Unwrapping Hank (13 page)

I looked down at my farm-fresh eggs and bacon, mentally slapping myself in the face.
Snap out of it!
That talk with Lilith last night had done nothing for my self-control.

Hank went to the cupboard and dug out a box of Frosted Flakes and poured himself a bowl. Lilith gave the sugary bowl a hairy eyeball but didn’t say anything. It suddenly hit me that, at college, Hank ate Wheaties and turned down the treats that were always around the frat house. I’d seen Wheaties in the cupboard here, but no, Hank was eating Frosted Flakes.

That might also explain the secret hoard of kombucha at school, even though he turned up his nose whenever his mother offered it here.
Oh, Hank.

“What?” he asked, noticing me staring at him.

“Not a thing,” I said with a calm smile.

“So Christmas Eve… we’re found something really fun, I think,” Lilith said brightly. “There’s a gay-friendly tavern in Lancaster called Tally Ho. And they have a Christmas Eve drag show. Looks like a hoot.”

Hank’s bowl clattered to the counter, milk splashing everywhere. “You’re shitting me.”

“I found it online,” Micah said, calmly eating his eggs. “Beats the hell out of another year at the American Music Theater.”

I raised my brow at Micah. He mouthed
don’t ask
.

“Or, there’s a big band playing at the Lititz Senior Center,” said Lilith coolly.

“Oh, come on!” Hank exclaimed.

I did my best not to laugh and stayed out of it.

“Your father and I have never been to a drag show. And Micah checked the place out. I wouldn’t say it’s kid-friendly, but they definitely get all types there for their Christmas Eve show. It’s not just a gay venue.”

“Yeah, it’s straight-friendly,” Micah grinned.

Hank looked at me, his eyes narrowing. I shrugged.
Wasn’t my idea
.

“Plus, there’s booze and dancing,” Micah said. “Of course, you two aren’t legal, but us adults are going to party hard with those three dollar eggnogs.”

“I think Sloane would enjoy seeing some of the local gay scene, and it’d be a nice change up for us. Come on, bug bear.” Karma reached over and tugged on Hank’s ear.

“Okay, okay!” Hank winced over his tortured earlobe, but he really didn’t look that put out.

“Fun!” said Lilith, smiling at Kar over her cup of coffee.

The rest of that day, I kept expecting Stan to show up, or for Hank to take off, but that didn’t happen. We all helped with farm chores after breakfast. Grinch and I watched Hank and Micah milk cows. I had to avert my gaze lest the sight of Hank’s large, beefy hands and tattooed arms working those teats gave me the most inappropriate boner
ever
. Micah offered to show me how to milk, but I elected to sweep the feeding aisle instead and run away from my incipient perv-dom. Run!

After that, there was an impromptu game of touch football in the yard, in the snow, which was apparently another Springfield tradition. Even Karma played, though Hank went easy on the two of us. I managed to run fast, though, and scored a couple of points by passing the tree with the laundry line hooks. Whoo-hoo. The dogs had a blast.

Then we ate more pie, among other things.

Then, Hank dragged me into the living room where he had a boxed set of PBS Masterpiece Mystery’s Cadfael.

“You can’t jerk off in here, though,” Hank said loudly as he put in the first DVD.

“Shut up!” I laughed-slashed-screamed, picking up a throw pillow in preparation for smothering. But Hank just grinned and didn’t say it again.

He flopped down beside me on the couch, closer than I would have expected, and when Micah strolled in a minute later and sat down on the other side of me, also close, I felt a twinge of weirdness.

Not that I would mind being in a Springfield sandwich, as long as after we’d all climaxed, I never had to face anyone again, in my life,
ever
. But I figured I was putting a sexual spin on things that weren’t there, and made myself stop it and watch the show. I might have glanced down at Hank’s thick thighs now and then. I might have casually put a pillow in my lap after doing so.

We played cards that night, and being Micah’s partner in Euchre was brutal. Micah and Hank were fucking
bloodthirsty.
Karma was Hank’s partner, and he seemed as overwhelmed as I was. We eventually gave up and left the two brothers to duke it out over a game of War. I finally managed to get a few minutes alone with Lilith.

I’d been thinking a lot about what she’d told me, about her cancer and how it had affected Hank. I’d taken a class that covered some basics of disease pathology that past semester. I had an idea—possibly a lame idea. I was embarrassed to mention it. And it was unrealistic too, given that Christmas was only a few days away. But I told Lilith about it, and she liked it a lot. She said she thought she could get some stuff together.

I went to bed early, Micah and Hank still waging to the death with Kings and Queens. Grinch stood by my bed looking forlorn until I relented and lifted him up.

“All right, you can sleep on my bed, but only if you’ll be the little spoon,” I told him.

Grinch licked his chops, yawned, and lay down on his side with his back facing me as if he understood. Three gorgeous men in the house and I was sleeping with the dog. Merry Christmas.

*             *             *

Sloane

Christmas Eve morning I got up early and made crepes. I wanted to give Lilith a break from cooking, and I wanted to share something from my family tradition. The past few years my mom had made crepes for special occasions with a method she’d learned from one of our neighbors in Paris. At Christmas, we’d taken to buying a seasonal preserve offered for only a few weeks at the little artisanal food market down the street. It was a mixed berry and nut
confiture
with holiday spices. We’d load that into the freshly made crepes with a little soft cheese and top them with fresh whipped cream.

Even though I’d told Lilith I wanted to make breakfast for everyone, she got up with me and put on a pot of coffee. She sat in her robe at the counter, watching me and chatting. I had to improvise with the ingredients, but much less than I’d supposed. Lilith canned her own berry jam during the summers and a jar of that stuff—mixed blueberry and raspberry—looked wonderful. She had a decent spice rack for me to add a little holiday seasoning. They also had fresh eggs and raw cream for a whipped cream topping and a soft goat cheese for inside.

I didn’t think Hank appreciated the quality of food his parents were dedicated to. After eating on campus for four months, I certainly did.

“Neither of my boys ever took to the kitchen.” Lilith sipped her coffee and watched me with an attitude of happy comfort.

“It’s fun to cook when I can make something special. I’m not much for the tedious, every day routine, unfortunately.”

“You learn tricks to make it easier. You have to when you’ve got two growing boys and a farmer for a husband.”

I whisked my flour-egg-milk-butter batter and smiled at her. “You have a beautiful family.”

“Thank you. I’m very lucky. And Micah and Hank are of an age where it’ll be growing soon, I hope.”

I wondered if there was any hidden agenda in that line, but if there was, her placid expression hid it well.

“It would be nice to have some women around, I bet. You’ve been outgunned for so long.”

Lilith shrugged. “I probably wouldn’t have a lot in common with most girls. I don’t like to shop, I haven’t painted my nails in twenty years, and I’m a horror in a beauty salon.”

“It’s hard to imagine either Micah or Hank bringing home someone like that.” I thought about the girls I’d seen Micah with since I met him. His type was a lot more outdoorsy and earthy. One brunette had had dreads and didn’t shave. She was pretty enough to get away with it, and I’d been surprised that she and Micah hadn’t lasted past a few weeks. They seemed like a good match.

“True. Honestly, Kar and I just hope we genuinely like whoever our boys bring home. And, of course, babies would be good at some point. When we’re
much
older.”

I flipped my first crepe, and Lilith sat up, her eyes bright. “Oh, Sloane, that’s so…
French
. Show me again!”

Micah and Hank were both woken up by Lilith for the crepe-fest, which I felt a little guilty about. But one look at the crepes with their berry filling and whipped cream topping had them wide awake and shoving their way to the table.

“What’s this?” Micah asked, looking at his mom questioningly.

“Sloane made us crepes. Isn’t that sweet!”

“What are they, almond flour? Coconut meal?” Hank prodded one light crepe with his fork.

“
No.
Sloane is treating us to one of his family recipes, so your dad ran out and got some flour last night. It’s Christmas, so even he and I are allowing ourselves a little holiday from our diet.”

“Oh my God,” Hank groaned, taking a bite. “Sloane. Sloane!”

I laughed. Lilith glared at Hank. “Wait til we’re all seated please! You’d think we raised you in a barn.”

“We
were
raised in a barn,” Hank quipped, jerking his thumb over his shoulder at the barn visible from the kitchen window.

“You were raised
near
a barn. It’s not the same thing,” Kar said happily. “But may I second the ‘Sloane! Sloane!’ Thank you for making this. What a treat.”

I was embarrassed by their enthusiastic reception of my simple meal. “It’s fine. I wanted to give Lilith a bit of a break.”

Micah gave me a mock offended look. “I make a mean spaghetti sauce.”

“Bar-be-que in the summer,” said Karma.

“Corn flakes,” said Hank.

The crepes were such a hit, I got up to make a second batch. There were token protests, but no one tried very hard to talk me out of it.

I was carrying a plate with more crepes back to the dining room table when Hank passed me going the opposite direction, an empty pitcher of milk in his hands.

“Freeze!” cried Lilith.

I obeyed, wondering if I was about to step on something and send the food in my hands flying. Hank looked back at his mom. “What?”

Lilith pointed above our heads. We both looked up. Mistletoe.

“That wasn’t there last night!” Hank said suspiciously.

“Oh, you know how I am. I continue to decorate right up until the moment it’s time to take it all down,” Lilith said innocently.

Karma was cleaning some dregs of jam and cream off his plate with utter focus.

God this was awkward. I appreciated their… open-mindedness? Approval? But I didn’t need to be pushed at a guy who didn’t want me, and by the thunderous look on Hank’s face, he didn’t care for their meddling either.

“Seriously? This is your idea of subtle, Mom?”

Lilith rolled her eyes. “Oh, for heaven sake! It’s tradition! Just kiss him on the cheek if you’re shy.”

“I’ll do it,” said Micah.

Before I could react to that, or even get my head around it, Micah got up, hit the doorway in two strides, pushed Hank aside with his shoulder, and took my face in both hands. For a second, I was looking into Micah’s eyes, and then he tilted his head and kissed me on the lips.

I had no idea what to do. My hands were holding a plate of crepes, and I couldn’t seem to move. Micah’s mouth was soft and firm on mine, closed but not exactly without intent. I stood there, frozen in space and time, and all I could think about was that I wished Hank were kissing me. Did he really not want to? Was even a quick chaste kiss repulsive to him? Or did he just not like being—

There was a slam of a door, and Micah pulled away. I looked at the table, where Lilith and Kar were giving each other a foreboding look, then out the window to see Hank stalking angrily toward the barn.

“Well, that was a spectacular misfire,” Kar muttered.

“Crepes anyone?” I offered.

*             *             *

Hank

I heard the barn door open. I thought it might be Sloane, which gave me a zap in the pit of my stomach. But it wasn’t. It was Micah, and he was by himself.

“What the fuck are you doing, Micah?” I demanded, striding toward him down the feeding aisle.

“What are you upset about now?” Micah asked in his I’m-being-calm-and-you’re-being-a-child voice. He folded his arms and leaned back against the closed door.

“You just kissed Sloane!”

“So? He was standing under the mistletoe, and you obviously didn’t want to. I didn’t want to leave him hanging.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Bullshit. You’ve been hinting at this for days. And yesterday you were practically on his lap on the couch and playing footsies during cards.”

“I was not playing footsies! Oh my God!” Micah laughed, as if I was being ridiculous.

“If you weren’t, you wanted to be!” I shouted. “You say you know me, brother, well I know you too!”

Micah thunked his head back on the door and grabbed his beard and shook it, like he could pull it off. That was Micah’s ‘extremely exasperated’ move.

“Okay, fine, Hank. Yes, I have been thinking that
since you’re not interested in Sloane
, maybe I am. And s
ince you’re not interested in Sloane
, I can’t see how that’s any of your business.”

I blinked at him. My insides felt squashed like someone had run over them. Or maybe pushed them through one of those old-fashioned ink press rollers—blackened and flat. I’d definitely caught a whiff of this from Micah before, but I’d thought he was just yanking my chain.

Was
he yanking my chain?

“Where is this coming from? You’re not gay,” I pointed out.

Micah sighed. “I never said I was. Why are you so hung up on labels, Hank? I have a whole list of potentially interesting sexual acts I’d like to try before I’m too old to indulge. What’s college for if not to experiment? And Sloane is… he’s good-looking, and he has a great body. I’m not attracted to a lot of guys, but I look at him and think ‘Yeah. I could go there.’ And I like him as a person. So… why not?”