the other down the back of his pants. “I like the way your mind works,” he said, kissing AJ’s neck as he reached down to unbutton his pants. He was so wrapped up in what they were doing he’d completely forgotten where they actually were.

The sound of the basement door opening was the most unpleasant reminder Brandon had ever experienced.

“Brandon? Are you still down there?”

“Yeah,” Brandon croaked, scrambling backward off of AJ’s lap. He cleared his throat and as casually as he could manage, asked, “What’s up?”

“Is AJ down there with you?” His mom knew full well AJ was down there with him. He could tell by her tone of voice.

Brandon hit him with the throw pillow when he started laughing. “Yeah, he’s here. We were just seeing if we could find where you stashed the old Nintendo.”

“Uh-huh.” She was having none of it. “The party is winding down. Your father walked Maxine home a little while ago. She said to tell AJ she was headed to bed.”

“Did she say when she wanted me home?” AJ asked, a guilty look crossing his face.

“She said you should stay and enjoy yourself, dear. She’s leaving the door unlocked for you.”

“Thanks, Mom,” Brandon called, grateful she had decided against actually coming down the stairs. “We’ll be up in a few minutes.”

“I should probably go anyway,” AJ said, making a sad attempt to straighten his clothes. “Taking this any further here and now would probably be ill-advised.”

“Yeah,” Brandon agreed. It was the right call. They were too old to be fooling around in his parents’ basement, though he knew if AJ had seemed at all amenable, he would’ve picked up where they left off in a heartbeat. “Probably.”