Twelve Days (2 page)

“What did you make? Where is it?”

David smiled and gave a theatrical sigh before holding his hand out for Jamie to help him up. “It’s in the kitchen.”

He was about to suggest they head there, but Jamie was already halfway across the store, dragging David behind him.

On the table was a large piece of brightly decorated cardboard. The border of green holly leaves and scarlet berries surrounded what looked like the shutters of an old-fashioned window. Jamie reached out to touch a holly leaf, then gave David a quizzical look.

“It’s twelve days until Christmas, remember,” David explained quietly and turned the card around to face them.

“This is day one, or maybe day twelve if we count backwards, of an advent calendar I’m making.”

Jamie carefully opened the window shutters and saw a delicate pencil rendering of a Christmas tree.

“You told me that you always put the tree up twelve days before Christmas, so I thought it would be a good place to start.” He shrugged and looked through the open door into Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

the store; even though he was comfortable with Jamie, David still struggled when the attention was focused on him. “I’ll try to have one done every day until Christmas for you to open when the kids come in.”

Jamie’s fingertip traced the looping pencil strokes depicting strings of fairy lights, pausing at the fine detail of each tiny point of light. He always had something to say about everything, but the simple gesture found Jamie lost for words. Turning to David, he reached out and fisted the cloth of David’s T-shirt, pulling him into a tight hug. David returned the embrace even though he didn’t understand what caused Jamie’s response. “What’s wrong, Jamie?” he said softly, worried he had somehow done the wrong thing.

“I was scared of Christmas this year,” Jamie replied.

David frowned; he’d never known Jamie to be scared of
anything
. His hand crept up to rest on Jamie’s back and he whispered, “Why were you scared?”

Jamie eased away and sighed. “Not scared exactly,” he tried to explain. “But this is my first Christmas on my own and I’m not sure how to do it.”

That was something David understood. “You’re not on your own, though, Jamie,” he said gently and held his friend a little tighter.

“Yeah,” Jamie said and straightened up with a small smile. “Yeah, I guess not.” He pulled out a chair and sat at the table, his finger touching each individual point of the star adorning the Christmas tree. “Maybe it’s more the thought of… I dunno?”

“The thought of what, Jamie?” David asked and sat beside him.

Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

Jamie gave a slightly embarrassed laugh and shook his head. “The thought of growing up, I think.” He rolled his eyes and laughed again. “I know I’m already ‘grown up’, but this is my first reminder that I’m kinda on my own. Dumb, I know.”

“Not dumb.”
Not dumb at all
. David knew all too well how it felt to face things on his own, or not face them for so long. “Growing up isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

Jamie looked at David and his smile broadened. “I knew you’d get it. You always understand my rambles.”

“Well, you never stop bloody talking,” John grumbled as he walked into the kitchen, empty mug in hand, but gave David a quick smile to show he was joking. “I was starting to wonder where you two had got to.”

“Checking out what Davey made for the store,” Jamie replied after taking a breath.

John leaned over them and looked at the picture, carefully closing and opening the cardboard shutters. “He was working on that last night. It turned out really well. So where’re you going to stick it?”

Jamie glanced through the door and into the store. “I thought on the wall near the tree. At kid height.”

“Kid height?” John mused and turned away to make a drink. “That’s if the tree ever gets finished, of course.”

“Always the boss,” Jamie groaned good-naturedly and stood up. “Come on, Davey, before Scrooge cuts our pay.”

Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

“THAT was a nice thing you did for Jamie today,” John muttered quietly and stretched his arm across the bed to invite David a little closer. “I think he’s doing it tough this year.”

David shuffled over and turned on his side to rest his hand on John’s chest, fingers moving slowly over the warm skin. “He talked about it a bit today,” David confided. “He misses Maggie.”

“Hell, I think
I
miss Maggie,” John said and grinned.

“But I do understand how it’ll be strange for him this year.

His whole world has changed, bit like mine, although I have you to help me with that.”

“Mutual,” David murmured.

“True though,” John said and slid his hand to the back of David’s neck. “Who would have thought the quiet man with his life stuffed into a backpack could turn my world upside down?”

David wanted to say that John had done so much more for him, but in their shared bed it seemed a little redundant.

Instead he let John’s hand guide them closer until their lips barely met. Their kisses usually started like that, soft, hardly touching, just a hint of warmth as if putting off the moment to savor it more fully. Each breathed against the other as they began to taste lips and tongues.

John’s fingers gently explored his lover’s body, nothing rushed, nothing urgent, not yet, just taking the time to caress where he knew David liked to be touched and finding new places between them. The bony angles were gone, replaced by smooth lines and trust. A sharply exhaled breath made John grin against David’s heated skin. “You like that?”

Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

he asked and stroked his fingers a little harder along David’s thigh.

“Mmm, I like that,” David moaned, lifting his leg over John’s hip.

“Does that mean you want more?” John teased, this time cupping the heavy balls and rolling them gently over his fingers. John grinned; their bedtime banter was very new, and though he understood he had to pick his moments carefully, it was a definite step forward.

David smiled and leaned back to look at John. “I want more,” he said, pushing just a little against John’s hand.

Their next kiss was deeper as the need for words ended.

John’s hand soon moved to glide over the hard flesh of David’s erection, and John groaned when he felt reciprocal fingers close over his own. Together they rocked, hands trying to maintain a rhythm as their kisses lost focus and became heated breaths and moans. A trickle of sweat ran between them; it could have come from either or both because in that brief moment before they came, nothing mattered.

Eleven days…

JOHN leaned against the counter and watched while Jamie bustled around with the afternoon intake of mothers and children. Each one needed to see the tree and cut a paper snowflake to hang from the strings criss-crossing the store and fluttering in the breeze of the air-conditioner. Christmas Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

in Australia always seemed slightly wrong to John.

Sweltering in the height of summer while spraying fake snow on your window never made much sense; yet there was the tree adorned with its traditional trappings and the growing collection of Christmas cards depicting roaring fireplaces and happy children waving from horse-drawn sleighs. “We’re all bloody mad,” he muttered, trying to scowl, but his smile got in the way.

“He loves all this stuff,” David said quietly at John’s side.

John hadn’t realized he’d been caught watching Jamie’s antics, and chuckled. “He loves anything that gets him out of real work.”

David knew John was putting on his grumpy boss persona, and actually adored the young man currently stretching a new piece of string across the window.

“Is today’s calendar page ready?” John asked, turning to David.

“Uh huh,” David mumbled and leaned over the counter to pull out the large piece of card, but wouldn’t let John open the shutters when he tried to reach for them. “I think Jamie would like to do it with the kids,” he said apologetically.

John smiled and stroked his hand down David’s arm.

“You’re right. We’ll enjoy that too. Why don’t you go and give it to him while he has all those rugrats in tow?”

With a quiet “sure,” David made his way through the children hanging their snowflakes and stood patiently until Jamie spotted the card. “Davey!” he exclaimed and grabbed his friend’s sleeve to drag him over.

Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

“Hey, guys,” Jamie announced happily to both the parents and kids. “David has our next window ready.”

Those who had seen David around the store turned to him with expectant smiles, while some of the smaller children watched the quiet man with wide eyes. David looked at the group of innocent faces and after a moment’s hesitation stuck the picture to the wall, then opened the shutters with a theatrical flourish.

Jamie laughed in surprise, but those children closest to the wall scrambled forward to get a better look at the day’s picture. David pointed to each of the characters and quietly told the eager children their names and a little about them.

A young woman encouraged her child forward to see the “pretty picture” and whispered to Jamie, “I didn’t know he could talk, but I often had a sneaky peek at what he was drawing.”

Jamie beamed at her and said, “He doesn’t talk often, but when he does, he’s worth listening to.”

When all the children had had a chance to examine the picture, Jamie called them over to grab a cushion and sit for a few moments while he read to them a little tale from the riverbank.

IT HAD been a long but good day. Jamie stood and looked at the vacuum cleaner. “You know, if we don’t clean up the paper clippings it would look like snow after a few days,” he suggested hopefully.

“Not a chance,” John said as he walked past the mess of tiny white paper triangles scattered below the hanging Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

snowflakes to lock the front door. “But it was definitely a good try, Jamie.”

David gave a quiet giggle and carried in one of the displays. Jamie got as far as plugging in the vacuum, but was quickly distracted and wandered over to join David. “I liked your picture today,” he said and pulled himself up to sit on the counter, where he could see across the store to the patch of wall that displayed a scene from
The Wind in the
Willows
. “Why did you choose that particular part, though?

Usually it’s all Mr. Toad in his car with goggles over his bug eyes and scarf flying behind him.”

David glanced up at the image of Badger’s den bathed in the warm, red glow of the fireplace. Badger was deep in conversation with Ratty, while Mole was curled up asleep in an armchair with his head lying comfortably on the armrest.

When he gave a shrug, Jamie leaned forward with his arms resting on his knees and mused, “Bit like us, I guess, and John would have to be grumpy old Badger.”

“Don’t tell him that,” David said, but he actually enjoyed the image of John in a quilted smoking jacket, glowering at them over tiny, round reading glasses.

Jamie grinned and pointed to the sleeping figure in the armchair. “So you would be Mole?”

“Yeah, I guess,” David said quietly, thinking back to when his mum used to read him tales of the riverbank before he fell asleep. “I remember Mole left his little hole to look for adventure, but he wasn’t all that brave.”

“And found a whole new family of friends,” Jamie added quickly. “I always wanted to be Mr. Toad off on wild Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

adventures without a care in the world, but it never quite happened that way.”

“Doesn’t mean it won’t happen,” David suggested.

“I’m not that brave,” Jamie admitted, giving voice to something he’d been thinking for a long time.

The admission surprised David, because it wasn’t something he’d even considered about Jamie. “What makes you think you’re not brave?”

With a sigh and a shrug, Jamie glanced around the bookstore that had been his home for most of his life. “This is all I know. Never really had a reason to look elsewhere, I guess.”

There was an undercurrent to the words that David felt rather than heard, and he moved enough to be in Jamie's line of vision again.

“One day you’ll find that reason,” he said with a hint of a smile.

Jamie could never resist smiling back. “Maybe I will, but not yet,” he said, and pulled a disgusted face. “At least not before I finish vacuuming the floor.”

Ten days…

“I’LL never get used to this heat,” John groaned as he stood in front of the air-conditioner with his shirt lifted to expose his belly to the chilled air. “How can you even consider Christmas in these temperatures?”

Twelve Days |
Isabelle Rowan

David leaned back on the couch and grinned. “I thought you’d be used to it by now.”

But John just turned and gave David a look that made him laugh.

“Oh, that’s right,” David quipped, still grinning. “You lived the rarefied life of an executive; air-conditioned office, air-conditioned car, and home to an air-conditioned apartment. Did you ever breathe real air?”